Page 5 of My Pucking Enemy
“What do youwant?” she snaps, her voice hushed. Curiosity rises inside me. Who answers the phone like that? A normal professional, or someone with enemies?
A beat passes, then she lets out a sharp laugh. “Oh, is that so?”
I hold my breath, glancing in the other direction to make sure nobody is going to come this way and see me very clearly eavesdropping on her conversation.
“Of course I know about theopportunity.” Wren’s voice drops even lower, and I struggle to hear the rest of what she says, but it sounds like, “Do you remember the details of my parole?”
I catch my breath and back away.The details of her parole. In the conference room, she was busy telling everyone that she worked with the FBI—which I’m not even sure is true. Being onparolesure makes a lot more sense to me.
Why would the team hire someone with a criminal record? Isn’t there some sort of background system in play? When we were hiring Maverick Hawkins—a defenseman with a few fights on his record—back to the team, his previous court cases came up right away
Her voice drops further and I can’t make out what she’s saying anymore, so I decide to back off before she realizes I followed her. And I’ve only taken a few steps when my phone starts to buzz in my pocket, a few rapid-fire notifications.
Without looking, I know what it is.
The email from my attorney, finalizing my divorce. A quiet, pitiful end to nearly four years of marriage.
I pull the email up and scan through it, reading through everything we already talked about in person earlier. Earlier,when I sat in the lawyer’s office with my soon-to-be-ex-wife Amanda and calmly discussed the details of our split.
At the very bottom of the email is a direct reference to Amanda’s NDA, and I read through the line again and again, letting it soothe my raucous nerves.
…remember that any public discussions regarding the details of this divorce would be a violation of the primary contract and subsequent NDA, and would disqualify the client from any funds gained during divorce proceedings.
What it means plainly is this: Amanda keeps my secret, or she won’t get a cent from me. I already made it clear to her that I will sue her to within an inch of her life if she so much as breathes in the direction of a reporter.
“Excuse me.”
Embarrassingly, the sound of the crystal-clear voice makes me jump, and Wren passes me by, throwing me a look over her shoulder that feels too direct. Like she’s cut right through the pretenses and into the heart of me. Like, despite the fact that I was eavesdropping on her, she has somehow managed to get the upper-hand.
Like she knows exactly what email I was just reading.
“Luca McKenzie,” she says, stopping and pivoting, throwing her hand out to me, a serene smile on her face as she waits for me to shake it. “I cannotwaitto work with you.”
I take her hand and ignore the feeling it invokes up my arm—the hairs raising, the awareness of a threat.
“Likewise,” I say.
What I really mean is,You won’t last a month, Wren Beaumont.
Wren
The thing about having a dad that’s dodged several international police forces, risen to the top of several global wanted lists, and made very scary, very important friends all over the world is this: When he wants to call you, he’ll call you.
Again and again. From different phone numbers, all with different area and country codes. And you’ll never be sure whether it’s him calling, or someone you might really need to answer to, like your parole officer, a hospital, your new landlord. And no matter where you are, your phone will just keep buzzing in your pocket. Reminding you that he wants to get in touch with you, and that he won’t stop until he does.
Answering him the other day at the arena was a mistake. And I’m not going to let it happen again, especially considering the fact that Luca McKenzie got close enough that he just might have been able to overhear parts of the conversation.
“What’s bothering you, baby?”
I jump and turn, eyes meeting my grandmother’s. She’s sitting in a worn-out armchair, the fingers of her right hand worrying the frayed edges. The other hand is tucked into a custom brace, her fingers wrapped around a little pad to keep her from rubbing sores into her palms or from clenching the fist too tight.
There’s no way I can tell her about Dad calling me. It’ll just remind her of all the ways her son has betrayed her.
Of course she can sense my tension. I realize that, as I’ve been making her bed the way she likes, I’ve been snapping and tossing the pillows a little harder than I need to. When the aides catch me doing it, they always tell me not to bother—that it’s their job. But I know Gran likes the bottom a little looser, so it doesn’t tug so hard on her toes. And I like to make it that way for her.
“Nothing,” I say. I sit on the bed and look up to the ceiling and let out a breath. “You know how I started that new job?”
She nods—of course she knows. Following a bout of strokes, she’s lost the use of her left side, but her thoughts and speech were mercifully intact. We used to live together in Maryland while I was working with the FBI, but I just couldn’t maintain the round-the-clock care she needed. After years of a shittyMaryland care home, I moved her across the country and preemptively put her into thisverynice home in the Milwaukee area. She didn’t think we moved for fun.
