Chapter Eight #2
Mona nodded. “My sources in Ramsey Engineering tell me something’s happened recently. Victoria is pissed about it, whatever it is, and her inner circle considers it a major setback.” She took a sip of her coffee. “This is a business setback we’re talking about. Not Morning Harbor, not the podcast.”
Alright. “Jessamyn knows what it is?”
“And how we can capitalize on it.”
“Then why are you here and not wherever she is?”
Mona chuckled. “You’re getting better at the skullduggery, Jack. She won’t tell me what over text. She’s spooked, Jack—more spooked than usual. She thinks Victoria Ruocchio has a fishing boat with her name on it.”
The Mafia stuff again, I thought. “So what? She needs me to come to her?”
Mona was already shaking her head. “She wants to get everyone on a call tomorrow. The whole brain trust. You, me, Yukiko—Saskia, if we can swing it.”
“A call.” My voice was completely flat.
“A video call, yes.” The corner of Mona’s mouth twitched. “Believe me, I’m aware of the irony…”
She trailed off as I started to laugh. It was not nice laughter.
“Jessamyn Fawkes,” I said, shaking my head. “Wants to get on a fucking Zoom call with me and my women.”
If anything, Mona was underplaying the irony.
The last time Jessamyn Fawkes trusted a video call, she’d sat on Zoom in front of Delta Rho’s entire national leadership and self-destructed her own career.
She’d tried to get her former friend—Samantha—expelled from her position as president of Delta Rho’s Stillwell chapter, and she’d thought she had Lakshmi Majumdar herself to seal the deal as the knife she’d slip between my babygirl’s ribs.
Of course it had been nothing of the sort.
When the meeting started, we had the real Lakshmi in my condo: hers had been a fake, a family member put up to it by a letter from Elizabeth Baines.
It cost Jessamyn the hearing, her credibility, and—after falling in league with Victoria Ruocchio—her entire career.
“She blew up her entire life on a Zoom call with us,” I muttered. “And now she wants another one?”
“I did point that out,” Mona said dryly. “She did not find it as funny as you did.”
“I don’t find it funny. It’s insulting.”
Mona nodded. “Whatever it is, I need it,” she admitted, taking another sip of her coffee. “The last time somebody in her position surprised us, we found out Daniel was in a hospital bed on live television. That doesn’t get to happen twice.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that. She was right.
“When’s the meeting?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Mona said.
I thought about it, then nodded. “Alright. I’ll be there. I’ll make sure Kiki is, too.”
“Good. I’ll handle the details.” She turned around, the railing against the small of her back. “Go inside and be a husband. Marcie just got the best news she’s had since she moved to Boston, and Samantha’s still reeling from what she might find out when we get her blood test back.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “When is that likely to be?”
“Soon.” Mona promised. “I pulled a very large number of strings where Samantha is concerned.” Her smile turned into a grimace. “God knows she deserves it.”
I remembered that Mona’s mother had had a chronic illness. For her, this might be more than a little bit personal.
“Mona.”
“Yes?”
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. “And I hope you won’t mind me saying, but: I’m not the only person who needs to go inside and relax for a bit.”
Mona laughed. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” she reminded me. “Or when our enemies are.”
I shook my head. “You’ve been running yourself ragged since Morning Harbor,” I said. “Earlier than that. When’s the last time you got a decent night’s sleep?”
Mona’s gaze flickered. “You know sharks die if they stop moving, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “But you’re not a shark. You’re a woman. Sometimes you forget that, Mona.”
When I said it, I saw something flash in her face that hadn’t been there a few weeks ago. Something that blazed to life the night she climbed over the center console of her car and made out with me in an alleyway after securing Jessamyn Fawkes as our asset.
Slowly, she nodded.
“Alright,” she said, glancing at the coffee. “Once I get the meeting set up, I’ll pop a chill pill. You have a place a shark can catch a few Z’s?”
“Kiki’s room,” I said. “I’ll make sure she stays in the master tonight. As soon as you’re done, go bed down in there. I’ll make sure no one disturbs you.”
“Mrs. Avery’s room,” Mona said with a chuckle. “That’s appropriate, I suppose.” She looked at me, something moving behind her eyes. “This isn’t just a job anymore, Jack.”
“No,” I said, taking her hand. “It’s not.”
For a second, I thought we were going to do more than hold hands. But then a yawn broke from Mona’s lips, loud and explosive, and she flushed like she’d done something truly embarrassing.
“Good Lord, I am exhausted,” she said. “Samantha might not be the only one who starts sessions with your therapist mother-in-law soon. I could use a Xanax prescription…”
As she turned to enter the house, I gripped her hand a little tighter. “There’s something else I need from you,” I told her. “Something private.”
She waited, her eyes wide.
“Not that,” I told her, even though I wanted to. “Caroline.”
The shark was back on Mona’s face. “You think she’s more than she seems?”
I don’t know if it made me feel better or worse that Mona had clearly been thinking along the same lines. “I think she’s genuine,” I said. “I think she likes us, and she wants to be part of what we’re building.”
Mona snorted. “Obviously.”
“I also think she’s more than she seems.”
Mona thought about it. “Her background check came back clean…”
“Do a little extra digging,” I told her. “If you don’t find anything, then drop it. But if you do, follow it.”
Mona nodded. “You are getting used to the skullduggery.”
“Not tonight, though,” I told her. “Tonight, Miss Isringhausen, you’re our guest. And we’re going to make sure you get some rest.”
Mona grinned. “I’ll ask Yui for some ear plugs,” she said.
Then the two of us headed back into the house.
The sound of conversation enveloped me—Samantha laughing at Marcie’s anecdote about Yukiko and the paperwork, Yui pretending to be shocked, Maria and Tasha clinking glasses together.
It was warm and it was good. I love this place, I thought.
The rest of that night, I tried my best to forget my worries.
I ate dinner and played games and flirted with my women and tucked the coin flip waiting inside of Samantha’s blood into the back of my head.
I filed away Marcie’s fertility. I told myself whatever happened on the Zoom meeting was meant to happen.
It wasn’t until that night, with my three satisfied wives snoozing in bed next to me, Mona passed out in Kiki’s room down the hall, that the worries crept in through the quiet.
I pulled Marcie closer to me in the darkness. She’s going to be fine, I told myself. Kothary said it.
And Samantha… well.
If the news was bad, we’d readjust, and we’d make the best of the life we had. Samantha would have time before she started showing symptoms: maybe decades of time. Who knew what might happen between now and then?
And tomorrow, for the first time in a while, we were going to have something Victoria Ruocchio didn’t want us to know. A real advantage, maybe.
A turning point?
I didn’t yet know what Jessamyn had found. I didn’t know that it was going to change everything—not just for the Avery Company, not only for the war against Victoria, but for the one wife of mine who’d spent this ordeal certain that what we were building was starting to leave her behind.
Marcie was not about to be left behind much longer.
In fact, my angel was about to become the centerpiece of the Avery Company’s entire battle plan.