Chapter 17 #2
“Well, she told Knox about me sharing dinner with a mutual friend, who happens to be a guy, and there’s history there that only makes her doing that fucked up.
But also, we missed it at the time, but she definitely didn’t just follow me to where I was going, and instead came inside and watched me, even if for just enough time to see who I was with so she could report it to Knox. ”
Jayden nodded then began, “What I got to say isn’t going to be very helpful.”
I worried that was the case.
He carried on, “Preliminarily, log every instance you see her. Where. When. Dates. If you feel you’re in danger, do not go home, or to work, go to law enforcement.
Keep everything, voicemails, emails, whatever.
They may be needed as evidence for later, or to get a restraining order if you need one. And don’t engage with her.”
Uh-oh.
“Knox is talking to her right now,” I shared.
“Why?” he asked.
“To cop to some shit, apologize, in the hope she’ll understand what happened and move on.”
“I hate to say this, Luna,” he said, sounding exactly like he hated to say what he was about to say.
“But I’ve never known an individual who would put the effort into following someone around lose interest in doing that.
It is not healthy behavior to tail an ex, certainly not tailing his new girlfriend.
Even if the break was emotional and extreme.
But from what I know, Chambers wasn’t with this woman for very long, so this behavior is concerning. ”
I was afraid of that.
“Make all social media private. Turn off geotagging.” His gaze swept the girls and came back to me.
“Obviously, your crew knows about this, make sure all the men do too, your co-workers, bosses. None of them should be engaging with her either, and they can report anything they might see so you can log it.”
I nodded.
“This is one of those situations where LEOs can be informed of an issue, and our hands are tied in doing anything about it unless something tips, it gets worse or the harassment goes on for an extended period of time. But if you see her at your place of business, close to your apartment, somewhere you are it’s not a coincidence she’s there too, you call me.
If I’m close, I’ll go have a word with her.
If I’m not, I’ll get a bud in uniform to do it. ”
“That’d be super cool, Jayden,” I said.
“You see her again, even one more time, in one of those instances I just named, you do more than call me. You come in and report it. You might need it on record,” he warned.
“Gotcha.”
“Chambers has to have this chat, I get it,” he went on. “But after it, he backs off. She got broken up with. It was explained. She has no reason to have anything else to do with him.”
“I’ll tell him that.”
“And again, log all of this, what’s happened, and anything that might happen. To both of you.”
I nodded. “It was really nice you came out on a Sunday to give advice, Jayden.”
“We cops don’t like what you women are doing, but that doesn’t mean we don’t like you women, or the hearts you have that you’d do it.”
Aw.
How sweet.
“But stalking is some insidious shit,” he went on. “It gets in your head. It’s frustrating. It’s alarming. Just saying, Luna, you even feel anything hinky or think you see her, but aren’t sure, write it down or go right to a police department.”
“I promise. I will.”
Sensing his in-service was complete, Harlow asked, “You sure you don’t want a beer or something?”
He shook his head. “Got a date with a sports bar.”
I noticed Shanti bite her lip at this.
But Clarice narrowed her eyes on him.
“Later, ladies,” Jayden said, pushing away from the desk and starting out.
He got some laters, and a “Thanks again” from me.
The only one he directed any words to was Clarice.
“See you at the courthouse where you’ll be doing your best to put trash back out on the streets.”
Oh my.
“You got your place in due process, I got mine,” she returned.
“Only one protects and serves,” he shot back.
You could tell how good a lawyer she was when she had a ready comeback. “There’s all sorts of protecting and serving, and every citizen deserves their version.”
“Tell yourself that,” Jayden volleyed.
“I sleep fine at night,” Clarice fired off.
At that, Jayden aimed the single most panty-melting smile I’d ever witnessed at Clarice before he stated, “Yeah, but you do it alone.”
Oowee!
The women were all giving each other big eyes as Clarice stewed on that, surprisingly unable to come up with a retort, and Jayden sauntered out, all tall, loose-limbed hot guy who scored the last point.
We watched him go, then in unison, turned back to Clarice to see her shooting invisible laser beams out her eyes at the space where he disappeared.
Joey cut the tension by saying, “Uh…”
Clarice snapped out of it and looked among us. “After the news this morning, Arthur wants it made clear you women are done with the Chambers business. And he did that not even knowing about the feud.”
Confirmed.
They didn’t know about the feud.
“We already decided we’re out,” Raye told her. “And this blows, because if Jayden says we can’t engage with Cheyenne, that means we’re twiddling our thumbs with nothing to do.”
“Not exactly,” I said.
Everyone looked to me.
“Okay, so I have to run this by Knox because, although I’m discovering this can be inconvenient, we’ve promised complete honesty with each other,” I began.
“Whoa,” Jessie said before I could continue.
“Really?” Shanti asked.
“Well…yeah,” I replied, thinking that’s what boyfriends and girlfriends did.
Though, I’d had boyfriends, and it was safe to say complete honesty had never been on the table.
“Complete?” Joey inquired.
“I have not yet been on my period when I was with Knox, but even then I’m not going to keep it quiet.
” Not that he wouldn’t notice considering the health of both of our libidos.
Still. “If he’s the type of guy who gets weird about that and throws a fit that I ask him to buy tampons, we’ll have a problem that he has a problem with the natural course of a woman’s body.
Outside that, I’m not sure what I’d keep from him. ”
“The fact you, like the rest of us, except Shanti, just drank Jayden up like the tall, hot mug of dark chocolate cocoa he is?” Jessie suggested.
Yeah, I probably wouldn’t share with Knox the dudes I thought were hot, and I hoped he returned the favor.
“Angels business he might not need to know,” Raye stated. “And I’ll note with experience in this matter, it’s less he might not need to know and more he really doesn’t want to know.”
That was also true.
“Maybe you can just say what you have to run by him,” Willow suggested, and I knew she did it because she told everything to Gabe, and Harlow didn’t chime in on all of the things I should keep from Knox, because she told everything to Javi.
“Knox is going to talk to the guys about getting a message to his family that, as of the Thursday before last, he ceased to exist for them. But I think we should also go to Dimitri, who has a direct line to Knox’s sister, and ask him to underline that statement.
I’m sure the Nightingale men will make the message clear, but I suspect an underboss in the Russian mob will make it clearer. ”
“I could hang with Dimitri again,” Joey said instantly. “We didn’t get near enough time with that dude last time.”
“No matter how hot he is, he was just as scary, so after we left him, and we were all alive and breathing the last time we were there, I decided I didn’t ever want to go back,” Willow shared. “But now that I know he likes us and we’ll probably not get on his hit list, I’m changing my mind.”
I completely tracked this thought process.
“Since we have nothing better to do, it wouldn’t hurt to put some effort into firming up our relationship with an ally,” Raye remarked.
“Is it weird that really bad guys can also be kinda good guys?” Willow asked Gemma.
“Alexeyev is an animal,” Clarice said while rising from her chair (for your information, her bottom half was covered in crisp white jeans, and when she rounded the desk, I saw her fabulous mink-suede, high-heeled booties—seriously, if I wasn’t boho to the soul, I’d dress like her).
“Bears look cute, but they wouldn’t blink before slicing you open with their claws. ”
Scary metaphor.
But an important reminder.
“I have a trial starting tomorrow, so I’ve got prep to do. I’m gone,” Clarice declared, then sashayed to the door, but turned. “No going rogue. You don’t have me or Arthur at your back for that mess.”
“Cross our hearts,” Harlow chimed, actually crossing her heart. “We’re out.”
Clarice disappeared.
We all waited until we heard her car start up and drive away before we all turned to Shanti.
She lifted her hands in a Don’t Shoot! gesture. “Don’t ask me.”
“He shouldn’t be flirting with Clarice if he’s married,” Harlow pouted. “And that might have sounded like bickering, but every single one of us knew it was not.”
Indeed, every single one of us knew that.
“He ditched his wife.”
When Shanti said this, we all homed in on her again.
“What?” Willow asked.
“He and his wife have been separated for about six months. Not long after we hit him up about the Trev/Kev thing,” she said. “It’s irreconcilable. They’re just waiting it out for the divorce to be final.”
Interesting.
“That means Clarice really screwed the pooch by wasting a perfectly good sashay, not to mention those sexy booties, when Jayden couldn’t even see them,” Gemma stated truth.
“I kind of like this,” Shanti mused. “He’s always been super confident. He knows he’s gorgeous. Women always fall at his feet. Clarice will give him a run for his money.”
We all sat and ruminated on this.
While I was doing it, my phone in my bag buzzed.
I pulled it out and read the text from Knox.
Didn’t go well. With Cap heading to my place. See you soon.
“Well, shit,” I mumbled.
“Knox?” Raye asked.
I nodded. “He says it didn’t go well.”