9. Jacob
9
Jacob
A week had passed since the New York trip, I finally woke up and didn’t have a missed call from Rachele. I never listened to any of her voice messages, and I deleted her text messages before I read them. We were no longer married, and what she’d done in New York was uncalled for.
Over the past week, Lily and I had talked on the phone every night, but she wanted to spend time with Kat while she was in town. Kat planned to head back to Ft. Lauderdale in a couple days. Abe and her husband were still on a mission. Instead of Antonio’s team sending another man from Ft. Lauderdale, we talked about the person he had hired to tail Kat and the boys while we were in New York. I spoke with him, and he agreed to stay on for a few more weeks. Greg was still in the wind, and Kat had grown concerned after the gala when a photo of Lily and I was featured on TMZ with the headline “Who is the Mystery Woman Jacob Black is with Just Days after His Divorce?” Kat worried more about me than her own safety when it came to Greg. She thought he might come after me. Luckily, we were able to keep Rachele’s incident under wraps. Most of the attendees hadn’t seen it, and the others kept their mouths shut.
I looked up when I heard the clicking of heels on the marble floor. Lily had ran to talk to Kaylene—I hadn't expected her to be back so soon. But it wasn't Lily walking toward my office—it was Rachele. She looked rough, her normally perfect hair matted. She had on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I had never seen her in anything other than a dress and high heels.
Not wanting Lily to have to deal with my ex-wife again, I walked toward the reception area.
Rachele glared at me. "How could you do this to me?"
I crossed my arms over my chest. The sound of her voice started a dull ache in the back of my head. "What have I done to you, Rachele?"
She tapped her expensive shoe on the floor. "I can't get into my house."
"The Los Angeles house is not yours. I had your items removed. Your lawyer has the key to the storage unit."
Rachele let out a loud screech. "You did this because of her. Are you giving that street whore my house?"
Lily walked in at that moment, and her eyes widened. I shook my head so she wouldn't say anything. I needed to get the conversation under control. The last two encounters with Rachele were nothing like I'd seen in the ten years of our marriage. She scratched her arms through the long-sleeved shirt, and the action triggered a memory of my childhood. My mother always wore long sleeves to cover up her track marks. As a kid, I never understood her need to constantly scratch at her arms.
I stepped forward. "You will not speak badly of Lily. I don't know what happened to you, Rachele, but you're making a fool of yourself. You have two options. Either walk out of this building and never talk to me again, or I will have security escort you out."
She screamed then reached into her purse and pulled out a gun. "I need money."
Rachele hadn't seen Lily walk in, and Lily slowly stepped backward. When she got to the entrance of the hallway, she turned and ran. I hoped she could get someone back in time. Upon closer look, Rachele's eyes were bloodshot and sunken in. "How long have you been using?"
"I don't know what you’re talking about." She rubbed her one arm against her side, trying to relieve the itch.
"I can tell you’re high. You know I don't keep money on me. Any minute, security is going to walk through the door, and what then?"
Rachele looked over her shoulder at the door. "Why did you have to take everything from me? The foundation, my house, my money…"
I knew she had spent her inheritance. A few years before, she’d come to me for money, and I put her on an allowance for as long as she ran the foundation. I made a mental note to check the money we had in the foundation. She had access to everything up until we cut it off Monday morning. I never thought to check the accounts—she was supposed to have money. "The foundation is my brothers’ and mine. I gave you the house in Miami, and I never took your money."
"I already sold the house in Miami months ago. Your stupid allowance didn’t give me enough to live off. If that stupid woman hadn’t tried to steal you away, you would've been in my bed the other night. Now you've made me go to drastic measures to get the money you owe me. Wire me ten million dollars." Rachele pressed her thumb to the hammer on the gun and pulled back, and the echo reverberated through the room. Where the hell is Lily? As if she’d heard me, she and Seth from security rounded the corner. He whispered something into her ear. She looked as though she wanted to argue but stepped back behind the wall.
I let out an audible sigh. Rachele noticed my eyes dart over her shoulder. She turned, aimed her gun at Seth, and shot, but she stumbled backward, and I pulled the gun out of her hands. The shot went wide and hit the large TV over the waiting area. Seth wrestled Rachele to the ground and used his cuffs to lock her hands behind her back.
Lily ran to my side and wrapped her arms around my waist.
"You think you can steal my man away,” Rachele said tearfully from the floor. “I’ll be back, and he will be mine or pay me what he owes me. I gave him ten years of my life, and he can’t leave me with nothing."
Seth yanked Rachele off the floor and pushed her into the hallway. I knew my security guards would finish taking care of her.
Jared suddenly came running into the room, his shirt halfway unbuttoned and his hair a mess. "What happened?" Kaylene followed behind, patting her skirt down.
"Rachele wants more money,” I said. “Honestly, she looked strung out. I have no clue what’s wrong with her. She took a shot at Seth, but missed and took out the TV. Seth is taking care of it."
Lily tried to pull out of my grasp, but I brought her in tighter. Having a gun pointed at you reminds you how short life is. "I need you in my arms. You scared me when you walked into the room. I thought you would try to stop her from going crazy."
"How she was standing and acting sent up red flags. That was the reason I went and grabbed Seth."
Jared finished tucking his shirt in and ran his hands through his hair. "Let's have a drink."
"We can't, we’re at work," Lily said.
Jared looked at her for a second. "I won't tell the boss if you don't."
Kaylene rolled her eyes. Lily just stared at my older brother for a few beats. "Did you just make a joke?"
Jared shrugged and headed into my office. He knew where I kept the good stuff and poured a whiskey for all four of us. Sometimes a day called for it, especially when someone brandishes a gun.
"I went to ask you a question earlier, Kaylene, and couldn't find you," Lily said over the rim of her glass.
Kaylene's face turned bright red. "I had to run an errand." Kaylene grabbed Jared’s glass and downed his amber liquid in addition to her own. There was obviously something going on between Jared and Kaylene, but neither of them was going to talk about it. He took his glass from Kaylene and refilled it.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I grabbed it to find a text from Seth. The cops had come, and he wanted to know if I wanted to put a restraining order on her or press charges. My fingers hovered over the screen for a second. No, I wrote back. She needed help, not to be put in jail. Get her into rehab . No matter how much I didn't like Rachele, if it hadn’t been for her, my brothers and I wouldn't have been able to build NSS into what it had become, and I felt obligated to help her.
Growing up, I’d always wondered whether my mom would still be alive and maybe a better person if someone had helped her instead of giving her more drugs. One night, Jared and I had stayed up talking about her, and he’d said our mom was an evil human being. The only reason she had us was because she wanted more money from the government each month, he said. She always found a way to spend our monthly government checks on booze and drugs instead of food. Jared was the only reason Jax and I went to bed with food in our stomachs. Looking back, I could see that many times Jared wouldn't eat so Jax and I could.
Jared took the last swig of his drink. "Let me know what the cops say."
I shook my head. "I just told Seth to find her a rehab facility and that I’m not pressing charges."
Jared glanced at his watch. "If I didn't have a meeting with the director of the NSA, I would march downstairs and make sure she was arrested."
"If it wasn’t for her, we wouldn't have NSS," I said.
Jared's jaw twitched. "I’ll call you later," he said. “I really think you should press charges.” He turned to leave.
Kaylene wrapped her arms around me. "I'm glad you’re okay." I patted her back, then she turned and followed Jared down the hallway.
I filled my glass again and sat down on the white couch in my office. I seldom used the couch and seating area. If I had meetings, they were normally done in the conference room. I patted the seat next to me. "Come here, Lily."
Lily took a sip of her drink before she walked over. Her long blonde hair was up, and the black suit she wore accented her perfect body. Before she was able to sit next to me, I pulled her onto my lap. She let out a squeak on her way down. "I'm too heavy."
I swatted her leg. “No, you aren’t." I didn't think Lily had an ounce of fat on her body. She was almost too skinny.
She wrapped her arms around my neck and lay her head on my chest. "What happens if someone walks in?"
"Let them. I have nothing to hide, Lily."
She ran her fingers up and down my arm. "I was scared earlier, Jacob. What happens next time if she does shoot you? I agree with Jared. Maybe you should press charges."
"Rachele has never been like this before. She needs help, and Seth will make sure she gets it." I pressed my lips to her neck.
I shifted her on my lap. My cock was getting harder each time she moved. "Come to dinner with me tonight."
"Let me make sure Kat can watch Tommy first."
"Or he could come with?"
Lily bit her lip. "Not yet."
I nodded. I would give her as much time as she needed.
The phone in reception started to ring. Lily tried to get up, but I pulled her back down. "Let it go to voicemail." I wasn't ready to let her out of my arms yet. We stayed on the couch for another hour, talking about nothing and everything. When Lily finally pulled away because she needed to go to the bathroom, I wanted to follow her and make sure Rachele didn't appear from behind a corner, but Lily rested her hand on my arm and told me she would be okay.
The rest of the day went by quickly. Lily left right at five to go home and get ready for dinner—it turned out that Kat would watch Tommy. Since she wasn’t prepared to introduce me to her son just yet, I agreed I would meet her downstairs at seven.