Chapter 18
The meeting was in my dad’s office, not chapel.
I entertained thoughts of going in there to discuss this business, but dad wasn’t being that agreeable.
I was still a woman. Cassie sat at the desk with paperwork and her laptop going over contracts with Banshee, the club secretary and person responsible for all the funds and businesses the club were involved with.
And Warren was on the sofa, one ear on the conversation, one on his phone.
I didn’t know what he was doing and didn’t ask.
Dad seemed okay with the fact he wasn’t focused.
“It’s doable,” Banshee said. “In the short term, we can offer them more than what they’re paid at Reinhart Construction, whether they wanna walk is another thing. We can deal with the Union, reassure them it will not affect anything for them with their benefits and shit. I know a guy.”
“I’ll talk to the crew. I don’t think that will be a problem,” King said.
Banshee nodded. “Getting a company set up for ourselves to maintain their employment after this job might take a while, Reinhart signed on to the job for six months. He has nothing else on at the moment. He’s put everything into this job.”
“Ransom can find someone you can work with to take on these guys if you don’t want to have your own company,” Cassie added.
“I kinda like the idea of having a construction business,” King mused. He looked at Banshee, who raised his head.
“It’s good money,” Banshee agreed. “Get a decent crew in, good rep for the work they do, and they’ll be busy enough to bring in a good profit.
I can run the numbers with Cass, but we’ve got options.
It all depends on getting the workers to walk.
Paying them a higher rate for the rest of the six months will go a long way to convince them.
We have that, if it’s what you want to do, Prez. ”
They discussed more of the financial aspects and then Cassie went over what they needed to do to break the contract. She told us if the workers quit on him, he wouldn’t be able to complete the contract and it would be him who voided it, not us.
“What if he finds other guys to be on his crew?” I asked.
“He won’t,” King said. “He’s going to be persona non grata before the week is out.”
After more discussions, Banshee and Cassie left to work things out. Cassie wanted to draw up new contracts for the workers once they agreed to leave Reinhart.
“So,” King said, pouring himself more coffee from the pot Casper brought in earlier. He’d already offered one to Warren and me, but we both declined. My stomach was still delicate, and the bitter coffee wouldn’t sit right. “These pictures, how do we want to get them out there?”
“Not through the police,” War said, checking his phone one last time, before shoving it into his jeans pocket. “We don’t want an investigation starting via us.”
“We also need to be careful about the girl’s identities,” I added.
It was the one thing I was adamant about.
I knew well how horrific it was to go through this, but to have a picture of it out there, that would be like it happening all over again.
Between Warren, Hudson, and Kansas, they identified all six women in the photographs. They all went to school with us.
“I agree, but it’s not enough just putting these pictures out there.
If some of them speak up, then it’s more damning for him.
I also don’t want you dragged into any police investigation,” my dad looked at me.
“He’s going to figure out it’s us doing this to him, but I don’t want it coming back on us.
We have to be smart about how we play it. ”
“I know someone who could help,” Warren said.
“A journalist, she’s discrete and she’s good, highly thought of.
She’s not a reporter for a paper or news station, she’s freelance, but she has a lot of reach and big connections, she sometimes gets picked up nationally.
We can feed this to her, and she can do the leg work and write it up. ”
“She’ll be careful with the women?” I asked. I had no idea how my brother knew a journalist but if she could help, it didn’t matter.
He nodded. “Like I said, she’s discrete, both in terms of keeping the club out of it and being sensitive about what she’s writing. This is something she will want to be involved in.”
Warren left to call her, leaving me alone with King. The silence stretched out, King looking through the window, me staring at the floor. I was about to get up and leave when he spoke.
“If I had known,” he said.
“I know, everyone has said the same thing,” I told him, looking up to see him staring at me.
His face was hard and stoic as normal, but there was something in his eyes, guilt, sadness.
No father liked to hear this happened to his daughter.
“I’m okay. It could have been worse,” I added.
“At least I’m not in any of those pictures. ”
King nodded. He didn’t know what else to say, so I let him off the hook.
“Am I good to come down to the site with you while you speak to the workers? I’d like to see what you’re building down there?”
“I’ll have the foreperson come up here to see me,” he said, getting to his feet and coming around the desk, motioning with his hands for me to get up too, not wanting me to be there when he spoke to the construction crew. “But I can get someone to take you down, look around.”
He walked me out of the office. I was about to tell him I could go myself as Hudson came down the stairs in front of us.
His hair was wet, like he’d just got out of the shower, and he looked about as tired as I felt.
He was only wearing a short sleeve t-shirt under his cut, an old Lynyrd Skynyrd band T half tucked into his jeans.
His usual unlaced boots adorned his feet.
I was about to duck passed him, still not sure what to say to him when King stopped us.
“Hustle, Waverley wants to go see the construction, take her down there.”
“No, I don’t need-”
“What? I’m about to-”
We both spoke at the same time.
“Don’t care,” King gave us both a hard look. “Take her.” And then he walked away.
I rubbed my lips together as he crossed his arms over his chest. I was about to tell him he didn’t have to when he heaved out a heavy breath and let his arms drop.
“I’m hungry. I need food before we go down, have you eaten?”
My first instinct was to tell him no, and he didn’t have to take me, but he’d follow dad’s orders whether he wanted to.
He was also not being an asshole so I should do the same.
I followed him to the kitchen, a place I was more than acquainted with these days, but he indicated for me to sit while he went to the fridge and ducked his head inside.
I sat and tried not to watch him as he pulled out eggs and bacon and put them into a pan to fry.
My stomach dipped when he grabbed a dish towel and tossed it over his shoulder.
That should not be sexy, in the slightest. He added bread to the toaster and poured us each a coffee.
I thanked him when he passed me mine, black, he remembered the way I liked it.
We were the only ones in the kitchen given it was close to eleven and a weekday so everyone would be at work.
I dragged my eyes away from the domestic God display going on and thought about taking out my phone, then remembered I’d left it in my room.
Declan had been calling and texting all night and morning.
The girl I’d spoken to on the phone the night before had been happy to let me know she’d just fucked my boyfriend.
Not in a nasty way either, in an angry, sisterhood kind of way.
He hadn’t told her he was with someone, and she was super sorry about what happened.
Declan tried to get on the phone amidst all the yelling and apologies from her, but I’d asked her to tell him to go to hell and hung up.
But I couldn’t leave it like that and caved on his third call of the morning.
“Wave, I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice quiet, dejected.
“I’m not gonna fill your head with bullshit and say I don’t know why I did it, or that it was a mistake and meant nothing.
You don’t need to hear that shit from me.
I can’t make excuses. What I did last night was fucking deplorable and I don’t deserve any forgiveness, but I am sorry, and I don’t want us to lose what we have. ”
So he contradicted himself in the same breath. “I’m not sure we can, Declan. How can I trust you again? Not only that, but I’m also up here going through hell, and you do this to me?”
“I know,” he sniffed, and I could hear the remorse and sadness in his voice.
“I was drinking and got caught up with it all but…shit that is no excuse. I do care about you, Wave. Can we just please talk when you get home? I know what I’ve done is shitty and on me, but I can’t just leave it like this. I need to see you.”
I blew out a heavy sigh. “We can talk, but it will be only to call things off. We can’t come back from this Declan.
Can you imagine if I’d done this to you?
” I asked. I wasn’t getting mad about it and that in itself said a lot about how I was feeling.
I didn’t think of it as him doing me a favour because I was sad about it.
I did care about him, and it hurt knowing he’d done this to me, to our relationship, but I wasn’t distraught, and I didn’t know how to feel about that.
“If you will just give me some time to talk to you, that is all I can ask for. I hate myself, Wave. I’m not this guy and…I’m fucking angry with myself for being such an idiot.”