Chapter 30 Onyx
Cooper walked in and sat in front of me. “She’s fine,” he told me with no preamble.
“That’s good.” I kept my eyes on the screen as I read a contract.
“You are so full of shit,” he said as he leaned back and looked at me.
“So you’ve told me.” I rubbed my cheek where I had a faint bruise. A reminder of how much I’d failed her.
“She’s fine, Onyx. She’s going to be home either tomorrow or the next day.”
“Good.” I continued to look at my screen.
“Fuck this, you’re a fucking coward.” He stood up abruptly. “I’m going home. Go see her.”
“I’m sure she’s fine with your company,” I told him smoothly.
“She wants to see you.”
“And has she asked for me?” I asked him quietly.
“No.” He groaned. “Because she is Angel, and you are both stubborn, impossible assholes.”
He left the office, and I glanced at the door as he walked out in a huff. “Touchy,” I murmured to myself as I read the police reports again.
I had caused quite the stir for the police as they tried to determine who they were actually arresting at the side of the road.
Burt Christie, who lay half-dead at my feet?
Me, who looked like I had possibly half-killed Burt Christie?
Or Cooper, who had Angel in his arms, or all of us as we assembled in front of a burning car?
But Angel was the only one who mattered.
Charlie and Owen had worked the story out of Will, and he’d confessed all to the first officer who saw him when he got dropped off outside a station, in cuffs and a gag.
There were anonymous tips, and then there were anonymous gifts, especially when they came with taped confessions and told the same story when they were questioned.
As Cooper and I were both where Burt was, we were immediately cleared of any wrongdoing against Will. It was a little harder to plead innocence when my ring had cut Burt’s face open, but I wasn’t trying to plead innocence. If Cooper had let me go, I would have happily killed him.
She was beaten and unconscious when we got to her. Face down in the dirt, her clothes ripped, her body battered, and vomit all over her. I don’t know how I stopped hitting him when Cooper yelled the cops were coming.
Coop snuck into her room the first night to make sure she was okay and then to find out what she planned to tell the cops. He was a PI, and it was perfectly legal for her to have employed his services.
Slowly, he worked her through it. She told him she wanted to be honest, and he had encouraged her to do so, with limitations.
Our use of the city’s CCTV, she didn’t mention, or the other means of tracking that we used.
The police had a record of her reporting the incident, and, of course, my own chat with the police.
The detectives had looked at me, and I had looked back. I could play poker all day, and I was not in the least bit remorseful that I had almost killed him.
My dad had been more vocal in his admonishments, and I had listened and nodded in all the right places until he gave up and sent my uncle to me. My uncle had strolled into my office, been told the details, told me he would have done the same thing, and then went for lunch with Neil.
I think the term my mom used was enabler.
I had spent days airing all the shit there was to be had on Will Hershman.
He was who I wanted in my hands. It was his fault she was taken, and the fact that he was in a twenty-four-hour psych ward pissed me off, because he’d been in there for five days.
The fucker knew how to play the system, and patience wasn’t a game I played well.
I hadn’t been to see her.
It was pissing Cooper off. It was pissing them all off, but I had to make sure she was safe. That there were no more worms waiting to crawl out of the woodwork and fuck her over.
But I should go see her.
What if she didn’t want me there? She hadn’t asked for me, and she hadn’t contacted me. My cell ringing was a welcome distraction, and I smiled when I saw Jer’s name.
“Hi,” I greeted him.
“Have you been yet?” Chrissy demanded.
I checked my phone. “Why are you using Jer’s phone?”
“Because Coop told me you were a chicken shit bastard, and I knew you wouldn’t answer me.”
Fucking Coop. “Didn’t you just have spawn you should be looking after?”
“You will not call your godson spawn. I will kick your ass,” she growled at me. “Why haven’t you been to see her?”
“I’ve been busy feeding the police the information they need for prosecution. Wouldn’t you rather she was safe?”
“Yes, of course I would, but she’s in a hospital ward. Do this shit from her bedside.”
Which was a very valid point. “Her parents are coming,” I told her.
“You’re hiding behind Angel’s parents?” Chrissy said incredulously. “You are so full of shit, Onyx Santo. Get to that hospital, or I swear to God, if you don’t, I’m sending you selfie shots of my broken vagina, and I just pushed an eleven-pound basketball out of it.”
She hung up as I stared at the phone in horror, and then, knowing that she really would, I grinned.
Jer: I can’t say no, man. She’s the mother of my kids
Me: Weak
Jer: Says you! Get to the fucking hospital, see your girl
Rolling my head on my shoulders, I made the decision and stood. I had to see her at some time; may as well be now.
Cooper had told me her ward, and I knew visiting was over. I also knew I had never cared for rules. It’s alarming how easy it is to walk into a hospital ward.
Outside her room, I looked in and saw her wiping her eyes. She was crying, and I hesitated. Did I have the right to walk in there? Angel looked up and saw me and froze.
Well, too late to run. Pushing the door open, I entered and immediately sneezed. She had an entire florist’s shop in her room. “That’s a lot of flowers,” I said as I eyed the lilies with distaste.
“You’re allergic to flowers?” she asked curiously.
“Yes,” I said as I took a seat. “Among other things.”
“Like?” she waited. “People? The whole range of human emotion?”
I smirked at her temper. “You’re feeling better, I see.”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“Cooper said you were better,” I told her.
“And Coop would know because he’s been here every day,” she snapped.
“That’s nice that you’ve bonded.”
“I can hardly run away,” Angel grumbled. “Unlike some.”
She glared at me, and I stared back. She looked away first.
“Am I fired?”
The question took me by surprise. “Why?”
“I don’t know. It’s you — you do things other people wouldn’t.”
“You were attacked and hurt. Even I wouldn’t terminate your employment for that.” I thought about it. “Not while it’s still high-profile anyway.”
“Where have you been?” Angel asked me as she looked at a gigantic teddy bear.
“Working, making sure I uncover everything there is to uncover about Will Hershman.” I looked at her. “Who’s the bear from?”
“Clark Fitzpatrick.” She rolled her eyes. “I feel bad.”
“It’s a,” I thought about it, “a grand gesture.”
“It’s scary. Do you know how many times I’ve woken up and it’s been staring at me?” She glared at the offending bear. “I mean, I had a stalker, and now I have oversized bears leering over me.”
“I’ll ask the nurse to give it to the children’s ward.”
“Oh.” She smiled but quickly hid it. “That would be a nice idea.” We sat in silence until Angel got impatient. “How many of my clients have you taken?”
“None. Although Tyquan Mays has had his transfer approved to Boston.”
“Really?” Angel asked as she sat up with excitement and flinched a little. “You didn’t do anything to it?”
“It was a great contract. I merely ensured they dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s.”
“And he’s still mine?”
“I think the days of us screwing each over in the boardroom are over, don’t you?”
Angel glanced at me and then shrugged. “If you say so.”
“I do.”
She gave me a covert look. “Pussy,” she muttered.
I laughed out loud, and I saw her gleeful smile before she turned her head away. “I can easily keep it up if you want, Balan,” I told her as she turned her attention to me.
“I don’t want it to be different because I was given a concussion by an asshole,” she said to me.
“A concussion, a punctured lung, and some significant facial bruising,” I said soberly.
“And my hair,” she said as she self-consciously touched her head. “Can’t believe he ripped so much of it out.”
“It will grow,” I told her gently.
“You hit him,” she said as she stroked her hands over her covers. “Badly, I think.”
“He beat you badly,” I countered.
“It doesn’t make it right.”
“It isn’t wrong,” I told her. “Not in my eyes.” I watched her. “This is a problem for you?”
“The police officer told me that he’s in this hospital.”
“He is,” I confirmed. “He’s handcuffed to the bed. He can’t get out.” I frowned. “Are you worried about him being here?”
“No, Onyx, I’m worried that you beat a man half to death and put him in the hospital.”
“He put you in the hospital; he beat you half to death. He’s lucky I let him breathe.”
Angel shook her head. “It’s not your right,” she said firmly. “You may be a Devil, but the law is in place for a reason. You want to feel like a vigilante, read a comic book.”
I stood. “I’m glad you’re okay,” I told her smoothly. “I should go. It’s past visiting hours, and I’m breaking the rules,” I said tersely. “And I should go before someone finds my cape.”
“Onyx!”
I didn’t listen to her, and I didn’t turn back. I knew she would judge me just as I knew she wouldn’t be happy with my form of justice. Cooper, Jer, hell, even Charlie all thought I felt guilty over the fact that she had been taken. I wasn’t responsible for Angel being taken.
She ran out of the house on a wild-goose chase.
She ran toward the danger.
She never called for help until it was too late.
I was not responsible for her actions, and she wasn’t responsible for mine.
Getting into my car, I stared at the hospital entrance. How easy it would be to walk back in there and visit Burt Christie’s bedside and finish what I started.
The police wouldn’t have told her that they suspected that I beat him. We’d said he crashed the car and we found her in the trunk, him unconscious at the wheel. The car was burning, and we pulled them both from the wreckage.
The police had been adamant that his injuries were from more than a car, and I told them I had punched him twice when I saw the state of Angel. The car was burning when they arrived, so there was no way to dispute our claim. And Burt Christie wasn’t talking.
Neither officer believed me, and I suspected, like me, they didn’t care. He was a scumbag, and it was unfortunate that he survived.
Was that harsh? No.
To someone as gentle as Angel? Most likely.
That’s why I’d been avoiding her. I didn’t want to see the condemnation of me in her eyes.
Driving home, I thought about her. The others thought we should be together, thought this meant we would be together, but we weren’t a .
. . what was it she called it? A good fit.
We didn’t fit.
I was who I was, and she was everything I was not and never would be. Never wanted to be.
It would be good to have her in the boardroom again. She did make work more interesting, more of a challenge. For now, she could heal. She needed to heal, forget. Move on.
Getting out of the car, I studied the driveway. The red paint was gone. Charlie had known who to call, and they had removed it within a few days.
At the door, I stopped.
Will Hershman was a lawyer. Not even a very good one. He had no other skills except manipulation of young men, and that, I was confident, was not a skill.
Her home had been broken into. The cameras at the office and in the parking lot had been disabled. Cooper’s discreet camera was tampered with. My security system was tampered with. Not well, but to open a window, even slightly, that took knowledge.
Someone had taken her house key.
Someone had put a rat in her drawer.
Will Hershman was not that smart.
Turning on my front step, I looked out over my grounds.
There was someone else involved, and I had been so determined and focused on Burt and Will, I’d been blind to it.
I also hadn’t checked my office surveillance; I had dropped the ball.
I was so focused on Will and Burt, I hadn’t covered every avenue, looked into every possibility.
A conversation I’d only been half-listening to in the boardroom two days ago dripped slowly into my brain, filtering its way into my recollection, and my hands curled into fists at my side.
“Has there been any word on Angel?”
Glancing up, I saw them both looking at Neil for confirmation.
“She’s doing well. She will be home soon.”
I went back to my tablet, my attention on the screen in front of me, as I scrolled through email after email of Will and Judd’s relationship.
“How long will she be down for?”
“A few weeks,” I heard Neil say. “But you know Angel, girl’s a fighter.”
Yes, she was, when the odds were even.
“I can look after her contracts if you want?”
I looked up again and met his stare. “I have it covered, Johnathan.”
Heading back to the car, I called Charlie. “Where is Johnathan Hines?”
“I don’t care, do I?”
“Find him. Be subtle. I want his ass in front of me in my office tonight.”
Charlie sighed. “Okay. Do I need to know why?”
“He’s the missing piece.”
Getting back in my car, I headed back to the office, and I called Cooper and filled him in.
“Son of a bitch,” he snarled. “It’s so fucking obvious.”
And it really, really was. I’d thought they were smart, that’s why I almost failed her. Because I thought they were cleverer than me. I had doubted my own instincts.
They weren’t clever, they were greedy fucking assholes who’d nearly bested me because I gave them too much fucking credit and, in doing so, I let her down.