"Hello..." I answered the phone groggily. I looked at the clock to see that it was four in the morning. Who calls this early in the morning?
"Hello, Luca," Brad's voice filled my ear. "Are you alone?"
Subconsciously, I looked over to Lexi's side of the bed. She wasn't here. Of course she wasn't. I was alone now and it didn't feel natural.
"Yes," I grumbled.
"Good, because I have a little something to tell you, boy. Listen real good and hard, because I won't be repeating anything I'm about to say. I know what you did."
"What did I do? There's a lot I've done over the past month. You'll have to be more specific."
"You mess with my daughter's head again and we're gonna have some problems."
"Your daughter messed with her own head. It's not my fault she doesn't want to get treatment. She wants to see her kids, then she'll do as the judge said." I sighed and prepared to hang up. "Look, I don't want to argue with you at four in the morning--"
"It makes you listen, boy. We all know what you did," he growled. "And you won't get away with it either. As of today, you stay away from her. Don't talk to her, don't look at her, and don't even think of her. I do want you to come to the house at noon."
"You just told me to stay away from her."
"I never said she was going to be there."
"What do you want me there for?"
"You'll find out when you get there. If you're even a second late, you're going to find yourself bankrupt."
I sat up too fast and almost passed out. Bankrupt? How was he going to do that?
"Wha--" I started.
He hung up on me! I tossed my phone on the nightstand and pressed the heel of my hands into my eyes. This was dumb. So dumb. I didn't deserve this. Yes, I may be ruining other people's lives, but that didn't mean I deserved worse. There're a lot more people out there who would love to kill Lexi and possibly ruin her life more than I did.
I finally bit into the bagel that had been sitting on my plate for more than five minutes. It was cold now and practically inedible. My phone rang and I was tempted to ignore it again. But it wasn't Brad this time. It was Jordan. What did he want? I got him what he wanted last time. Or he got it himself.
"Hm?"
"What are you up to right now?" he asked.
"Nothing much. I was just eating breakfast."
"Oh. I need a favor to ask."
"Hit me."
Jordan took a deep breath and began mumbling to himself. Did he already forget that I was on the other end? I hope he wasn't going to ask me for another crazy favor. So annoying.
"I was wondering if you could do me a small...small favor." He cleared his throat. "If you could get some DNA from your kids, then that would be great."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." I laughed. "We are not going there. I let you get DNA and whatever you needed from Lexi, but you are not messing with our kids. That's where my help ends."
"But, you said you'd do anything I asked for."
"Yeah, but I'm drawing the line here. The kids are off limits. It's one thing to mess with Lexi, but another when you mess with something we share."
"Well, I guess I have no choice, but to sue you."
Sue me? What did I do? First Brad forcing me to stay away from Lexi and now Jordan threatening to sue me! I don't even know the reason. This day definitely couldn't get any worse. If I knew that thought was going to get me in trouble, I wouldn't have thought it.
"And I don't know for what. It's bogus, man. If I had a dollar for every time someone was threatening to sue me, I'd be a trillionaire."
"Are you sure you haven't done anything to him?"
"Yes. I'm more than sure. What could possibly make him so angry with me that he's suddenly suing me for tax fraud?"
"I don't know, bro. Think about it. Jordan is mental anyway. Knowing him, he's probably thought up some whack explanation for everything."
"I seriously can not stand him! I swear he's doing this for the fun of it. He called saying he was suing me for tax fraud. We've never once partnered with his hospital--" I stopped upon seeing Lexi just a few feet away from me. "I'll call you right back. Tell Jordan this isn't over." I pulled the phone away from his ear and shoved it in his pocket. "What are you doing here?"
⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕
I couldn't get Brad's call out of my head. I had two hours to do what I was going to do before he made me bankrupt. Whatever that's supposed to mean. He couldn't possibly cut me out of everything Lexi owns. It has both our names on everything. Unless...
"What's wrong, babe?" Sha'Kayla asked. "You seem more distracted than usual."
"Work." I sighed.
"You've never been distracted by work. Is it because of the earthquake? Have things not been the same in the building?"
How would I know that?
"Nope," I said. "There's a lot going on with frayed wires and technical difficulties. We'll plow through it, but...it's stressful."
"Well, don't worry about that right now. I do have to be on my way in a couple of minutes. New story I'm following. Maybe my boss will love me again." She smiled.
I suppressed a smile. As much as I love Sha'Kayla, I knew how women were. Once you messed up once, there was no second chance. Her boss wasn't going to love her, she was going to continue to tolerate her. I know how Sha'Kera feels about this, too. It's hard to ignore the death glares she gave me while she was here. Hopefully I'll never see her again.
"Fine. I think that's an excellent idea," I exclaimed. "How about we get some ice cream or something?"
"I'm good. Trying to diet now. Don't tempt me, Luca Thompson."
Women and their diets.
We ended our date just forty minutes before I was due back at the house. Brad didn't promise that Lexi wasn't going to be there, but I was hoping she was. There are a few things I want to say to her. Firstly, I do the ruining. There's nothing she could possibly do that would make me want to kill myself.
I waited in traffic, drumming my fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. I wasn't going to make it on time. Was Brad being funny just to get back at me? I was terrified. He's never had me this scared. I might crap my pants at this rate. The house is only a few miles away and now it seems longer.
"I can do this. I can do this," I chanted. Yeah, no. This wasn't going to work.
I tried going around traffic, but everyone was being slow. Why were they so backed up today? That's when I noticed the red and blue lights. Of course! There's a car accident. Luckily, there was no one coming up behind me. I backed up and pulled into a gas station. How convenient. I pulled around out the other exit and shot down the street.
I looked at my watch and saw that I had less than twenty minutes to get to the house. From where I was, I had a little over 5 miles left to go. Would I make it in time and still have enough time to look like I didn't rush there? I guess we'll see in a couple of minutes.
No more than ten minutes later, I rounded the cul-de-sac. My clock said I had two minutes to get inside. Crap. I jumped out of the car and took a deep breath. It's not like it would take me forever to make it up the path. I took my time and was very lucky today. When I closed the door and peered down the hall, Brad was just stepping out of the living room.
"Right on time," he said with a grin.