Page 5 of Wreckage of Me
“My father has been trying to get rid of me,” I sigh and sag in the chair. It feels like such a relief to finally say the words out loud to others. “Him finding out that Ethan wasn’t his only spurred him on to get him. He’s also mentioned this being a revenge against my mother.”
I watch in fascination as Devereaux’s dark eyes get a dangerous glint in them at the mention of my mother and her part in all this. I will need to get to the bottom of it all. Later.
“He thinks that eliminating me would drop Ethan in his lap since he and my mom would get custody of him as my next of kin. I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want him to have access to the birth certificate no matter what connections he has. And he’s got some powerful ones,” I make sure to add.
“No way he’s got more connections than we do,” the attorney chuckles over the line.
“Don’t underestimate him,” I insist. I’m sure that my life became the shit show it currently is because I underestimated him.
“I assure you that I do not, Mr. Knight,” the attorney’s stern voice comes through the speaker. “And I can also assure you thathewill be underestimatingus. I can guarantee you that,” he chuckles. That’s followed by my new friend here, who is also the mastermind behind this crazy operation I’ve suddenly become a part of, also chuckling. It surprises me. He doesn’t seem the type.
“Okay,” I concede. “So what’s the next step?”
“I am going to draw up all the legal paperwork giving your brother rights over your son in every way but actual adoption. The birth certificate will be sealed, and nothing but an act of God will be able to unseal it,” he assures me.
I nod in understanding, my eyes never wavering from the cell phone sitting on the desk. We’re all quiet for a few moments, with me mulling things over, and the rest of them just staring at me as we all listen to the attorney typing on his keyboard on his end.
“Will you want to get your mother out of there at some point?” Mr. Devereaux breaks our moment of silence.
“Yes, that would be ideal.” I tap my fingers on the armrest of the chair, willing my brain to come up with some sort of genius idea that would make all this a lot easier.
“She’ll have to stay there for a few months after we get the boy out,” the attorney chimes in. “We’ll get her out, but it’ll take a little longer. It’s easy with the kid since you have legal say over him. And if what you told us about your father is true, she may end up dead if we just extract her from there.”
I hate that for my mom, but I don’t have a choice, and I can only hope she’ll understand one day. On the other hand, given what an ass I’ve been to her, this should not surprise her at all.
“Sounds good,” I agree.
We spend the next twenty solid minutes hammering down more details on transferring Ethan’s legal guardianship to Wyatt.
“Fuck,” I realize with a start.
“Problem?” Mr. Devereaux raises his eyebrow at me.
“Fuck yes. How am I gonna get him to Wyatt if I’m supposedly in jail awaiting my trial on murder charges?”
“Can your mother take him to Illinois?” Malone, who’s been quiet all this time, chimes in from his corner of the room.
“My father would not allow it. Fuck!” I want to put my fist through the wall, and the pressure I’m applying to my molars is going to leave me with no teeth.
“Do you have a way of contacting her without him knowing?”
“Shortie.” I say it like it explains everything, and it does in this situation since we all seem to be in the know about Shortie’s talents.
“Sounds good enough to me,” our master of operations approves of my plan. “We’ll contact him a little later. In the meantime,” he eyes me knowingly, “we need to figure out Rebecca.”
I find it very unsettling that he calls her Rebecca instead of Becca like everyone else seems to.
“What about her?” I eye him suspiciously. I don’t understand what Becca would have with any of this. She is not a part of my life, so why should she be a problem?
“She is on your father’s radar.” I hate the way my heart starts slamming in my chest at this piece of information. “He’ll use her to hurt you.”
“How do you know?”
“Mr. Knight, I’ve done my homework before putting all the wheels in motion. Finding out every little detail was part of it,” he stands up and starts pacing the room in long, easy strides, hands crossed at his back, looking even more imposing than when I first stepped foot into this room almost twelve hours ago.
“I know that my father had found out about Becca when I met with her before, but that was months ago. How would he know about her now?” I question. “He didn’t even know that I was coming here. He set me up for a murder I didn’t commit in the town that’s forty-five minutes away from the club, unaware that I was more thanfive hoursaway.”
“True, true,” my, I don’t even know what to call him, handler maybe, agrees with what I just said. “But while he didn’t keep track of you this weekend, he did keep track of her. He knew she was coming back to Texas.”
