“Sorry about that, Vicky. Now...” He pried me from around his ribcage and crouched down to look me in the eye. “Tell me slowly. What happened?”
“He fired me,” I whined, almost at a pitch that was indiscernible from a wailing cat. “I have nothing.”
He cocked his head, slightly, as not to draw too much more attention to us. “Baby girl, what do you mean? You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. That’s a long time, if you do it right.”
“But it hurts,” I sobbed to a normal tone, though it still sounded rasped and pained my lungs with every utterance. It was like swallowing a handful of toothpicks. “I just want the pain to stop.”
“Hmm...” Milton groaned, like he was already bored with my “minor” problems. “Well, if that’s the case.” He spun away from me for what felt like forever. In reality, it was likely no more than a few seconds.
“Why didn’t you just ask?” Milton returned to me, holding an apron and a fresh smile. “I could use some help around here as you could see.” He handed me the apron as he poured the remainder of my drink down the bar-sink. “I’ll pay you as much as I can. Including tips, you should have enough to keep you afloat for a little while. What do you say?”
What else could I have said?
“Milty, I. I can’t.”
“You can,” he pressed.
“But I don’t know the first thing about mixing drinks.”
“Ha!” he cackled. “As long as you’ve been coming here, I’m sure that there won’t be much guesswork. You have any issues, you just come right to me. Good stuffs on the top shelf. Don’t use it. These bastards are drunk enough as it is. We close at two. Last call’s at 1:30.”
Just as quickly as he’d given me the job, Milton was off to his gaggle of customers and back to his regularly scheduled program, pouring drinks and chatting up the “nice-looking” people.
Against every piece of good will in my body, I put on the apron and got to work. All the while, wondering if I’d ever hear from Brenton again.
For his sake, I hoped that I wouldn’t.
16
Brenton
I woke up feeling like the devil himself had been force-feeding me fire.
I never drank that much—though, I’d toy with the lifestyle on occasion. It did a good job of keeping people at a distance. In reality, I was a teetotaler more often than a lush. I’d dabble in drunkenness in times of stress or celebration. On that day, I’d been going through a bit of both.
I’d still been racking my mind trying to make sense of everything that I’d done. There was no logic to it. I was operating on impulse and a conscious desire that I was still trying to understand.
I turned over in my bed—thinking that my shaky hand would wrap around Victoria, the woman that I’d then decided was the only one that I ever wanted. The only one that I needed. The only one who I could be myself with. When my fingers flew flat into the wrinkled sheets, I knew that she was gone.
“Victoria!”
I knew. Yet, I still called for her. The very touch of her name on my tongue was enough to give me goosebumps and cause my heart to race. “Victoria,” I called again. Again, I received no answer—just the deafening silence. My own words echoed through the empty room before ringing back to my ears.
Time stopped.
My thoughts froze.
A stinging pain ran through the length of my spine.
The physical manifestation of my angst, notwithstanding, I was filled with the immovable ambition that comes with love. The desire to fix all of Victoria problems and save her from herself.
I could have made the call at any time. It wasn’t until then, that I was sure that I’d had to. I wanted her to be there with me to see. After a moment, I thought it’d be better if she wasn’t.
I reached for my phone on the nightstand and scrolled to Ian’s name in my contact list. I wasn’t sure if he’d be awake at that time, but I held out hope that the universe would be on my side.
The phone rang several times before he finally answered.
“Hello?”
“Ian! It’s me.”
While I’d been gallivanting around the East coast (partly doing my job), the board members had tasked Ian with handling the merger at our West Coast base.
It took some time, but he’d finally gotten the plethora of bullshit documents whittled down to one simple exonerating sheet of facts. The very same facts that I knew would clear Victoria’s name.
“Hey, Romeo!” Ian joked. “I haven’t heard from you in a while. Started to think that you joined the Rockettes...”
“Funny...But, I need a favor.”
“A favor? At this time? Isn’t it like 1 a.m. over there?”
“Irrelevant,” I answered. “Are you by your computer?”
“No. But, I am by yours?”
“What! Why?”
“Feeding your fish numb-nuts. What’s up?”
“Go into my office and open my email account. There should be an updated file with MossCorp’s annual gross and transaction history.”
“What the hell do you want me to do with that? FinCEN’s already got enough to put Luthor away for the rest of his life.”
“It’s not for him, Ian.”
“The girl?”
“Victoria. Yes.”
“What the hell do you want to do that for? Wasn’t the plan to let her burn with Luthor?” The sarcasm in voice spoke true to the man I’d been before I left. In a few short days, my vengeful intent had given way to something else. Something bigger than revenge or petty parts of the past.
A week before then, I’d likely have paid every cent that I’d had to see to it that Victoria Mills would never have another happy day in her life. Even with all the information I had: her truth, her failings, her predicament, I couldn’t bring myself to go through with it.
The hate was gone and in its place, was nothing but the desire to see her again. To see her smile. To make her every day better than the last.
The “better” gift that I’d wanted to give her now, was immunity.
It would’ve been harder to clear her name if she’d still been suckling at MossCorp’s teet.
“I fired her.”
“Shit,” Ian said, muffled but distinct. “Why the hell would you do that? She’s been complicit in this whole thing.”
Plans change. People change. Love rarely has that luxury. It’s enough of one, in and of itself.
“Can you just give it a once-over before forwarding it to the Feds?”
“Alright,” Ian said.
I wasn’t sure that he’d supported my decision, however, he went along with my “gut feeling.” The river of relief shortly followed the sound of Ian plopping himself into the office chair and letting out the kind of yawn that’d have been easy to take offense to. “What exactly am I looking for?”
It was a good question. My answer may as well have been ‘everything’.
“Miscellaneous accounts. Unprecedented withdrawals and deposits. Singular transactions. Whatever you can find that looks out of place.”
“That’s going to take some doing, Brenton.”
“Help yourself to some coffee.”
“Right,” Ian dragged. “Look, I’ll help you but I have to ask...Is she worth it?” Ian paused to clear his throat. “If she goes down and they find out that you were an accessory or interfered with their investigation, we’re done! Everything that we built will be torn down in a tenth of the time that it took to make.”
“Your point?”
His ‘point’ was self-evident. I’d just wanted to see how far he would make me go to prove my resolve to him. Ian had that way about him. He only trusted what he could verify.
“Just checking,” Ian said. “Someone’s got to make sure that you haven’t lost your mind out there.” His concern was justified, albeit fruitless.
I’d already had everything that I needed to take out Luthor, legitimize MossCorp, and set Ian and myself up for an early retirement. In the
end, no matter what happened, all parties involved would receive their just ends without having to do so much as lift a finger.
“I have. But, it’s okay,” I answered.
“I hope so,” Ian said. “I’ll send the details over to you as soon as I have them.”
“Thanks, Ian.”
“What are you going to do?”
“...Find her,” I said. “Before anyone else does.”
When Victoria left me that night she was nothing, if not carefully aware of her surroundings. She hadn’t left a trace. Not a clue. Not a sign. Not even a note (and trust me, I looked).
For a second, I’d worried about how I’d find her. Ian had already been busy working on my grand gesture and MossCorp’s company records were sealed shut until the following morning. Finding her address was unlikely until then.
I was lost again to her and she to me.
Just the thought of letting her slip through my fingers again made me sick. The idea of her in a cell—cold and alone with nothing and no one in the world rattled in my mind like an endless nightmare.
That fate of loneliness and despair was the same one that I’d experienced in the hospital. It isn’t anything that I would wish on my greatest enemy. And, damn sure, not on her.
So, I did what anyone would do.
I called her.
Each time that call rang into her voicemail, I felt a little bit of me die. After my fifth attempt, it was obvious that she wouldn’t answer.
“Why,” I muttered to myself as I paced the hotel room like an inmate in his cell. “Why won’t you answer, damn it!”
Then it hit me.
“You’d rather just sit around a bunch of drunks at...” my solitary utterances had often deemed me “crazy.” As crazy as it was, it wasn’t without its benefits. “...Shaky’s,” I said to no one. “Of course, she’d be there.”
It was nearly two in the morning.
I had to hurry.
17
Victoria
When my phone rang for the half-dozenth time, I wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted to answer. Before he’d called, the only thing on my mind was him and how long it’d be before our paths would cross again—if ever.
In the few hours that I worked with Milton, I’d had the time to think. I thought about our past together—the way that I’d treated Brenton and the things that I’d done.
I thought about my relationship with Luthor. I thought about the princesses in the fairytales that my parents used to tell me before laying me down for bed.
Given that simple equation—a mix of action and reality—I came to the conclusion that I didn’t quite fit the bill. I wasn’t the dainty “damsel in distress.” I wasn’t the naïve woman or picture of innocence. I wasn’t even worthy of the consideration.
I hurt people. I helped Luthor hurt people. Regardless of whatever mental gymnastics that I’d toyed with, there was only one answer at the end of my inquired tunnel.
I wasn’t a princess. Not even close.
Brenton deserved better.
Despite me not being the princess, Brenton was everything my Prince Charming should’ve been. Whether he knew it or not, I saw him as perfect and knew that I could never live up to the women that he could have had. In addition to my shortcomings, I feared the day that I’d wind up in prison.
In my mind, I saw the whole thing ending in one, not-so-glorious, ball of flames. I’d be in jail for the foreseeable future while the news dragged my name through the mud. Luthor would be freed on some alien “technicality” and I’d be alone, in a cell, wondering where it all went wrong.
It wasn’t difficult for me to accept that fate, however, I refused to bring Brenton down with me. He was a good man, no matter how hard he tried not to be. A good man deserves a good woman.
Not me, I thought. Not me at all.
“Vicky!” Milton screamed as the fiery liquid rose over the cup—gulping it up like quicksand.
I’d been distracted. Lost in my thoughts and hopeless in my mental reprieve. Milton didn’t seem to care too much about my imaginary dalliances. As far as he was concerned, I was still on the clock and that was all that mattered.
“Girl, what the hell are you doing?” Milton continued—waddling his sore-footed body to the corner of the bar—where I was supposed to be fixing another round of drinks for the table of assholes.
“Nothing...Just...Thinking.” My staggered speech was both an effect of the Long Island Iced Tea (which had still been walloping me) and a budding depression.
After their little altercation, the gang of men saw fit to make good on their wealthy appearance. They’d gifted Milton somewhere close to two thousand dollars—cash that they’d collected amongst themselves. When they presented us with the money, they’d also given us strict instructions to “...keep the drinks coming until someone has to vomit.”
Needless to say, the aging frat-boys had iron stomachs. Their minds were less resilient. With every round of drinks, they’d become more like cavemen.
Milton had me treat them like kings—even at 1:30 in the morning—when the bar was just about to close. He was in no rush to keep them from spending money. Similarly, I was in no rush to go home.
There we were. Outcasts of the universe, drowning our sorrows in an old man’s bar.
“Thinking?” Milton shot. “What the hell you thinking about at this time of night?”
“He keeps calling me,” I answered and tilted my head toward my manically vibrating phone beside me. “I don’t want to answer.”
“Why the hell not?” Milton’s eyelids retracted back into his skull as he leered back at me. “That’s what the hell phones are for, ain’t they? I remember when they first—”
“Save the speeches, Milty. Please. I’m in no mood.”
“Hmm...” He chided and tossed me a towel. “God damn ungrateful if you ask me. You’re lucky I don’t make you clean out the roach traps for that.”
“Oh, come on!”
“Answer the phone,” Milton demanded. “Either you want to talk or you don’t. Regardless of how you feel—don't you think that it’s only fair that he knows too? Might ease your mind of the tension.”
“You don’t understand, Milton.”
“I understand enough. I understand that as long as I’ve known you, you’ve never been one to back down from a fight—win, lose, or otherwise.” Milton leaned his hip on the bar and continued. “We face our problems, baby girl. We don’t run from them.”
Milton sauntered his way over to my phone and picked it up from the bar. “We don’t avoid them.” He used his apron to dab it dry. “We confront them.”
With my phone jettisoned into my face—wielded by his shaky hand as it vibrated, I was overcome with a feeling of permission. Like I’d finally been allowed a grievance and reprieve. Like, maybe, there was a chance that I didn’t see.
“That a girl,” Milton said, as I took the phone from his hands and placed it to my ear. “You get that done in the back. I’ll bring this tray over to the assholes and finish cleaning up here.”
A smile.
“Go handle your business.”
I looked at the screen just to see Brenton’s name before calling him.
As I headed out the back door—into the alley where Milton would leave food for stray dogs and cats—I was filled with the very thing that I’d rebuked for most of my adulthood.
Hope.
Hope that something would finally go my way.
The alley was a nasty looking thing, like any other random alley that you’d find in the city. Shaky’s was an old establishment—older than most people alive at the time. That being so, it was made of a red-bricked foundation. The other buildings that had lined the block were similarly old and decrepit looking on the outside.
I stood in the space, right by Shaky’s back door. It was no wider than a desk table and bled out into the street like runoff from a river. New York was always a lively place, however, like most places at that time of night, everythin
g was quiet and—other than the rats—still. As the icicles dripped from the roof’s shingles and onto my head, I contemplated what I’d say to him.
My phone rang again.
Again, I didn’t answer.
“Hello, Brenton,” I practiced. “How are you...No. No. That sounds too desperate...” I whispered to myself.
“Hey, you!” I continued. “...No. Too obvious. Urgh.”
I leaned my back against the wall and slid it down to land on an egg-crate. Milton had always kept a few on hand to act as chairs whenever he’d wanted to sneak off to smoke his nightly joint.
“Come on, Vicky...Come on...” I pushed myself.
Just as I’d steadied my heart rate, my phone rang again. This time, it’d nearly jumped out of my hand and smacked me. “Okay,” I muttered. With a deep breath, I flipped over my phone and answered. No one ever called me at that time. I didn’t expect it to be anyone but him.
“Hey, Brenton...I.”
“Brenton!” The voice snarked. “Why the hell are you talking to that asshole?”
“Luthor?”
“The one and only, baby. I figured that I’d call to see how your day went. Don’t you miss when you and I used to have our long, late-night conversations about nothing? I miss that.”
“What do you want,” I shot.
“Vicky...Vicky, sweetheart. Don’t take that tone with me. Whether or not I work at MossCorp, the two of us still have some business together.”
I don’t know what it was that made me hit record.
But I did and hadn’t regretted it for an instant. That’s right, asshole, I thought. Tell me everything.
“I don’t work for you anymore, Luthor. Consider us done.”
His laughter was almost wretched enough to make me hang up. For every second of his call that was recorded, I’d had a bit more leverage. As much I hated it, I had to keep him on the phone. I had to keep him talking.
None of that made bearing his cackles any easier. “Done! We’re not done.”
“Oh, no?” Luthor mocked. “Then how about I tell my lawyers about your little hand in my big business? How long do you figure you can be tied up in litigation before your pockets run dry?”
Take Me Over: A Protector Enemies-to-Lovers Romance Page 11