Chapter Twenty-Three
Abigail
"Jacob," I started to say. He shook his head, silencing me.
"Taking you out of the building is dangerous," he said. "We have to pay attention. As much as I want to peel that suit off you and play, now's not the time."
I nodded, my cheeks flashing red. He was right, and I was an idiot. The second he got his hands on me, my brain leaked right out my ears.
The elevator arrived at the garage level, but the doors stayed shut. Jacob pulled his phone from his pocket and checked the screen. I glanced over but couldn't see anything.
A few seconds later, a green box popped up.
Jacob slid his phone in his pocket before I could read what it said, but it must've been what he was waiting for because he hit the button to open the doors and we entered the garage level to see a huge black SUV pulled up directly in front of us.
A man with sandy blonde hair and clear green eyes jumped out, nodded to us, and opened the rear passenger door.
Jacob nodded back, said, "Griffen," and helped me in. I slid across the smooth bench seat, glad I'd worn a full skirt. If the fit had been any tighter, he would have had to pick me up to get me in the tall SUV.
Minutes later, we were pulling into an underground parking garage. Griffen jumped out as soon as we were parked and opened Jacob's door, waiting for us to get out before taking the rear of our little procession.
As we got in the elevator, he said, "You look exactly like your mother."
I looked at him in surprise, then remembered Jacob said he had someone visiting my mother. This must be the guy.
I smiled at him and said, "Thank you. How is she?"
His eyes flicked away from mine and settled on Jacob for a second before returning to me. "Her condition hasn't changed much in the last few weeks," he said finally. His voice had a hint of an accent. Almost Southern, maybe Texas.
My head dropped, and I studied my feet.
I knew what he wanted me to read into that. She wasn't doing well.
Not a surprise, but I must have had the faint hope that he would grin and say she was a fantastic card player and he loved hanging out with her, or something equally absurd.
Anything but the truth—that she was in the final stages of Alzheimer's and was dying.
I was lost in thought as I followed Jacob from the elevator to Cooper's office, my hand tucked securely in Jacob's. I got the impression of spare modernity—lots of chrome and gray and black—the opposite of Jacob's offices.
Jacob dropped a quick knock on a door and opened it, leading us inside. Griffen followed and closed the door behind us.
I didn't know the Sinclairs very well. Socially, we'd intersected on occasion, but their business had never crossed over to either my family or the Jordans.
Sinclair Security had a reputation for getting the job done, and while I knew they worked with both the police and federal law enforcement, they were also known to take clients of a less legitimate variety.
However, they didn't work for criminals, which meant they'd never worked with Big John. For all of that, we'd been introduced more than a few times, and I recognized both Cooper and Evers Sinclair on sight.
Like the Winters men, the Sinclair brothers all looked alike. Evers and Cooper shared the same icy blue eyes, but Evers wore his dark hair military short, while Cooper's was longer and casually messy.
I extended my hand to Cooper. "Cooper, thank you for including me in the meeting."
His fingers tightened around mine as he smiled.
"Of course. We've been trying to spare you the details, but at this point, I think it makes more sense for you to chip in any ideas."
Evers took my hand in his and gave it an affectionate squeeze. "Abigail, how are you holding up? Do you need anything?"
"Abigail has everything she needs, Evers, but thanks," Jacob said.
He slid his arm around my shoulder and pulled me into his side, glaring at Evers. If I hadn't known better, I never would've guessed the two of them were lifelong friends. I looked between them, Jacob furious and Evers annoyed and also possibly amused.
I was deciding how to handle them when Griffen said, "Abigail, I have some pictures of your mother, if you'd like to see them. It's nothing exciting. There really haven't been any changes, but I thought you might want them anyway."
I did. I didn't care if there hadn't been any change to my mother's condition.
I was desperate to see her, even in a picture.
I stepped away from Jacob, pulling free of his arm and leaving him to deal with Evers on his own.
Griffen pointed me to a chair opposite Cooper's desk, and I sat, gratefully accepting the file folder of photographs.
There weren't many, all of them showing my mother asleep in her bed, the quilt my grandmother had sewn for her tucked securely around her thin frame.
She was too young to be so ill, and in a picture like this, she didn't look sick. She just looked like she was sleeping. Tears threatened, and I bit my lip hard to push them back.
I was not going to start crying in this office filled with testosterone. I would probably have an argument on my hands if I wanted to go see my mother, and the last thing I needed was for these guys to think I was too emotional to handle it.
I knew well enough that while none of them were overtly sexist, their base instinct when it came to females was to sleep with them or protect them. Crying in front of them would not help my case.
I blinked away the moisture in my eyes and re-settled the pictures in the file, closing it carefully and laying my hands on top. I wouldn't dwell on the photographs, and I wouldn't cry, but I couldn't bear to give them back. Not yet.
Jacob took the seat beside me, Griffen leaned against the wall beside the desk, and Evers took a position half-sitting on the corner of Cooper's desk.
Before the meeting could start, I said, "I'd like to see my mother. I know it's dangerous, but it's been three weeks, and I appreciate Griffen visiting her, but—"
"It's not the same," Cooper finished for me.
"No, it's not. I know it's dangerous—"
"Is there a way we can get her in and minimize the risk?" Jacob asked.
Cooper stared at us both for a long moment before answering.
"The short answer is yes. Now that he knows where she is, it's not as much of a risk if she gets tailed back to Winters House, but we shouldn't make a habit of exposing her."
Before I could get annoyed that Cooper was discussing me in the third person when I was sitting right in front of him, he looked at me and said, "Abigail, I suggested Jacob include you in this meeting because whatever we decide will affect you more than anyone else."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
What were they deciding?
Cooper sat back and crossed his arms over his chest.
"We're at a stalemate with Big John right now," he said. "His talks with the Raptors have stalled, but they're not dead. That keeps you in play. We don't know definitely, but our feeling is that the second you pop back up on the game board, everything will shift back into high gear."
"That keeps her trapped indefinitely," Jacob commented. Cooper nodded.
"It does. Which means either you ride it out and wait, hoping the situation resolves itself, or we make some moves to push this to a head. Either way, if you want to see your mother, soon is as good a time as any. If we decide to escalate things, we won't want you out on the street."
"What does that mean?" I asked "Escalate things?"
Cooper looked up at Evers, who explained.
"Big John heads his own organization, but he doesn't handle distribution or sales of product out of this region.
In that sense, he's a cog in a machine, albeit a dangerous and powerful cog.
Making a visible member of Atlanta society a key point in a distribution deal with a biker gang is not good business.
“You are not some homeless junkie or hooker. You're a Wainwright. Your grandmother was president of the fucking garden society for a decade. Big John's bosses may not know who your people are, but if someone tells them what he plans to do with you, they will not be happy."
My eyes widened as the implications of Evers's words sank in. I'd been subject to Big John's will for so many years that I'd forgotten where I belonged in the bigger picture.
Evers was right. Big John couldn't just make me disappear and hope no one would notice. In the short term, my prominence wouldn't help me.
If Big John got his hands on me, by the time law enforcement came rushing in to save the day, I would have already disappeared. But I could see how that kind of attention would be bad for the entire organization.
"Especially now that Jacob has claimed you," Griffen cut in. "These guys won't be happy to hear that Big John wants to kidnap the woman of a guy who golfs with the governor."
Jacob golfed with the governor? I looked at him, and he shook his head. "I try to avoid golf when I can, sweetheart. It's not my game."
"But you've golfed with the governor?" I asked, curious.
"We usually settle for lunch at the club," he said. That was enough to make their point.
"What happens if you escalate the situation? What does that mean, exactly?" I asked.
"It means," Cooper said, picking up a pen from his desk and flipping it over his fingers, "that I get a message to the people who pull Big John's strings and let them know he's showing signs of instability that will draw the wrong kinds of attention.
It may come to nothing, and it may make things worse. "
"But you think it will get him off my back," I said. Cooper leveled his eyes on me and said nothing for a long moment.