Page 39 of Rebel

He said in a steely voice, “Don’t worry, I already dealt with him.”

Holding the envelope in my shaking hands, I asked, “What do you mean by dealt with?”

He shrugged one muscular shoulder. “Hacker is working on getting the images off the website. Fucker liked to hoard shit like that, so I got rid of everything he had on his phone, laptop, and tablet. We found no evidence that he used cloud storage. I also talked to him, and I might have tuned him up a little, andimpressed upon him the importance of not doing shit like that again.”

“You beat him up?” I didn’t know why I was so shocked about that.

“He deserved it. Jackass did it to several women, not just you. Losing a few teeth is the least of his worries. I sent the information he shared with them and two of them are suing him.”

Flipping the letter in my hand, I asked, “So what’s this?”

“His very convincing letter of apology. Careful when you handle it. He had himself a little nosebleed when he wrote it.”

“Jesus, Rebel. I never would have thought he’d share naked photos of me with his friends.”

“I hope I’m not contributing to your difficulty in trusting men?”

I folded the envelope in half and crammed it in my pocket. “No. That’s ancient history.”

Of course, that was a bald-faced lie. At this moment, I was not okay, but I didn’t want Rebel to feel guilty for being honest with me. Picking up the page of things people had said online, I noticed something else that shocked me. “My mom’s best friend is talking about how she doesn’t deserve my father. Did you talk to Margaret too?”

“Yeah, of course I did,” he paused when he saw the look on my face. “Don’t worry, I didn’t touch her, but I might have put the fear of God in her.”

My eyes flew open. “Rebel, what did you do?”

“Not a lot. Threatened to make sure everyone in her life knew she had a crush on a happily married man.”

“Not a lot,” I admitted.

“She kept telling me how her grandson was going to beat my ass for talking to her disrespectfully. He’s a fucking pyromaniac. I didn’t want to take a chance that she’d get brave one day and move on from break-ins to having her grandson torch your office.”

My hands flew to my mouth. “Do you really think they’re capable of doing something like that?”

Rebel told it to me straight, “Who the fuck knows? But I decided to face the issue head-on by impressing upon them both the importance of keeping their mouths shut about your family, and staying away from you and the business.”

“How did they take that suggestion? I can’t imagine it went over very well, since she comes and goes at my parents’ house like she owns the place.”

“I decided to beat her at her own game and threatened to make sure everyone in her life knew she had a crush on your father. I also told that grandson of hers that if I had to come back, I was going to let all the bikers I left outside come inside and take turns using him for a punching bag. Since his talent is starting fires and not fighting muscle bound bikers, he agreed to steer clear of your family and the office. I’m not sure I got through to Margaret though. Although we settled on a compromise, she was still acting the fool when I left.”

“Oh my god. My mom is going to be furious.”

“Don’t worry, she’s fucking off to Florida to do her snowbird thing early this year. I told her that either she shuts her fucking mouth about your mom, or I share all the other awful shit she says about people with everyone on her social media list.”

Finally understanding, I said, “She’s been talking about everyone behind their backs. That sounds about right. Margaret Pensay has always been a gossip. You know that you didn’t need to get involved in that, right?”

“I had to make sure she wasn’t involved in the break-in and since I was there anyway, I decided to deal with her mouth. Your mom’s a nice lady. She doesn’t deserve to have that bitch saying ugly shit about her behind her back like that.”

“My money is on her staying in Florida. Do you mind if I take this with me?”

“No,” he replied. “It’s just a printout of what’s on my computer.”

If he objected to me sharing this with my mom, he didn’t say. I wanted to share it with her because Margaret sometimes visited our house when my mom was out, and I didn’t want her taking advantage of my dad one day when he was really compromised.

“So, what’s the bottom line?” I asked.

“No one panned out to be a viable suspect,” he replied grimly. “That fire-setting grandson of hers took Margaret to the ER the night your office was broken into. They had proof, so they couldn’t have been involved.”

“I don’t know why, but I’m glad it wasn’t them. She’s been involved with our family for a long time.”

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