2. Chapter Two #2
“You sat across from me on a Zoom call and you lied.” Her eyes bored holes through the older woman.
“You looked me and Jack and Kiki and the entire national leadership of the organization I love and you told them all you’d seen shit you hadn’t seen and talked to people you hadn’t talked to.
You believed a fake fucking account was Lakshmi and you didn’t even bother checking with the actual person, because ruining my life was more fun than doing your actual job! ”
“Sam, I—”
“Don’t. Don’t you fucking dare.”
Yukiko locked eyes with me from the stairs. I could tell my princess wanted me to carry Samantha back up to the second floor so they could hustle Jessamyn out of there—but now that Samantha had gotten started, she wouldn’t dare interrupt.
Not when this clearly was something she needed to say.
She’d brought up the podcast and the Zoom call. I knew what was coming next. Kiki and Marcie did, too, and they both looked like they were on the verge of tears over it.
Those names have never been spoken in this house.
It was true. Sam told me what had happened with her parents from the safety of our bed at my condo.
Kiki had always known, and she’d told Marcie about it while surrounded by me and her fellow wives in a hotel room in Copenhagen on our honeymoon.
This house was meant to be filled with love, not the ghosts of the past.
But Samantha was staring at one of them right here and now.
“I told you everything about my family,” Samantha said, the words tearing out of her like they physically hurt. “All the shit they did to me. To Chloe. And you went, and you… you…”
Tears streamed down Jessamyn’s cheeks.
“You let them put their hands on you,” she said, her voice filled with the horror of it. “You let them take you to bed. Knowing what you knew. Knowing. Because they’re charming, they’re rich, and you liked the attention—!”
Samantha’s free hand came up to her face.
A sob tore from her chest that instantly broke the hearts of everyone in the room, myself included.
It was worse than the tears when she told me about her parents for the first time, or when she’d sobbed in Yukiko’s arms on the drive home from the airport after our wedding videos hit TMZ.
This was deeper. Older. This was years of betrayal bubbling to the surface all at once, leaving Samantha as raw and vulnerable as an exposed nerve.
“You knew what they were!” she shouted, the hurt crackling in every syllable. “And you did it anyway! You chose them over me! You chose the people who fucking neglected and abused me over the girl who worshipped the ground you walked on! I loved you, Jessamyn! You were my fucking hero…!”
Samantha buried her face in my chest and sobbed like a dam bursting. Huge, shuddering sobs.
For a long, long minute, it was the only sound in the house.
Jessamyn stood frozen against the door, looking like she wanted to throw up.
Marcie had her hands clasped over her mouth to stifle her own sobs, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Halfway up the stairs, Yukiko’s face was the color of milk, one hand on her belly and the other gripping the banister so hard her knuckles went white.
Slowly, Samantha got a hold of herself. When she lifted her head from my chest, she looked absolutely wrecked.
“I’m okay, Daddy,” she said, sniffing. “I’m done. You can let me go.”
I loosened my arms about a quarter of an inch.
And Samantha lunged, screaming anew.
The bat had rolled out of her range, but she still had her nails, and she stretched them towards Jessamyn like she wanted to rip the woman’s face clean from her skull. Her lips peeled back over her teeth, a guttural growl spilling from somewhere primal deep inside of her.
Yeah, I thought as my grip tightened. Kinda figured that’s what was going to happen.
“That’s enough, babygirl,” I grunted, hauling her back off of her feet. “I’ve got you.”
Samantha relaxed a fraction. “Don’t let me go, Daddy,” she said. “Not while she’s here.”
“I wasn’t planning to, babygirl.”
“You’d better leave.” That was Yukiko, who’d descended the stairs and had just put a hand on Samantha’s shoulder. “I’m not sure I want Jack holding her back, to be honest. Not after everything you just heard come out of her mouth.”
Jessamyn nodded once. “Good idea,” she whispered. “You’ll, er, be in touch?”
Yukiko glared at her. “Leave. Now.”
Jessamyn turned, looking almost comically relieved to be escaping Samantha’s wrath.
Only for the door to open on its own before she had a chance to turn the knob.
And for someone to shove a gun in her face.
“Freeze!” A voice barked.
Jessamyn screamed, throwing her hands in the air. For a second, I felt certain she thought she was dead—that Victoria Ruocchio had sent those goons after all, to finish her and my entire family. Like her paranoid fantasies had come to life at last.
Then Tasha stepped over the threshold.
She’d clearly come over in a hurry. She wore a pair of sweatpants and a faded Stillwell PD t-shirt, and her braids were tangled like she’d just rolled out of bed. The gun she pointed at Jessamyn Fawkes was impeccably cared for, though.
She advanced into the living room, forcing Jessamyn to step away from the door. Her head moved on a swivel, checking the corners and the exits into other rooms. “It’s just her?” she asked. “Nobody else?”
“It’s just her,” I said. “Tasha, we’re fine!”
With a nod, Tasha lowered the gun. “Good. We’re clear.”
“Chingados, Tash!” Maria Alvarez stepped through the door, wrapped in a hoodie and a pair of skintight leggings. “Jesus, girl, you almost blew that lady’s head off!”
“That lady is Jessamyn Fawkes,” Samantha hissed.
Maria did a double take. “Shit. Now I wish you had blown her head off.”
“Everything else clear?” Tasha turned to me, still in cop mode. “No other contacts?”
I shook my head. “None. Tash, what the hell are you doing here?”
With a smile, Tasha pulled her phone out of her pocket. “I’m keyed into your house’s security system,” she explained. “I get the Ring notifications, and when I called you, you didn’t pick up. So I decided I’d better get my ass down to the Avery Residence in case something was wrong.”
Tasha had called?
“I insisted on coming, too,” Maria added. “Told Tash if there’s trouble I wouldn’t let her walk into it alone.”
Tasha and Maria were roommates—they’d shared an apartment since moving to Boston with the rest of the harem.
The two of them had a special bond among my girls—both were a few years older than the college students who’d become my wives, a little more mature in their priorities, and as a result they were on each other’s wavelength more than with, say, Heather and Eva.
The pair were so close that they’d insisted I propose to them jointly when the time came.
I pulled out my phone. I had four missed calls, all placed within the same two minutes—two minutes where I’d been in the middle of negotiating with Jessamyn Fawkes. Shit.
“We’re fine. I was busy. I’m sorry to make you two come down here.”
A faint smile played at Tasha’s mouth. “Make me? Jack, I’m your head of security. This is literally what I’m here for.”
Between the baseball bat assault and having a gun shoved in her face, Jessamyn Fawkes looked like she’d pissed herself. “C-can I go now?” she asked, her teeth chattering.
Tasha glanced at me, then Yukiko. “Is that alright?”
“Jack?” Maria had just noticed the Samantha situation. “Querido, why are you hugging Samantha like she’s at Disney World? You’re making me a little jealous, tiger…”
Jessamyn snapped part of the way out of her trance. “She tried to kill me!” she said, like part of her refused to believe it. “She came at me with a baseball bat!”
Maria’s gaze traveled to the bat. Her eyes widened a touch. “Well, she didn’t hit you. No harm, no foul.”
“Get her out of here,” Yukiko said. “Please.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
Tasha nodded. “You heard them. Beat it.”
Jessamyn took one final look around. Then she turned and fled, bolting out the door so fast it was a miracle she didn’t leave a cloud of smoke behind.
The room was quiet for a long moment. Tasha stalked the room, one hand on the grip of her pistol, checking to make sure there wasn’t some intruder we’d missed. The rest of us stared at each other.
Maria shook her head. “Jesus Christ, tiger,” she said. “What the hell happened?”
“A big misunderstanding,” I said, setting Samantha back on the ground. Now that Jessamyn was gone, I felt more comfortable stepping in and taking control of the situation. “Jessamyn had an offer to make me—we’ll talk about it in the morning.”
“We’re not accepting anything that bitch offers us,” Samantha snapped.
I met her eye. “If I take my hands off you, babygirl, are you going to run after her?”
Samantha held my gaze for a moment, defiant. Then she slumped against me in a way that let me know exactly how tired she really was.
“No, Daddy,” she said, shaking her head. She sounded like she was about to burst into tears all over again. “I’m really good this time. I’m just… God, that was fucking awful.”
I let her go. She didn’t run.
“Alright,” I said, looking around the room. “Crisis averted.” I paused. “For the record, I’m sorry I didn’t wake you all up. I was hoping I could get her out of here without there being an incident…”
Yukiko was already beside me. “You did the right thing,” she said, taking my hand. “Jessamyn showing up in the middle of the night… better that you handle that than bring Sam and Marcie into it.”
I couldn’t help but notice she hadn’t named herself in that statement.
“Better to leave you be, too, princess,” I told her. “I know how bad you need your rest for tomorrow. Speaking of which…”
As if on cue, Marcie yawned explosively. “I don’t know if I’m gonna feel safe now,” she ventured.