Finally (Neighbor from Hell 12)

“Damn it,” Charlie said when she saw that her email was on the bottom of the homepage, answering one of her questions about how Kelly got her email address.

The question was, how did she find out about Dabbi Digital Marketing in the first place.

Deciding to find out, Charlie headed for the door and-

“I’m going to kill her,” she said as her phone alerted her to the fact that she’d been locked out of Bradford Creations’ Facebook page again after too many failed attempts to login.

“Wait. What the hell is going on?” Devin asked as Charlie stepped back over Bradford, who’d rolled over onto his back in the last few minutes and headed towards the backstairs.

Instead of answering him, because she honestly didn’t think that she could do it without screaming, Charlie headed upstairs and straight for the office in front of her. When she saw Kelly sitting at her desk, talking on her phone, she headed straight for her.

“Hey!” Kelly snapped in outrage when Charlie shoved her chair out of the way and grabbed the mouse, clicking open the webpage that Kelly had minimized and-

“Wait!”

Charlie slowly exhaled as she stood up and looked at the women that had been working really hard to screw her over. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked, shaking her head in disgust. “Do you have any idea what you could have done? The kind of damage you could have done?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kelly said with a defiant tilt of her head that had Charlie shaking her head in disgust again because she really just couldn’t deal with this woman.

“What’s going on?” Devin asked as he glanced at Kelly’s computer screen and-

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Charlie heard Devin snap as she headed for the door, having had more than enough for one day.

*-*-*-*

“I don’t want to talk about it,” the small woman curled up on the beanbag with a bag of donuts, said when Devin walked into the office two hours later.

“I fired her,” Devin said as he sat down on the floor next to her.

“I heard,” Charlie muttered as she absently nibbled on a donut, making him wince because he was pretty sure the whole fucking town heard him screaming his fucking head off.

He should have fired Kelly the first time that she pissed him off.

At least now he knew why she wanted Charlie’s job so badly. Apparently, Kelly started noticing how many orders were coming in. That had made her curious, so she’d checked out the website and saw how much Bradford Creations was charging for its work and decided that some of that money should find its way into her bank account.

That’s what led to the morning donut routine, because it gave her an excuse to walk around the upstairs offices, trying to find out as much as she could about Bradford Creations’ handled payments as she tried to work out a way to gain access to his accounts. It had also led to her interest in taking over Charlie’s job. She wanted access to the website because she thought it would give her access to the payments processed through the website. It wouldn’t have because they used a third-party system to process payments and he was the only one that had that password, but she didn’t know that.

“I changed all the main passwords for Bradford Creations, deleted her access to email, called the security company, and I highly recommend canceling Bradford Creations’ credit cards as well as alerting the bank just in case. I would also change the locks and the codes for the alarm panel considering her fondness for breaking into things,” Charlie mumbled sadly as she finished off her donut and reached for another one before adding, “And I found the camera.”

“That’s a good idea,” Devin mumbled in agreement as he reached over and pushed a strand of hair out of her face.

He didn’t mention that he already knew that she found the camera that Kelly hid in here since he’d watched upstairs on Kelly’s computer as Charlie tore their office apart, looking for the camera and once she found it…

He’d watched as a play of emotions had crossed her beautiful features from disbelief to the realization that someone had been watching them. He knew the moment she’d realized that all those private moments they’d shared had been stolen. Her eyes had closed as she slowly exhaled, struggling against the urge to smash the camera. Somehow, she’d managed to pull it together and carried the camera out to the shop and placed it on his workbench for the police to grab.

When he saw the live video feed of their office on Kelly’s computer screen, he’d wanted to fucking kill her.

She’d crossed so many fucking lines by placing that camera in his office and she’d apparently been doing it for a long time. He found folders containing video files for Charlie’s old office, the break-room, his shop, and the backstairs, taking away every last doubt that he had that she hadn’t known that Charlie had been hurt back in October. She’d fucking watched him carry Charlie inside with a white bandage wrapped around her foot and hadn’t been able to resist the urge to come downstairs and do a little damage.

Fucking bitch.

That’s when he’d started really yelling.

He had to give her credit, though. While he’d yelled at her, Kelly continued standing there, looking pathetic, crying softly as she told him that she didn’t know what he was talking about. That all changed when the police showed up. She’d taken one look at the officer coming to arrest her and tried to make a run for it.

That’s when Bradford reminded all of them that at one point, he’d been the top K-9 cadet in the academy until his love of snuggles got him bounced from the program. He’d blocked Kelly’s escape and fucking growled, baring his teeth while she was arrested. Bradford had more than earned a steak, Devin thought, deciding that he was going to buy him the biggest fucking steak that he could get his hands on.

“I wanna go home,” Charlie said, looking exhausted.

“I know you do, baby. I guess we could do that. I’ll have to make a few calls and cancel the appointments that I’d made for you,” he said, sighing heavily as he moved to stand up only to end up biting back a smile when Charlie said, “What appointments?”

“Well, I thought that Dabbi Digital Marketing could use a few more clients, so I made a few calls and I set some appointments up for you today, but since you’d rather go home…” Devin said, letting his words trail off.

“Appointments?” Charlie said, instantly alert as she sat up. “For Dabbi Digital Marketing?”

“Mmmhmmm, in fact, your first appointment should be here in a few minutes,” he said, chuckling when she quickly got to her feet and rushed to the other side of the office to tidy it up.

“Really? Who’s coming?” Charlie asked, looking really fucking adorable right now.

“Oh, just a few people…”

Chapter 38

1:00 P.M.

“This just isn’t going to work for me,” Lucifer, the very large man that owned Fire & Brimstone, an incredibly popular restaurant that was set to reopen in a month, said with a heavy sigh and a firm shake of his head.

“What’s not going to work?” Charlie couldn’t help but wonder, mostly because they hadn’t even started yet.

Instead of answering her, he simply pu

shed his chair back with another sigh, walked around her desk, and-

Had her jumping out of her chair and stumbling back when he gestured for her to move. With another sigh and a muttered, “This is going to require a trip to The Container Store,” he took over her freshly vacated chair and began…organizing?

Not really sure how to react, Charlie glanced over at his wife to find Rebecca shrugging as she took her time selecting a Hershey Kiss from the large Ziplock bag resting on her lap with a mumbled, “He’s disturbed.”

“Okay,” Charlie said, not really sure how to react as she watched Lucifer pause in reorganizing the pencil holder that Dustin made for her in art class to glare at his wife.

That somehow led him to sighing heavily as he took in the kids play area and muttered, “Definitely going to need a trip to The Container Store,” before returning his attention to organizing her pens.

Charlie shifted her attention back to his wife only to frown when she spotted Devin standing in the shop next to T.J., laughing his ass off. She felt herself relax as she watched him, relieved that he no longer looked like he wanted to kill something with his bare hands.

Thank god Kelly didn’t have a clue what she was doing, otherwise…

Charlie didn’t even want to think about the kind of damage that she could have done.

There was a heavy sigh and then, “Please tell me that you really didn’t mix black and blue pens together,” came the complaint that had Charlie looking back over her shoulder to find Lucifer shaking his head in disgust as he gave up trying to sort her pens and dumped them on the desk.

That led her to glancing back at Devin to find the bastard laughing harder.

Normally, she wouldn’t do this sort of thing, but…

“If you think my desk is bad, you should see Devin’s workbench. I honestly don’t know how he gets anything done in that mess,” Charlie said with a sad shake of her head as she watched Lucifer frown as he glanced towards Devin’s shop.