105-Partially Destroyed 2.0
**XAVER**
His lawyer, Kyndra Jenkins, is a mousy woman with dull brown hair. Her gold-rimmed glasses are straight from a 1980s sitcom, and don’t get me started on her voice. It rubs my nerves like a rim on a busted tire.
Craig must be running low on funds because she doesn’t look like a high-priced hotshot. With all the charges against him, he is going to need someone with clout to get him out of jail and past “Go”.
*I hope Sophia takes his last dime.*
“Mr. Sayle?” She holds out her slender hand for me to shake. It is ice cold and full of freckles. I shake it once and drop it. Anyone who can represent scum like Craig doesn’t rate in my book.
*Fuck* due process.
“Thank you for coming.” She smiles. Her little pointy teeth disconcert me. Her look turns pained, waiting for my reply.
I nod. It is the best she will get.
She pulls me to the side of the line, glancing at the guards. “You will have to pretend to be my assistant. Is that okay?”
*Anything to see the damage Craig has up close.*
“No problem.” I take the briefcase and paperwork from her. She smiles up at me and her eyes take on the glow I recognize only too well.
All I can say is she had better keep it professional or she won’t work in the city again.
The first thing that comes to my mind when I see Craig is that Justice keeps his promises.
Someone worked the bastard over good. His forehead has a knot the size of Texas. One eye is swollen shut. His nose has been taped and his top lip is a kielbasa sausage. He also has a front tooth missing.
What gets me smiling is that his arm is in a cast and sling.
I let out an appreciative whistle between my teeth.
He has suffered *aplenty.* Now, all he has to do is get out on the street so he can taste my brand of *justice.*
“What happened to you?” I rake my eyes over his orange jumpsuit and smirk. “Did you drop the soap?”
“Did you have anything to do with it?” Craig points at his face. I don’t answer. Instead, I tip back in the metal chair and let my smirk get wider.
Craig’s lawyer shuffles papers in the corner. Craig hasn’t even looked in her direction since we arrived, so eager he is to needle me.
“What do you have to say, Craig?” I look at my watch, shaking my wrist out to make sure he doesn’t miss the point.
Craig shifts in his chair, lifting one leg and then the other to get comfortable. Bastard will have many years to perfect his jail pose if I have anything to say about it.
“So,” he starts, “you know about Sonia and me.”
“Yeah, Gia made it known.” I ask my next question because I have to know exactly who I need to ruin. “Did Julia have a hand in what you did?”
He laughs. The space where his tooth should have been takes my focus away from his battered face.
“That dumb bitch?” He shakes his head, stopping short with a wince. “That day you fired me, she lost her job too. She got drunk. When I came by, she had the nerve to curse me out. I didn’t take that shit.”
I make a mental note to contact Julia to make sure she is all right. If she isn’t, I will make sure he gets a few more lumps tonight.
“Anyway, I rifled through her purse, looking for some change, when I found her phone. It was open to her notes with your… ah, PA’s address on it.”
Julia is absolved.
Craig and Gia aren’t.
I have already spread the word to ruin Gia’s flaky fashion business. When the banks open, all I have to do is call in a favor or two, and her financial backing will dry up like a watering hole in the African Savanna.
Craig’s lawyer comes over to whisper something in his ear and shoves a handful of papers under his nose.
I get up to give them privacy, walking to a window set high in the wall.
The metal bars housed in the glass give me the willies.
I look over my shoulder at Craig in his jumpsuit. The bright orange is an awful color to wear day in, day out. Not to mention the white socks with black rubber sandals that look a size too small. His jail garb differs vastly from his thousand-dollar suits and Italian-made shoes.
*I would hate to be stuck here. Away from family and friends. Those I love…*
As their conversation drones on, my thoughts turn to Pippa.
How much I let her down.
How much I have shattered her trust.
How much I love her.
*How in the hell am I going to get her back?*
“Xaver,” Craig says, motioning for me to sit back down. His lawyer is back in the corner, stuffing papers into her briefcase.
I sit, arching a brow. “So, let’s hear it. Why did you call me down here?”
He tries to hold my gaze. When he can’t, he drops his eyes to his too-small slippers. “I loved Sonia. She was the only woman I have ever loved.”
Now, that is news. I didn’t think the bastard loved anyone other than himself—his millions of kids included. I feel nothing when I think of Sonia’s betrayal. The only thing I am worried about is Pippa.
“Then why did you marry her sister?” I ask, mainly to satisfy my curiosity.
He shrugs. “Sophia was pregnant. She lost the baby at ten weeks though. It was too late to turn back… we had already set things in motion. I hadn’t even laid eyes on Sonia before I promised to marry her sister. If I had…” He shrugs again. “Sophia was just some girl. It was Sonia I loved.” He shuffles his feet under the table. “You know how it is.”
Yep. I know exactly how it is. All that damn pain and anguish was for something I never had.
Sonia wasn’t carrying my child. She didn’t love me.
Pippa does… probably did, and I pissed it away, hurting her in the process.
“When I proposed, we went to her parents’ house to tell them the good news, and Sonia was there… she had her hair in a bun, no makeup.” He throws back his head and looks at the crusty ceiling as if it will give him peace. “I know they were identical twins, and I can’t explain it, but Sonia was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was perfection.”
The eye that is still open, grows misty.
*If he lets one tear fall, I will punch it until it closes.*
Craig’s audacity, speaking about my dead fiancée like she was some *revered being*, makes me want to retch. Thinking back, it had surprised me when Sonia told me *we* were expecting. I had always used a condom with every woman, including her. With the pieces all in place, I can see it was in the month leading up to her telling me about the pregnancy that the condom ‘broke’. I bet a dollar she had poked holes in it to cover her tracks.
*Whatever.*
I am over her. She no longer rates a mention or a blip in my thoughts. I have shelved her in the past where she belongs.
Pippa and *our* children are my future.
And this bastard almost took her away from me.
But he will pay.
His hell is just getting started.
Craig continues, oblivious to my clenched fist and narrowed eyes.
“We talked, and one thing led to another. We continued after you two got together, only occasionally—every other month. Then one day, Sonia said she wanted to make things work with you since you wanted the baby. I had laughed and told her all about your womanizing ways. I even recommended a detective agency so she could gather proof.”
I stand and head for the door. This meeting is over as far as I’m concerned. If I have to listen to Craig’s smug retelling of how he got one over on me, I’ll join him behind bars for assault.
“Thanks for the information, Craig. Have fun in jail.” I stand and walk towards freedom.
Craig shouts more info. “You always thought you were so slick… looking down on me for sleeping around. Who were you to judge? You did the same.”
I knock for the guard to let me out.
As the man’s fingers fumble and drop the keys, Craig yells again, hoping to get a rise out of me.
“I slept with Gia, too,” he says, thinking I care. “Sometimes, you would be leaving, and I would be in the stairwell."
Turning, I say, “You must enjoy the way I taste.”
Kyndra stifles a giggle behind her teeth.
The guard opens the door, giving me a puzzled look.
Stepping over the threshold, I take a deep breath of clean air, clearing my lungs of Craig’s stench of desperation.
“I am the one who told Gia everything when you fired me. She used the information to get back at you for casting her aside for—”
“An honest, decent woman,” I say, cutting him off even as the guard closes the door behind me. I walk away, head held high. The visit with Craig, a man who knows nothing of love and family, has opened my eyes to what is really important.
*I am not in a hole like him. I am free to ask for a second chance. To make things right.*
These thoughts give me a newfound determination and my steps grow lighter as I head to the car.
*From now on, that woman...my woman, will get what she wants and not what I think she needs.*