Well, here’s one person even madder at me than Geoff.
I’m guessing Red didn’t like finding Olivia gone the morning after my wedding performance. And I’m getting the feeling she might not have appreciated the Monday meeting invite my team of killer attorneys sent to her email address.
Or maybe she’s just pissed off because she’s been made to wait in a basement conference room at the AudioNation headquarters ever since showing up exactly at the appointed time for this meeting. I think that was two hours ago. Maybe three?
Anyway, she flies at me as soon as I walk into the room with my law team right behind me.
“You bastard!” she cries out, slapping my face. “Where is she? Where is my daughter?”
Last time I saw Red, she had on a pretty dress and makeup with her braids done up in a classic bun.
Forget makeup. Now she’s wearing a jersey pajama set—maybe the same one she went to sleep in when I lulled her into a false sense of security back in Kentucky. She looks frantic and on edge. Her skin is patchy, and her eyes are bloodshot—like she’s spent the entire thirty-six hours since I saw her last crying.
Good. Seeing her wrecked like this is worth all the bridges I had to burn with Phantom Zhang and the Fairgoods to put this plan in motion. She never showed up like she said she would that New Year’s Eve. I searched for her for years, and she actively hid both herself and our daughter from me.
So, I let her slap at me and scream bloody murder for a few moments.
Then I coldly catch her by the wrists and ask my lawyers, “Should we add physical violence and name-calling to the list?”
The two lawyers have two different last names and aren’t related, as far as I can tell. But they look like they might be thirty- and fifty-year-old clones of the same dour-faced man.
“We can add it to the bad character evidence, yes,” Friedman, the older lawyer, answers. He nods at the younger clone, Diaz, who pulls out an iPad to make a note.
Some of the righteous fury fades from Red’s expression, and she seems to see the lawyers for the first time.
“What is this?” she asks.
“A custody negotiation,” I answer. “Now sit down.”
Her eyes flash, just like they did back then at the cabin.
And my dick responds like a Pavlovian dog, filling with lead. This power she still has over me…
Self-disgust rolls my stomach, even as I coldly add, “Or you can keep on hitting me and give us even more shit to use against you.”
I’m aware Red did everything in her power to not have to take this meeting.
Jenni’s been trying her damnedest to rehab my reputation and have me play nice for the media. But I’m still a Reaper by instinct. When I moved to Vegas to take my position at AudioNation, I set up a shadow team of lawyers, criminal connections, and dirty cops, and I never let them go, no matter how scrubbed up my image got.
Red has her own powerful connections, and she’s been attempting to get me arrested for taking Olivia across state lines before the official meeting. So, my shadow team has been worked to the brink, keeping this situation out of the news and off official police reports.
It was a nuisance, for sure. But I’m grateful now. Blocking all her countermoves and wearing her down with a multi-hour wait must have worked.
The fight eventually disappears from her eyes, and she sinks into a seat on the other side of the small conference table.
Speaking of which. “You can go,” I say to the head of security. “We’ve got it from here.”
He quietly leaves, and Red watches with wary eyes as the lawyers and me take a seat on the other side of the big table. Us against her.
“What’s this all about?” she asks.
I let the lawyers answer.
“Mr. Latham has had us draw up a custody agreement regarding the ongoing care of the child he fathered,” Friedman answers.
“Wait, you’re trying to sue me for custody? That’s what this is all about? Why didn’t you just ask?” She turns to shake her head at me. “I would have been reasonable. You don’t just kidnap a little girl.”
I delight in watching her squirm and protest. Like a kid holding a magnifying glass to an ant.
And Friedman just keeps going like she didn’t say anything. “You should know, while looking over this contract, that Mr. Latham’s terms are final and non-negotiable.”
With that said, Diaz slides a thin sheath of paper across the table to her.
She takes the contract with trembling hands. And her expression enflames as she reads over it. “You want main custody? And I’ll only be able to see O2 one weekend every other month and on one holiday?”