Claiming Amelia

by Jessica Blake

  She took a deep breath and looked inside the store. Her eyes swept over the entire place, from floor to ceiling, taking in every bit of damage before she looked back at me. “It was them, wasn’t it?”

  She didn’t need to say the name. Hell, out here in broad daylight, it probably wasn’t safe. There were ears everywhere.

  I nodded.

  Amelia swallowed hard and frowned. “Nobody can stop them?”

  It sure seemed like it.

  “We’ll stop it,” I said. “It’s just hard to do that without getting your hands a little dirty.”

  Her eyes came back to me. “And you’re not trying to do that, are you?”

  “No,” I said. “I’ve been doing my best to stay out of this.”

  But no longer. They’d dragged me in, and they were going to wish they’d left me alone when they had the chance.

  Before she could ask any more questions, I motioned for Brennan. “I think Amelia probably wants to get out of here,” I said, but she immediately shook her head.

  “No. I’m good. I want to stay. I want to see what they’re doing.”

  I wasn’t sure what she hoped to get out of it, but she was a grown woman who had every right to stand where she pleased. If anything, it was more that I was embarrassed that I hadn’t been able to protect Eugene and his family. But this was Amelia, and she deserved to see every part of me at this point.

  I nodded over her head at Brennan. “It’s fine,” I said and turned to go inside the laundromat, Amelia right behind me.

  “The police are here and are going to question Mr. Kim in his office if you want to go,” Brennan said.

  “Sounds good,” I replied as Amelia and I stepped over the broken glass and headed back inside toward the office against the far wall.

  The door was splintered and nearly caved in from what looked like a heavy boot trying to kick it in from the outside, but it remained mostly intact. Whoever had done it hadn’t gotten inside.

  Eugene was sitting on his desk, and two cops were in front of him.

  I wasn’t current with the local patrols, but I didn’t recognize either of them, and my stomach gave a small flip. I wasn’t much of a conspiracy theorist and tried to believe in the best of people but knowing the Duffys had an assistant prosecutor in their pockets made me wary of the local police now too. Especially the ones I didn’t recognize.

  Eugene was recounting his son’s description of the attackers. Three men. One older. Two younger. All wearing common, everyday clothing. Nothing special.

  “And you don’t have security cameras installed around here?” The cop that asked the question turned to give me a pointed look. I shook my head. It’d never occurred to me up to this point, but I got the feeling the officer was trying to shame me for it.

  “We’ve never had a problem,” Eugene said quickly. “Not in fifteen years. There was no reason for security cameras around here. We all look out for each other.”

  The questions, all perfunctory and by the book, lasted about another five minutes before the one who’d been writing closed his notepad and nodded at his partner.

  “This should be enough for the report for now,” he said to Eugene. “We’ll let you know if we find anything.”

  Eugene looked deflated at the police officer’s flat, robotic tone. It was probably something he said fifteen times a day — something he probably didn’t mean because he was likely flooded with work and paperwork and whatever other aggravations cops dealt with. All meaning that the people who needed to hear from them, who needed the cops to close the loop with any information, probably rarely heard from them.

  “Don’t worry about the repairs, Eugene,” I said as they left. His eyes kept sweeping over the destruction. “Our insurance adjuster will be here tomorrow and will get the process started. We’ll suspend the rent until we sort this out. It’ll be okay.”

  His nod was weak, but he managed a small smile for me.

  “Please send me a text and let me know about Tyson. Let me know he’s okay.”

  “I will,” Eugene said as Amelia and I took our leave. “Thank you, Mr. Casey.”

  Amelia and I walked slowly back to the car waiting for us, and she looked over her shoulder sadly before getting inside.

  ***

  Later that night, after dinner, we were trying to watch a few more episodes of her show. She was restless and couldn’t get comfortable. Lord only knew what was racing through her mind after the past couple of days. She and JJ had gotten into a little spat while we waited for our food to arrive and she’d been quiet ever since.

  She’d given her brother a tongue-lashing for the fact that he hadn’t been there to see their parents off. I wasn’t sure what JJ said in response, but Amelia had nearly gone nuclear on him.

  After hanging up, she simply laid her head on my shoulder and took a deep breath, trying to get into the show.

  Every few minutes, however, she shifted position. And when I snuck a glance over at her at one point, I saw that she wasn’t even looking at the television.

  “What’s on your mind?” I asked, lacing my fingers through hers.

  She gave a short, humorless laugh. “I think the better question is what’s not on my mind right now,” she replied. I waited a long moment for her to continue. “It’s just not fair, Declan. How they can treat people like that and get away with it.”

  Ah. The Duffys.

  “I agree,” I said. “Back in the day, my old man had a few run-ins with Kevin Duffy that led to a few major brawls that left a lot of people hurt and with permanent injuries. This is nothing new, really. The only thing that’s changed is that they aren’t coming after me personally anymore. They’re trying to ruin businesses and reputations through their thug tactics.”

  I wasn’t sure if they wanted me to react or not. Was there more escalation they had in mind or was this it?

  “They need a beating,” she said, and I laughed.

  “Not in that business, baby,” I said, pulling her closer to me. “And neither are you. I’m thinking to take the Duffy family down, we’re going to have to use weapons available to us that they don’t have.”

  She pursed her lips and looked at me.

  “Like what?”

  I gave a casual shrug but meant every word I said, having run through them in my mind a million times now.

  “As trite as it sounds, I think the law is the best way to take them down,” I said. “They don’t fear it right now, but they should. Their little sweetheart deals won’t last forever and are flimsy at best, usually. I think the more pressure we apply to those, the more we’ll shake the snakes from the bushes.”

  “And into jail?”

  I exhaled slowly. “Hopefully. We take the two heads off this snake, and the little lackeys will probably wither without them.”

  “Bryan and Jake?”

  “The very same.”

  She lifted a brow. “Do you know either of them?”

  I shook my head. “Not well. Bryan was younger than me, and Finn probably knows him from school. I knew Jake a little from the neighborhood, but he was older than me, and we were never friendly. They’ve been assholes from the get-go.”

  “Bryan was a creep when I was in school,” she said in a small voice. “I knew a girl on the field hockey team who got caught alone and drunk at a party with him when we were freshman. I don’t know all the details because she was incredibly quiet after that, but I’m pretty sure he attacked her, and his father covered it up. Scared her family into not pressing charges. All of my friends were terrified of him after that and left any party he or his cousins attended.”

  It wasn’t news to me. There were whispers of what kind of monster the younger brother was when it came to women and what kind of temper the older brother had when it came to drinking. Jake Duffy actually did a couple months in prison for a bar fight that left a guy blind after getting hit too hard with a bar stool. Overcrowding and so-called “good behavior” had gotten him home after just six short mon
ths, but my old man had wondered how much Kevin Duffy had contributed to the judge’s re-election fund to get that decision put through.

  “Don’t stress about it,” I said, my fingertips in her hair. Just like I knew she would, Amelia melted against me.

  “It’s hard not to,” she said. “I feel like we’re caught up in it now too. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t just go back to pretending it’s no big deal. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get that sweet kid’s face, all bloodied and bruised, out of my head for a long time. Who hits a kid like that? He was barely as tall as me, one hundred and twenty-five pounds at most.”

  I lifted her hand to my mouth, pressed my lips against the soft skin. “The same kind of people that hit a woman after threatening her three-to-one,” I said, the memory of Amelia’s bruised face making my free hand clench.

  “We’re going to fix this, right?”

  We. Part of me worried that I’d imagined the word, but her expectant look let me know I’d heard it right.

  “Yes, Amelia,” I said, squeezing her against me. “We’re going to fix this.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Amelia

  Tyson Kim was going to be okay.

  Declan had gotten the call the day before, and I knew he was, but it was still good to hear. That, and the insurance money would be helping the kid’s father make necessary repairs early next week.

  Things like that could be fixed. Material things could be repaired or replaced, but I was having a hell of a time wondering how long it was going to be before the Duffys really hurt somebody. Or worse.

  “Amelia?”

  I glanced up at one of the cooks, who was looking expectantly at me. Damn. I’d been lost in thought. Again.

  “I’m sorry, Carlo,” I said. “What did you say?”

  “Table twenty-two.” He held up a printed ticket. “Did the order go out already?”

  I looked down at the prep station and searched the countertop for the plate. It wasn’t there.

  “I must have sent it out already,” I said, wiping my hand across my forehead. “I’m sorry. I’m not all there today, it seems.”

  Carlo just gave me a small nod and went back to checking on all the tickets in the window. It was a particularly busy lunch rush, and the less I was able to keep my thoughts on the tasks at hand, the more screwups I was making.

  I just hoped that I really had sent out the grilled chicken salad and hadn’t forgotten it completely.

  As the afternoon went on, I was able to stay focused well enough to get through the shift, but it was clear that something was going on with me. I was angry. I was scared. I was tired of waiting around for the people who were trying to hurt my family and Declan to strike again.

  The lunch shift ended early for me that day, and I was more than happy to be on my way. I wasn’t focused, I was scattered, and I was scared. Not like me at all.

  I’d called my mother earlier that morning but it had gone straight to voicemail, so as I walked through The Capstone’s spacious lobby, I found a plush loveseat in a far corner and sat down to call my brother.

  Surprisingly, he answered. “Yeah?”

  I bit back on the urge to start a fight — I had promised myself that I wouldn’t start anything with JJ while Pop was recovering. That I’d keep my anger to myself until it could all be resolved as a family. Calmly. Rationally.

  But JJ just swaggered through life like we owed him something. Even after what I’d seen at the café that day. Even after rescuing him from a serious beating. Even after seeing our sick father off to receive cancer treatment.

  He still had the gall to act like I was bothering him when I contacted him.

  “When was the last time you talked to Mom?”

  He was out somewhere. I could hear talking and the sound of food service in the background. “No idea, Amelia.” He sounded annoyed. “What do you want? It’s not a good time for me.”

  “I wanted to know if you heard from her today,” I said, shutting my eyes. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you being such an ass to me?”

  I heard his impatient sigh, imagined him sitting there, looking to the sky in hopes of some divine patience or something. “You’re butting into things that don’t concern you,” he said, giving me the first bit of clarity in weeks. “You need to get out of here while you still can and let me handle Pop’s business.”

  I swallowed a lump forming in my throat. “What have you done, JJ?”

  He didn’t answer me. He simply ended the call, leaving me holding the phone against my ear, my thoughts spinning out of control.

  I didn’t get long to dwell on my thoughts as I sensed someone approaching and looked up to see Trevor Leonard himself. I stood quickly, not wanting him standing over me for some reason. Squaring my shoulders, I looked Trevor in his eyes and waited.

  “Hey, Amelia,” he said, a big smile on his face like nothing was amiss between us. Like the snake hadn’t peppered his last words to me with veiled threats.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Leonard?” It was taking everything I had to stay professional and to not give anything away in my expression.

  Trevor looked around the lobby, like the right answer to my question was hiding under some piece of furniture or might trickle down from the sky for him.

  “I was just… uh…” He was mumbling and fiddling with the watch on his wrist. “I was just hoping you might be free for dinner sometime this week.”

  Crossing my arms over my chest, I leveled my gaze at him.

  “More questions for me?” I wanted to add something snarky about asking the people who were paying him, but Declan had told me to keep the cards we had close to my chest, so I said nothing.

  “No,” he replied quickly. “Friendly dinner. It really was good to see you, and I was hoping we could catch up. No strings, no questions.”

  I laughed a little, I couldn’t help it, or the heavy dose of disbelief hanging in it.

  “Are you asking me on a date, Trevor?” The frown on my face should have given him a clue that I wasn’t impressed.

  Instead, he stupidly grinned, looking relieved that I’d figured out his true intent. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

  Drawing in a slow breath, I answered him. “No, thank you.”

  In my mind, I had drafted a biting, sarcastic remark. Something with colorful language, with a demand that he stick his head up his ass or something charming like that.

  But Declan, damn him, was a master strategist, and he wanted this guy to have no idea what we really knew.

  “You’re better to appear naive to this guy,” Brennan had told me yesterday, letting me know that the pressure from the Duffys was going to increase in the coming weeks and to not be surprised if Leonard showed back up. “Let him think you’re ignorant. That you have no idea what he’s really about.”

  But, damn, it was hard. He was smug and condescending, and really, I wanted to dunk his head in the nearest toilet.

  It took a moment for the rejection to hit the man, and when it did, his face changed in an instant. Gone was the grin, the goofy, fake friendliness. It had been replaced by anger. “What do you mean, no?” His voice was tight and low, practically hissed through clenched teeth.

  “I mean I don’t want to have dinner with you, Mr. Leonard.” Both my smile and voice were now fake and pleasant. “I’m involved with somebody, and I’m not interested. But thank you.”

  Making a move to go around him, I wasn’t expecting his hand to shoot out and grab my bicep. It wasn’t exactly forceful — it didn’t hurt — but it was unexpected, and it was intrusive.

  “You think you’re special now?”

  After a pointed glance down at the hand clamped around my arm, I snapped my face toward his. “I’ve always been special,” I said sweetly. “Now, let go of me.”

  I wasn’t trying to make a huge scene in Finn’s hotel, but it was about to get ugly. I also knew that Declan would arrive any minute to pick me up. It would be best if I was out front and waiting, an
d far away from Trevor Leonard.

  “You’re fucking Casey and now think you’re the queen of the world, is that it?” His fingers dug into my arm and made me wince enough to give him a bit of satisfaction. “You’re nothing but a whore—”

  And that was that.

  One second, he had a grip on my arm, and the next he was weightless and crashing into a stuffed chair. All of the noise in the lobby came to an abrupt halt as Leonard struggled to stand and Declan came to stand beside me, his arm around me.

  “Are you okay, Amelia?”

  I nodded, swallowing hard. “Fine. Really. We should go though. We don’t need any more fuel for the fire.”

  Declan walked over to Leonard and roughly brought him to his feet.

  “Whoa, there,” Declan said, his voice extra theatrical and loud. “You okay there, buddy? You almost took the lady out with that trip of yours. You should be more careful.”

  The look of confusion on the assistant prosecutor’s face was priceless, and the asshole didn’t need to look at the many security cameras around The Capstone to know that everything had been witnessed and recorded. Not only Declan’s massive shove but also Leonard’s arm grab and very likely the ugly words he’d said to me too.

  He wrenched himself free of Declan’s hands and stormed toward the entrance without another word.

  “Well played,” I said as Declan put his hand around mine and led me out to the car. As soon as we were in it, I recapped what had just happened.

  “Son of a bitch,” Declan cursed, looking out the window. “He has a lot of nerve, doesn’t he? And how did he know where you work and how to catch you after your shift?”

  I didn’t have an answer for him. I had no idea, either.

  I just knew that it seemed like some sort of escalation and it wasn’t going to be long before everything came to a head. And who would be left standing? What would we lose in the process? My father’s business and projects were mostly protected and in a state of stasis right now, but the Duffys were really good at finding weaknesses. Declan had money and lawyers to help him, but they knew how to shake his business at the very core — by making his tenants scared to stay with him.