Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
ANGELO
Gracie's phone won't stop buzzing on the island, and the looks she keeps giving it tell me something’s wrong.
"Do you need to answer that?" I finally ask after the tenth or so notification. I glance over and see a text that makes my blood run cold.
Unknown Number
Answer your phone, bitch, or you're not going to like the consequences.
Anger consumes me. "Ummm … who the hell is texting you?"
"Daddy!" Zoey hollers. "Language."
I force myself to find a shred of patience. It isn't my daughter's fault someone is sending nasty texts to Gracie.
"Sorry, sweetie. Daddy forgot for a minute." I glance at the clock. "You and Livy need to get your shoes on. The bus will be here soon." I make eye contact with Gracie. "And we will talk about this just as soon as I get the girls on that bus."
I can tell she wants to argue, but it must be the serious look on my face that stops her. This isn't a conversation she's getting out of.
It's another fifteen minutes before my daughters are on their way to school, and I'm more than ready for that conversation. I don't bother to see if Gracie has gotten any more texts in that time frame. I know she has. I was keenly aware of the buzzing every few moments.
"Care to tell me who's threatening you?" I ask as soon as I'm back in the kitchen, my arms and legs crossed as I lean back against the counter.
"Don't you have to get to work?" Gracie does her best to take the heat off her, but this conversation is not getting derailed by her little diversion tactic.
"That's a perk of being the boss. I can go in when I feel like it. And right now, I would much rather you tell me what's going on."
I watch quietly as she chews on the side of her lip.
The pull to go to her is nearly overwhelming, but I know how that would end.
I would easily become distracted by how attracted I am to her, and we won't be having any conversation. So I’ll stew in silence until she realizes I’m not going anywhere, and neither is she.
Finally, it seems like she understands how serious I am, because she caves. "It's my ex, Jeremy. He's the reason I moved to Willow Creek."
Based on the way he's texting her—the frequency as well as the language I’ve seen come through—I know there has to be more to the story than what she already told me, so I lift an eyebrow in a silent request for her to continue.
Thankfully she does.
"He's not a good man."
"I figured as much from the text you got."
"Are you going to let me talk or keep interrupting me, because this isn't easy for me."
Guilt settles low in my belly. I'm forcing her to relive whatever happened, but I don’t feel guilty enough to tell her to stop. I need to know if she's in danger, and if there's a threat to my children as well.
"Sorry. Go on."
"Like I said, Jeremy isn't a good man. I would even go as far as saying he's a narcissist. According to him, everything that ever went wrong in his life and our relationship was always my fault.
And for the longest time, I believed him.
He did a good job of separating me from my friends and family.
That's why it was so easy to pick up and move here.
I didn't have any friends left, and the only family who didn't judge me for constantly spending my time with Jeremy was Owen. "
"Does your brother know about the texts?"
She shakes her head. "They just started. Before today it was phone calls only, and he would never leave a message. Something clearly set him off though."
I have to wonder if that something is me. That's the only thing I can think of that’s changed recently.
"Does Jeremy know you moved here?"
Again she shakes her head no. "I never told him about Willow Creek. By the time Owen moved here, I was finding a way to leave Jeremy."
I hate to ask, but I need to know. "What made you finally decide to leave?" By the look on her face, I know I'm not going to like the answer.
"Jeremy started getting physical. Before that it was always verbal."
I force myself to take a few calming breaths before I ask, "He hit you?"
I can breathe a little easier when her head shakes back and forth. "I never let it get that far. I knew as soon as he grabbed my arm so hard he left a bruise that I needed to get out of there.”
A silver lining for sure. "Okay, so things didn't escalate far. But based on the text I read, he’s obviously capable of physical violence. How many other messages have there been?" A sigh slips from my mouth when her only response is a shrug. "How many are we talking, Gracie? Ten? Twenty? More?"
"There were over thirty notifications when I checked it this morning after going back to my room. I'm not sure how many have come through since then."
A persistent man for sure. "You need to block him."
"I did that after I got the first set of messages. This is a new number."
Well, shit. That's not good. "We need to tell your brother about Jeremy. His company can probably help."
I'm tempted to find the guy and give him a piece of my mind. Show him that Gracie no longer belongs to him. But I would need Owen's help in finding him because something tells me Gracie isn't going to willingly hand over that information.
"No!" Gracie practically screams. "I don't want him to know. Owen would kill Jeremy if he found out."
"Good. It sounds like the guy deserves it for threatening you." I gentle my tone when her eyes widen and her lips start to tremble. "Look, your brother isn't going to kill him." I don't think anyway. "He would probably teach him a lesson, though." And that I'm all for.
"You don't know Owen the way I do,” she insists. “My brother would absolutely kill him. And then he would go to jail and Annalee would hate me. I can't let that happen."
I want to continue arguing. Help her understand how dangerous Jeremy’s escalation can be and convince her to tell Owen what’s happening.
She’s saved by the bell when my phone rings and my head foreman’s number pops up on the screen.
"Sorry, I have to take this. It’s my foreman, and he knows better than to call me at home unless it’s important. "
I step into the living room and answer the call, listening as Nathan tells me he needs me to meet him at the pub because a problem’s come up that they need my expertise for.
"I've got one stop to make and then I'll be there," I say, my frustration about being called away from Gracie and our discussion evident in my voice.
Hanging up, I head back to the kitchen, where I find Gracie cleaning up from breakfast and Everly now playing on the floor. My youngest had still been eating—and covered in strawberries as usual—while Gracie was filling me in on her ex.
"I have to head to the building on Main Street. We can talk more about this tonight."
"There's nothing more to discuss,” she tells me from where she's washing dishes at the sink. “I'll keep blocking the numbers, and if he doesn't get the hint, I'll get a new phone number. It's as easy as that."
Nothing about what she says is easy, but arguing isn’t going to solve this issue, either.
She’ll just continue to dig her feet in.
Instead, I walk over and place a soft kiss to her temple before leaving for work.
She's going to be mad anyway once she finds out where I'm stopping before I go to the pub.