28. Garrett

I'm pretty sure my wife is some kind of pathic. Either socio or psycho. She sure the hell isn't an empath because she's positively giddy at the mayhem she has caused. There are a few people on my team that I'll have to look at cross-eyed, especially the woman who jumped at the chance to glitter bomb her siblings' cars.

It must've cost me a pretty penny to get all those people to look the other way but what the heck, anything to make her happy. "You gonna get that?"

We were sitting on the beach at Cathedral Cove, watching the sunset after sleeping the day away once arriving.

She had a bottle of wine, some fruit and cheese, and her devices all lined up in a row. Her phone had been going off, off and on for the better part of the last two hours, but she kept picking it up and putting it back down with a sneer.

I can only imagine the horror she'd left in her wake. I didn't get involved; I just gave her the number to my people and told them that she was their new mistress, so anything she said goes, and my team alerted me to the carnage once it was done.

Her Dad's car was on its way to the other side of the country back home, stripped of any identifiable marking that would prove it was his, down to the erased VIN. His house was set to be demolished the next day because the terror had ordered them to have it done the sooner, the better, and she's now working on terrorizing those poor people further.

"Were you aware that your father had a classic Aston Martin in his garage?"

"I was."

"Are you aware of how much one of those things cost?"

"Look, he sold me out so he could keep his job. He used said job to make the money he bought that piece of metal with. You see where I'm going with this?"

"I do, yes!" She's terrifying in her logic.

"And what are you doing now, might I ask?"

"Now, I'm looking at my handiwork. Oh, what is this?" She tapped on the keyboard like a manic dervish with her tongue caught between her teeth and her eyes alight with malice. "Denny got canned?"

I grunted as I spread some paté on my toast point. I guess she's coming to know me well as well. "You did that?"

"Yes!"

"You got Denny fired from his cushy corporate job? How? Doesn't his uncle own the company?"

"And? He'd be lucky to get a job at the local fast-food place when I'm done." She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. For a minute, I thought I was going to have a fight on my hands.

"Mind telling me why? This is my fight, after all."

"That's where you're wrong. And besides, I don't fancy sharing space with the man who thought he was going to marry you." She did some kind of mimicry with her lips moving and head shaking that I guess was meant to poke fun at me, which I ignored.

"That's a boss move; now, how can I crap on the rest of his day." She looked at the new Rolex on her wrist, which had been set to tell the correct local time here and at home.

"Frig it, it's Tuesday here and Monday there."

Her phone went off again, only this time she answered, putting it on speaker. "Gigi!" I raised my brow at her, calling her mother by her given name.

"Alyssa Archer, why are you calling me by my name?"

"Hmm!" She turned her nose up and twisted her head to the side as if the poor woman could see her.

"Okay, I get it, you're mad. But there was a reason your father and I decided not to tell you what we were doing; it's very complicated. Who else is there with you? Do you have me on speaker?"

"It's just my husband, feel free to speak."

I don't know why her words, her calling me husband, warmed the cockles of my cold heart, but they did. "Okay, but it's very serious. Helen hired someone to kill you and me when you were eight and then again when you were twelve." I stopped moving and stared at the phone.

"Could you kindly repeat that?" Something in my voice must've alerted her to my mood because she rushed to hang up the phone after promising her Mom to call her back.

"Why are you so pressed?"

"Don't be an ass, why do you think?"

Unlike her, when I get pissed, I go cold. I'm sure she saw it in my eyes, and that is why she left her chair and came to plant herself in my lap. "Hey, she's mine. Don't even think about it."

"I'm sorry to have to disappoint you, but I don't think so."

"She didn't do anything to you, and besides, I let you take Denny."

"You didn't let me do anything. I want you to call your mother back and find out what she's talking about."

"Uh-uh, not until you calm down."

"What makes you think I'm not calm?"

"The temperature just dropped about ten degrees, and it's not because of the weather." I didn't answer for fear of saying the wrong thing. I didn't want to cut her with the sharp edge of my tongue because my anger was not directed at her.

I was more than happy to let her carry out her little revenge plots, but this was serious. If the woman had gone to such lengths, there's no telling what else she would do. But more importantly, no one was going to get away with harming her or even thinking they could get away with it.

She could argue the point that I didn't know her back then, but my anger where she's concerned is retroactive. It doesn't matter that I didn't know her then; she's mine now, which means she was always meant to be mine, and I've destroyed people for less.

I wouldn't be the man I am if I let this stand. "Excuse me one moment." I tried moving her off my lap, but she didn't budge.

"Where are you going?" She wrapped her arms around my neck and held on tight.

"I need to make a call." She shook her head before I was done speaking.

"Nope, not yet. You don't even know where she is."

"I do. Remember, I told you that I know where your enemies are?"

"Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. So, where is she?" I didn't trust her to tell, and besides, she had my entire team at her disposal. I'm sure she could pick up the phone and find out in five seconds.

"You have to let me get in on this. I won't take no for an answer."

"I'll think about it, but don't do anything before clearing it with me first."

"I make no promises." When last I checked, Helen was sleeping in her car, or trying to, in the parking lot of a twenty-four-hour Walmart.

She hadn't eaten since she left the house and didn't seem to have any funds, which I'm sure was thanks to my wife, and was miserable, according to the reports, because of the fleas that had followed her from her home.

From the description I received, she seems to be suffering from something called flea-borne typhus, which, from the sounds of it is not pleasant, especially for someone who had no access to medicine.

I may have felt sorry for her before this new development, but any woman who would put a hit out on and eight-year-old child doesn't deserve my sympathy.

Her daughter was still behind bars, probably forgotten now in the wake of the illness that sounds almost like delirium. I imagine she must be suffering; both of them are. But that's not good enough; it's nowhere close. I'll make sure to give Helen a most painful end once this one is through with her.