Ruining Hattie, page 28
“I have no intention of fucking anyone over. I just need some talented people who can keep their mouths shut, that’s all.” I plan on delivering vengeance to Sean’s doorstep and whoever else helped him burn down my club.
“All right then, I’ll text it over to you. Tell them I referred you.”
I reach the fridge and open it, taking out a cold bottle of water. “Will do. I appreciate it, Obsidian. I owe you one.”
“Just figure your shit out. Your sister is miserable when you’re miserable, and that in turn makes my life miserable.”
I chuckle as I twist the cap off the bottle of water. “Deal.”
“All right, talk soon.” He ends the call.
I guzzle back as much water as I can stomach.
Obsidian’s right, though—I need to figure out my shit and put a plan in place. First thing I need to deal with is Sean and eliminate that threat. Then I can focus on what I need to do to win Hattie back and get her back here. Unfortunately, it’ll take more than an apology. She’s going to need to accept that the woman who raised her in the perfect home is the same woman who neglected and damaged me. Right now, that feels like an impossible feat.
My phone dings with a text, and I see it’s the contact information for the Vitale family from Obsidian.
With a resigned sigh, I make the call.
***
A couple of days later, I had my meeting with the representative from the Vitale family. I told them what I needed, we negotiated a price, and then I handed over the information they’d need to make it happen.
I had the Uber drop me off outside the scorched remains of the club, though I don’t know why. To torture myself a little more maybe. Looking at the charred black structure—or what’s left of it anyway—feels like a visual representation of my insides.
I was so sure of myself when I set off on this course, but Hattie wasn’t who I thought she was, wasn’t what I thought she was—the representation of a child my mother could love. As a little boy, I always questioned why I wasn’t enough for my mom. Why she couldn’t leave the drugs and alcohol behind and be the mother I needed, the kind of mother everyone else got to have.
Now I’m knee-deep in shit, and I’m not sure how to get out of it. How to make Hattie see that my feelings for her are real and have been for some time. I didn’t tell her all of this because I wanted to protect her. Even if she believes me, I question whether the truth will be enough. A part of me thinks that the only way I can ever be with Hattie is if I can make amends with my mother.
But the idea of forgiving her… telling her that it’s okay what happened to me…
I shove my hands in my pockets and squeeze my eyes shut before turning and walking back to my condo. Now that things with the Vitale family are in motion, I need to figure out how to win Hattie back.
I’ve faced many obstacles in my life, but something tells me this one will be the most difficult.
48
HATTIE
To say the past week has been hell is an understatement. I’ve leaned into my faith, trying to keep in mind that God has a plan, but it doesn’t help with the anxiety. Everything is made worse by the fact that Bastion isn’t by my side. It wasn’t until he was gone that I realized how much I relied on him for support.
Taylor has been there, we’ve talked on the phone almost every day, but it’s not the same.
The pain of Bastion’s betrayal still stings—like flesh that’s been burned and is healing. But at the same time, I can understand why he was so vengeful. When I think back to what he told me about his time with his mother… my mother… I can’t imagine the kind of scars that leaves on a person. Of course he hates her. Of course he wants to make her pay. And of course when he saw me and my relationship with my mom, it must have been like salt in a reopened wound.
The fact remains that I can’t see her as the woman Bastion described, and that makes it clear to me how hard it will be for him to see her differently. To see her how I do. And I don’t know if there’s any getting over that fact for us, which means there isn’t a future.
Regardless, I’m back in Seattle because I have to beg for my mother’s life. Her health has deteriorated rapidly, and she’s in the hospital. If she doesn’t get a transplant soon, I’m going to lose her. I need Bastion to find it in his heart to be tested to see if he’s a match for a kidney.
I’m so nervous to see him again. Both because I’m afraid I’m going to see the cold, vindictive man who walked out of my parents’ house that day and because I’m fearful I’ll see the charming, caring man I fell in love with. Right now, I don’t know which one is really him.
My leg bounces as the Uber gets closer to his condo. I didn’t give him a heads-up that I’m coming because I wasn’t sure he’d want to see me. My hope is that he hasn’t told Jeffery I’m off his list of allowed visitors and I’ll be able to walk through the lobby to the elevator with no problems.
When the Uber pulls up in front of the building, I say a quick prayer that things go well before I exit. I have just a carry-on with me because I only plan to be here one night, though I still have to book a hotel room.
I thank the driver and pull out my phone to tip him before sliding it into my purse. I’m approaching the building when I hear my name.
“Hattie, there you are.”
I turn to my right to see Steph approaching me with a wide smile. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her happy to see me, let alone this happy.
Oh god, what if she’s here because as soon as I was out of the picture, Bastion jumped back into bed with her? The thought makes me feel sick.
“Um… hey, Steph. What are you doing here?” I try to keep my voice even.
“Looking for you, of course. Bastion wanted me to bring you to him.”
I frown, my forehead wrinkling. “What do you mean?”
“He asked me to keep an eye out for you, and if you showed up here to take you to him. C’mon, I have a car right here.” She gestures down the sidewalk where a navy blue sedan with tinted windows is parked.
“But he didn’t know I was coming. How could he have known I might show up here?”
She waves me off. “How am I to know? You know him. He has his ways.” Steph shrugs.
I guess she’s right. It’s not hard to believe that he’s been keeping tabs on me, considering how easily he pulled off his plan to get close to me and “ruin me,” as he put it. I could have a tracker on my belongings somewhere and not even know it.
“All right.” I head in her direction. “Where is he?”
“At the temporary offices he’s working from. He leased a place. A short-term until he figures out what to do until the club is rebuilt.”
That makes sense. He may never have really cared about me, but he cares about the people who work for him, that’s for certain. I’m sure he’s trying to either help them find employment or find somewhere else to run the club in the short term to keep them all gainfully employed.
Steph walks beside me as I approach the vehicle. “I heard you were trapped in the fire. That must have been terrifying.”
“It was, yes.”
“Here, give me your bag and I’ll put it in the trunk for you.” She holds out her hand when we’re mere feet from the car.
I don’t know why she’s being so nice to me. Maybe Bastion told her she has to be or maybe she’s finally accepted that the two of them are done. Regardless, I give her a small smile and hand her the carry-on bag because if she’s working for Bastion and if I’m ever to remain in his life, we have to learn to get along.
She steps forward and opens the door for me, gesturing for me to get in. I bend to get into the back seat and still. Sitting on the far side is a man pointing a gun at me. He has a buzzed head of dark hair and brown eyes, but he’s not familiar to me. I turn to flee, but Steph pushes me inside, sending me sprawling over the man’s lap. I scramble to get off him while he lets out a sadistic chuckle.
“Take her purse. I don’t need him tracking her with her phone.”
My purse is ripped off my shoulder by Steph, and I turn to look at her as the door closes and the car speeds away from the curb.
“What’s going on?” I hate the way my voice shakes.
“You, my dear, are just a means to an end. Sorry about this. It’s not personal. If you do everything I tell you, there’s a chance you’ll walk out of this alive.”
But I know that’s not true. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the fact that he’s let me see his face means that he doesn’t plan for me to be breathing at the end of whatever this is.
My body shakes even though I will it to stop. I think this man, whoever he is, will only enjoy seeing the fear he causes.
“Let’s hope you can keep up the scared act for a while. I think it will prove to be an incentive for Bastion.” He laughs and shares a look with the driver in the rearview mirror.
My eyes widen. This has to do with Bastion. My stomach sinks, finally realizing who this might be. “Are you… Sean?”
His eyes narrow. “I see Bastion’s spoken about me to you. What did he have to say?”
I shake my head. “Nothing. I swear.”
He gives me a sadistic grin. “Lying bitch.”
The hand holding the gun barrels toward me, and everything goes black.
49
BASTION
Iwalk into the lobby, giving Jeffery a quick wave on my way to the elevator bank. He rushes around the desk.
“Sir.” There’s an urgent note to his voice that I’ve never heard from him before.
I frown and stop. “Jeffery?”
“I’m glad you’re here. I was going to call you, but one of the residents called me.” Sweat beads along his hairline, and the panicked look on his face alerts me that something is very wrong.
“What’s the matter?” Unease settles in my stomach, and it’s not from the booze I imbibed last night.
“I haven’t seen Miss Sinclair around lately, so when I saw her exit a car and step up to the sidewalk, I was pleased to see her.”
My chest expands with hope. “Hattie is here?”
He shakes his head, concern filling his eyes. “Before she came in the building, something must have caught her attention because she looked to her right and headed that way.”
My eyebrows draw down. “Who was she talking to?” Hattie doesn’t know many people in Seattle, and not anyone who lives by me.
“I don’t know, sir. I couldn’t see from behind my desk.”
“And she didn’t return?”
He shakes his head. “No. I thought maybe it was you she’d seen and you’d gone off together, but… I don’t know. Something about the interaction just seemed off. She didn’t look entirely comfortable with whoever she was talking to.”
Fear punches me in the gut, and panic presses at my sternum, but I can’t let my emotions override my thinking right now. “I need the footage from the security cameras outside.”
“Yes, sir, though I don’t know what angles they cover. It’s all monitored remotely.”
I clamp Jeffery on the shoulder. “I need you to get the video from the front of the building. How long ago did this happen?”
He thinks about it for a moment. “Maybe half an hour ago.”
So much could have happened between then and now.
No. Don’t go there.
“Get me that footage. I don’t care what it takes. I don’t care if you have to bribe people. Get it and send it to my email.” I walk over to the desk, grab a piece of paper, and jot down the email address.
“Yes, sir. I’m on it.”
I stalk toward the elevator and stab the button, trying to keep my shit together. I’m certain it was Sean who’s taken Hattie. But I need to see for sure before I act.
When I arrive at my apartment, I pace around with my hands in my hair, picturing my poor, innocent Hattie and how scared she must be.
If she’s still alive.
She’s alive. He’d only take her to get to me, there’d be no other purpose, and if I had to guess, he’s going to use her to draw me out.
Twenty minutes pass before my phone dings, and when I pull it out, I see a text from the admin account for the front desk, telling me that the email has been forwarded to me.
With shaking hands, I open my email and refresh it. There are a few videos, all from different angles outside. When I hit Play on the first one, my phone slips from my grasp, but I catch it before it shatters on the floor.
Steph.
What the hell?
She and Hattie have a brief conversation, and although I know Hattie has never felt comfortable around Steph, her body language says it’s much more than an argument over my attention. Whatever Steph says, Hattie follows her to the waiting car. When she peers in, she draws back, but Steph shoves her in the back seat. The car speeds off into traffic. My eyes veer to the time stamp. Fucking hell. An hour has passed already.
“Fuck!” I almost toss my phone, but all that would ensure is that Sean can’t contact me.
After shoving my phone in my back pocket, I slide both hands through my hair, pulling hard at the strands. Wanting to be prepared, I rush to my office and open the safe, where I remove two of my guns and tuck the holsters into my waistband.
Then I stand and wait because there’s nothing else I can do.
Maybe a minute passes before the rage takes control. Sean has taken something precious from me, and if he hurts one hair on her head, I will draw out his death until he wishes he’d never been born.
In need of an outlet for my fury, I swipe everything off my desk until it crashes to the floor. Then I rip the paintings off the walls and destroy them until they’re in shreds. My desk chair bounces off the wall, leaving a dent, and I clear my bookcases. When there isn’t one item left standing in my office, I stop and stare at the destruction, my chest heaving.
I need to be smart about this. I need to prepare for when Sean calls, so I fish my phone out of my back pocket and dial up my contact in the Vitale family.
“Change of plans.”
***
The call comes from Gabriele Vitale that evening to let me know that his people found Steph while she was attempting to run. Apparently she was pissed about me setting her aside for Hattie, so when Sean approached her and offered to pay her to lead Hattie to him, she was more than happy to take his offer and get the hell out of Dodge.
Gabriele also tells me that she didn’t know where Sean was keeping Hattie. I didn’t bother to ask how he knew for sure she wasn’t lying. I’m sure the Mafia has their ways, and the less I know, the better.
Gabriele is the head of the Vitale crime family, and when I questioned why he himself was involved, he told me that he doesn’t take kindly to men who use the women in their enemy’s lives as leverage. Apparently, someone once took his now-wife from him, so he knows how I feel.
Before we hang up, he tells me to keep him in the loop when I hear from Sean.
There’s no sense asking what became of Steph. I can guess at the answer. Some sick part of me takes pleasure in the fact that she has paid for her part in kidnapping Hattie.
I don’t let my phone leave my sight for the rest of the evening and into the morning as I sit on my couch and wait. All I can picture is how scared Hattie must be and how they might be mistreating her.
I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to her.
I’m pacing in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living area when the phone rings in my hand. When I look at the screen, I see a number I don’t recognize, and I know it’s him.
“You must not value your life.”
Sean’s sadistic chuckle rings through my ear, and he tsks. “Careful now, I’m the one holding all the cards now.”
“What do you want?”
“Well, I told you what I wanted months ago, but you refused to give it to me. And then you had the nerve to sever ties altogether. If I had any feelings, they’d be hurt.”
I made a grave mistake underestimating Sean. I’d thought he was some lackey or someone who could at least see the big picture. I can’t imagine what he thinks he stands to gain once this is all said and done, besides revenge.
The irony isn’t lost on me when I think of my own situation with Hattie.
“I’ll ask again, what do you want?” It’s a struggle to maintain my cool, but I have to for Hattie’s sake.
“The same thing I’ve always wanted. You see, my bosses didn’t like it when I came back to them and told them what happened. It’s my ass on the line, which makes me a very desperate man, Bastion.”
“That can’t be all.” I push my hand through my hair and pace again, just to relieve some of the anxious energy running through me.
Sean chuckles again, and the sound makes me want to reach through the phone and rip out his vocal cords with my bare hands. “Now you’re a smart man. Too bad you weren’t smart before. We could have avoided all this unpleasantness.”
“Just spit it out.”
“I want a lump sum payment for my troubles. Bring two million in cash to the address I text you at noon. Do that and let me run the drugs through your club at the newly negotiated rate I spoke about, and you can have your princess back.”
“Done.” I don’t even have to think about it. I’d pay anything to ensure Hattie’s safety.
“Come by yourself. If I see even a hint of someone with you, the girl is dead.”
“How do I know Hattie is still alive?” The words feel like shards of glass coming up my throat.
“C’mon, say something, sweetheart.”
I stop breathing while I wait to hear her, so I know she’s okay. And then her small, frightened voice comes over the line. “Bastion?”
“There, you know she’s alive. See you at noon.”
He ends the call. I practically roar into the vastness of my apartment, then punch the glass. I split my knuckles, but I’m lucky enough not to break my hand. Then I spring into action, checking my safe for how much cash I have on hand. I get on the phone with my banker before calling Gabriele Vitale.
