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Could’ve been a nightmare.
“What did you hope to accomplish when you came here today?” Sunny asked, surprising me.
Bikes pulled up outside, and I knew that the word had gotten out to the boys that something had gone down at my place.
I smirked at the sight of them filling my hallway seconds later.
“I, uh, I…” Ellen dropped her head to her chest. “I don’t know. I was just so angry. And didn’t think.”
“I think she would’ve hurt me if you hadn’t come home,” Mattie whispered. “She was ranting and raving about you. About me. About everything that had gone wrong in her life. About how she couldn’t find a job anywhere in town anymore because she’d been labeled as a person who hated people with disabilities.”
“I have!” she cried out, obviously overhearing some of what Mattie had said. “Everyone that I know knows now, too! They’re talking about me everywhere. I can’t find a job because they think that I’m not politically correct enough. That I’m going to piss off some random person that is vital to their customer base or something. I’ve been turned down for a job at the Laundromat, for Christ’s sake!”
That was funny.
But it was also one of those “you reap what you sow” things.
She shouldn’t have treated Matilda like that if she didn’t want the backlash to hit her where it hurt.
“Come on,” Sunny said. “It’s time to go down to the station and check out your new home. It being a holiday weekend means that you’re there at least until Tuesday.”
“I’ll drop the lawsuit!” she cried. “I don’t have money to pay for a lawyer.”
Then she was gone, being marched right past Kobe, KD, and Cassius.
“Okay,” I heard said. Alice. “I think that I’m missing something. I was supposed to show up for a shift, not a show.”
Alice appeared, looking around with wide eyes that clearly showed her interest.
“Shut up,” I heard Ellen reply.
“Alice,” Cassius growled.
That’s when I heard a shuffle.
I turned toward the hallway just in time to see Ellen kick out toward Alice.
Alice would’ve moved, but Cassius had done it for her.
He picked her up and bodily moved her out of Ellen’s reach.
Ellen was forced out of the house, and then the rest of the men in my club were staring at me.
“What happened?” Kobe asked.
I scrubbed my hands down my face. “I’m a dumbass and should’ve gotten a home security system from you before some psycho walked into my house and knocked my girlfriend out.”
Kobe grunted out an “I’ll get on it today” and left.
Cassius was saying something to Alice in the corner.
KD was looking from me to Matilda to the shit show going on in the corner of my kitchen and back.
“So what did we miss?” he asked.
Matilda disappeared from view, coming back only after I’d explained to KD, and eventually Cassius, what had happened this morning. And yesterday morning with the papers that’d been served.
Matilda came back dressed for work.
“What are you doing?” I asked curiously.
She reached out and plucked KD’s shirt out, then started to rub it between her two fingers.
It was only after about a minute of this she let go and declared, “Going to work! It’s my last day, then we’re opening our clinic. Be there or be square.”
Then she was gone, and I was left looking at her go.
“Your girl’s got some gumption.” Alice declared. “What do you need me to do today? I can get started right away.”
Then it was business as usual.
Later that night, only after we’d had dinner, did we get some really great news.
One, they’d processed Ellen for multiple criminal offenses, she’d copped to all of them, and she’d dropped the lawsuit.
Two, Matilda’s stepbrothers and stepmother had left the country. Indefinitely. Oh, and their suit had been dropped, too.
We celebrated by having Chinese food and watching a sappy Hallmark movie.
Well, she watched it. I browsed wedding rings and showed her the ones that I thought she might like.
She didn’t like any of them.
CHAPTER 18
Karma bus delayed due to high demand. Don’t worry. It’s coming.
-Matilda’s secret thoughts
ETIENNE
“Where are you?”
It’d been three days since the break-in, and Diana and Matilda had hit the ground running on their clinic.
Today was their first official day open, and I was seriously impressed with the amount of business they had going on.
I was supposed to be there to fix up the little things on their punch-out list, yet their clinic had been so damn busy that I hadn’t been able to do but a few things seeing as they’d been using the majority of the clinic.
Which led me to now.
It was six o’clock, and the clinic was now in after-hours mode.
As in, only if you wanted to pay out the nose did you come in with your animal unless it was an emergency.
“Babe!” I called out again. “Matt, come out, come out, wherever you are!”
