“She’s giving up.”Holt laced his fingers behind his head and paced another tight circuit of Brax and Mia’s living room. He needed to do something. Preferably something that would eliminate the threat Cayla’s ex-husband posed. Permanently.
“Okay, you look about two steps away from a berserker rage. Maybe you ought to start at the beginning now that we’re all here,” Brax said evenly.
With the part of his brain that wasn’t currently plotting Raynor’s demise, Holt appreciated his friends’ rapid response to the SOS he’d sent out. Jonah sat in the armchair, elbows braced on his knees. Brax and Mia occupied the sofa, sitting thigh-to-thigh, as they often did since reconciling. As if, after all those lost years, they couldn’t bear to be even that far apart if they were in the same space.
He’d found that with Cayla and damned if he was willing to give it up.
Sucking in a breath, Holt struggled to get a lock on his temper. This wasn’t him. He was trained to stay in control. To remain emotionally numb. Objective. But there wasn’t a part of him that had been emotionally numb since the moment Maddie had kissed his bad knee above the prosthesis to make the boo boo better. And he hadn’t been truly objective since he’d said, “I do.” They’d both gotten under his skin and well into his heart.
“The bastard called her this afternoon, after we jumped through all the hoops to report the latest fraud for both her and Maddie. He’s basically given her an ultimatum: she comes back to him and brings Maddie, or he continues to expand his reign of terror, indiscriminately financially ruining everyone she touches.”
“Wait, did he actually say that?” Jonah demanded.
“He alluded to it, but the message was clear enough. And Cayla believes him.”
“She’s not actually going to go back to him,” Mia insisted. “She’d never do that.”
“No. But I’ve never seen her like this before. It’s bad. I don’t know what she might do—what the guilt and the desperation might drive her to.” He speared both hands into his hair and tugged. “I swore I’d protect them both, and I’ve failed.”
“Man, it’s more complicated than that,” Brax put in.
“No, it’s not. This was the mission I gave myself, and it’s gone all kinds of sideways. He came at us in ways I wasn’t prepared for. And the consequences for that oversight may be our business and my family.”
If they were surprised at the claim, no one voiced it. Because this was no longer a mission. No longer pretend. This was his life. His wife. His child. And he didn’t know what to do to save them all.
Mia sat forward. “Have you two spoken to an attorney yet? Does he actually have a case for winning custody?”
“We don’t know. We haven’t gotten that far yet. We’ve got a meeting with somebody in Johnson City tomorrow.”
“I think I can get you an answer tonight. Let me call Maggie.”
Holt frowned. “Porter’s wife? I thought she did something with running the small business incubator thing.”
“She does. But she’s also an Ivy-League-educated attorney. She doesn’t have an active legal practice in Tennessee, but she could at least give the opinion of a trained legal professional.”
The cool-eyed blonde showed up fifteen minutes later. “How can I help?”
Holt took her through it with considerably more calm and less profanity, explaining the whole situation: how Raynor was out of prison, how that had prompted Holt and Cayla to get married, all Raynor’s suspected illegal activities, and how he was suing for full custody. “Does he really have a case?”
“Do you have the paperwork with you?”
“Not on me. I can get it. We just live a little down the street.”
“I can’t make any definitive claims without reading it, but I will say that this is just the initial petition. You and Cayla will respond to the claims, and that opens up a dialogue of sorts—mostly through your attorneys—until both sides mutually agree on terms or a court date is set. Even if your financial situation is problematic, it’s been documented that you’ve been victims of fraud. That isn’t necessarily a black mark for you. I mean, of course, it’s awful that you’re having to go through it, but it’s not an automatic mark in his favor. The fact is, in most cases, judges will side with the mother. He’d have to show evidence proving abuse or profound neglect to wrangle full custody. That’s simply not going to happen. You’re both active, engaged, loving parents, and there are many, many people who’d testify to that fact. Whether he has a case to push for some sort of visitation rights, I can’t say. But I think that’s the worst you have to fear regarding a custody suit.”
A little of the crazed fear leeched out. “Okay. Thank you.” Holt let out a slow breath. “So, what are we supposed to do about the rest of it? Cayla’s resigned. She feels like nobody is going to be able to stop this fucker. Everybody who was supposed to protect her has failed. Including me. I’m this close to hunting his ass down and finding a deep, dark hole to hide the body.”
Maggie covered her ears. “I didn’t hear that.” She moved toward the door. “I’m getting out of here so I can retain plausible deniability. I’ve got to go pick up Faith from daycare, anyway.”
“Thank you for coming. It gives me a little more peace of mind over all this.”
She laid a hand on his arm and offered a sympathetic smile. “Anytime. I hope all this gets straightened out soon.”
“You and me both.”
Once she was gone, Brax stood. “Raynor doesn’t have much of a custody case, so he’s using a form of psychological warfare to press other points of leverage. An emotional terrorist trying to break her down on every level.”
Holt resumed his pacing. “He’s just going to keep at it until the cops catch him, or until somebody beats him at his own game.”
Jonah rose to join him. “Okay, so let’s think that through. What is his game? What does he want?”
“Control. Power. He’s the kind of guy who enjoys playing God. Manipulating everybody around him. He thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room. And that’s not entirely without merit or he wouldn’t have pulled off what he has. But the guy’s not infallible. The more people he targets, the more likely he is to make some kind of mistake.”
“So, how do we get him to make that mistake?” Brax asked.
Holt stopped pacing, the fragments of a plan beginning to coalesce in his brain. “We make him think he’s getting what he wants.”
Mia frowned. “How do we do that?”
“We think like he does.” He grabbed his phone. “I need to make some calls.”