Chapter 26
26
ELLA
M y leg bounces up and down as I watch my cell phone ring. The same South Carolina number has been calling for the past two weeks and every time it pops up on my screen, I feel like I’m going to have a nervous brake down.
Seeing a number show across my screen shouldn’t scare me so much, but I know this number. This number has been at the back of my head for five years now. I thought that I was never going to see it again, that now that my debt was paid off, I didn’t have to worry about it anymore.
Yet, here it is, taunting me. Putting fear in me that I thought I was never going to feel ever again.
When the number first came up on my screen, I thought that I was seeing things. I thought maybe I was remembering the number wrong, that there was no way that the number that I wanted to never see was on my screen in front of me. But the more I looked at the more the realization hit.
He found me. He found us and now he is calling to take everything away.
I wanted to Bennett as we drove home that night. I wanted to confess everything, including where the million dollars he gave me went and why, but I was too scared to do it. I didn’t know how to form the words so that it didn’t end in judgement.
If I had told him, he would have questions that I’m not ready to answer to I told him that everything was fine, but in reality, nothing is.
The phone stops ring for about a minute, before it starts back up again.
He’s getting more eager and I get the feeling that if I don’t answer soon, he’s going to change tactics and possibly come to Chicago. I can’t have that happening. Not if I want to keep Charlie safe and not tell Bennett.
I reach for the phone, with all the determination to answer it, but I can’t seem to make my fingers to hit the button. So I watch it ring until it stop and once it goes to voice mail, I throw the device into my drawer and try not to think about.
But every time it vibrates, it becomes hard.
For a large majority of the time, I try to concentrate on this proposal that I’m working on for the foundation, the one that I told Bennett about the day of the hockey game, but everything feels like its jumbled up. Nothing is making sense and the more I continue to work on it, the more frustrated I get.
My mind is occupied and not with the things that I need to do.
I haven’t even officially started they new part of my job and I’m already failing at it. All because I can’t find it in me to answer a call.
Maybe once I do answer the call, everything will get better. Maybe the person that is calling me is only doing so because they want to tell me that they got the money and that out debt is all squared away. There are slims chances of that happening, but it could happen.
I hate the feeling that these stupid calls induce. I hate that I have to look over my shoulder everywhere I go even with the security detail I got once I married Bennett.
The only way that will all go away if I answer the damn phone and face my demons.
As much as it pains me, I reach for the drawer and pull out my phone. I look at all the misses calls I have from that one number and suddenly feel the urge to cry.
I can do this.
I can make the call.
Taking a deep breath, I look into Bennett’s new office. He moved in the the day we go back from out honeymoon. It’s spacious and fit for a king. It fits him perfectly, like it was made for him, just like the the CEO title. And if he were here, I would tell him just that, but he isn
The man is at a lunch with the commissioner of the Chicago Police Department, something about working on a gun reform together.
It’s both good and bad that he is gone. Good because I can make this call and not have him asking me any questions. Bad because in a short period of time, he has become my safe haven and someone I’ve depended to bring me back when I felt lost. I could really use him right now, but I know it’s best that he isn’t here.
After about a five minute mental pep talk, and a few deep breaths, I wake my phone up and dial the number that has been haunting my life for as long as I can remember.
As it rings, I’m hoping that the call doesn’t get answered. That it will just go to voicemail and I won’t get to hear the voice I hated since I was eighteen years old.
But luck isn’t on my side and the call gets answers after three rings.
“About damn time, you fucking answer the phone you incompetent twat. Do you have any fucking idea how many times I’ve called you?” The voice makes me shiver and not in a good way.
I square my shoulders as if I’m about to step foot into battle and bring out the bitch that’s inside of me.
“I’ve bee busy. What do you want, Josiah?”
Josiah Sinclair, my mother’s fourth husband and Charlie’s father. I hated him when I first met him when I was eighteen and I hate him even more now.
“I got your all your damn money. Let me guess, you sold your pussy to that billionaire husband of yours to pay me off.”
I want to cry at how close to the money he is.
“How did you know I was married?” I want to be naive and think that he hasn’t seen one of the many magazine articles or newspaper articles talking about how the most eligible bachelor in the world is officially off the market. The press has been hounding us and plastering out pictures all over the the place since I went to a charity gala with Bennett two months ago.
But of course, luck isn’t on my side yet again.
“How do you think? Your picture is all over the damn place baby girl. Did you think that I was going to miss something like that?”
I had hoped.
“Fine. You saw the pictures and you got the money, what the hell do you want?”
I can hear his answer before he even says anything.
“Whatcha think? My price went up.”
Anger runs through my whole damn body. “Like hell it has. I paid you the million you asked for. My side of the deal is set.”
A laugh rings out from the other side and sounds makes me want to puke. “You forgot all about the interest baby girl.”
“Interest? What fucking interest? We did not agree to any interest. You said a million. You got a million.”
“Yeah, well, I want another million. Two hundred grand for each year that it took you to pay off what you owe me and I want it by the end of the month.”
Another million by the end of the month. I can’t pay that.
“No. I can’t do that. I can’t give you more money. Be happy with the money that you got.”
“Then it looks like Charlie is going to come live with me. Newspapers say that you in Chicago. I don’t minds taking a drive up there and going to collect what is mine. How does next week sound?”
Bile comes up my throat and I try my hardest to keep it down but I’m failing.
He can’t take Charlie. If he does, he will destroy her.
The girl that is currently enjoying life with her new family and having the best high school experience will be gone if she goes back to live with monster. Who she is now will just be a ghost of the past that will haunt me forever. She will be absolutely destroyed if after we worked so hard to get where are, she has to go back to living with Josiah in that hell hole.
I can’t do that to her.
I can’t take a life that she loves so much away from her and put back in a place that might kill her.
Tears starts to roll down my face at the thought of my sister no longer being here. Of her no longer laughing and smiling. I can’t lose her like that.
I have to do it.
I have to find a way to get that money and pay Josiah and hope that he doesn’t ask for anymore. But how?
You are married to a billionaire and you have access to his bank accounts.
No. I won’t steal from him. That’s not a line that I will ever cross. He has trusted me so much in the time that we’ve known each other, I will not betray him by taking money from him in secret.
But there is a way to get that money from him that doesn’t include writing myself a check, and letting Josiah and his greediness coming between us and that is going to him. Telling him absolutely everything and then keep my fingers crossed that he will help.
That is my only solution and I think Josiah was hoping for that.
As much as I don’t want to, that is what I have to do.
Swallowing my pride, I finally give Josiah the response that he was looking for.
“I’ll try to get you the money before the end of the month.”
“There is no try, baby girl. You will if you want me to keep my side of the deal and not take back what is mine.”
I hate his voice so much that I wish that I can reach over the phone and punch the living shit out him.
“Okay. I will.”
“Much better.”
The line goes dead and I’m no longer able to hold the bile climbing up my throat any more.
I grab my trash can and let out everything that I have.
When everything is out of me, I slump back in my chair and cry.
Tonight when I get home, I will tell Bennett about the past that he doesn’t know about.
It’s going to hurt but I have to do it. It’s the only way to keep Charlie safe.