Ride Steady(196)

Joker felt that in his throat but only nodded again.

Tack tipped his head toward the end of the room, where there was a closet that held their massive safe. “Read. Lock it up when you’re done.”

“Yeah.”

Tack moved, clapping Joker on the shoulder as he walked out.

Joker went to the folders.

He didn’t touch the high stack.

But he read every page of the shorter one.

When he was done, he locked them away, and he didn’t do it smiling.

But he did it relieved.

Chaos had them by the balls.

But Carrie would never know.

Not unless she needed to.

And all Joker could do was hope like f*ck she never needed to.


Carissa

“Okay, this is not good,” I whispered.

I was sitting in Angie’s conference room. I was not in my tube top. I’d chickened out on the tube top.

Instead I was wearing my butterfly dress and shoes. It wasn’t casual, exactly.

What it was, was me.

But also, it was my lucky dress. I deemed it so because I thought of it as Joker’s.

A Joker who had been completely calm since all this went down, thankfully, since (until that moment) his calm had been calming me.

He was there, but he was in Angie’s office with Travis because Angie said we shouldn’t goad Aaron with his presence or make the statement that I needed backup.

Both Joker and I agreed.

So he was close but too far.

But he was close, and that was all I needed.

“No, you’re right. This is not good,” Angie muttered.

I didn’t need to look at her to know she was doing the same as me, looking through the windows of her conference room at Aaron approaching with his attorney.

And his father.

“Intimidation,” Angie said quickly, and I tore my gaze from the approaching men to look at her just as she curled her hand around my forearm resting on the table. “To you, not me,” she went on and squeezed my arm. “I got this, Carissa.”

She seemed super confident, fortunately.

So I nodded.

The men came in.

Aaron glared ice at me.

His father glared daggers.

I sat and thought thoughts of my son sitting in the grass of my backyard with butterflies drifting around him while he giggled.

It worked for me.

Leanne got the men glasses of water then sat at the end of the table with her notebook while the men settled in across from Angie and me.

“Right, let’s start,” Angie said. “I believe you received our communication of where we’d like to begin negotiations.”

Aaron glared ice at me.

His attorney opened his mouth to speak.

But it was his father who spoke.

“We’ll see you in court. My son is going for full custody. We’ll see Ms. Teodoro declared unfit. When we’re done, if she manages to get any visitation, it will be supervised.”

My insides shriveled, and slowly, I looked to my ex-husband.

He was looking at me and his look was glacial.

“It’s a shame we’ve wasted this time, then,” Angie said indifferently. “We’ll see you in court.”

“Your client should be aware that after this meeting, we’ll be contacting Child Protection Services to instigate proceedings to have my grandson extricated from a home that’s turned dangerous,” Aaron’s father stated.

My lips parted, and I slowly looked to him.

“Would you care to share the grounds you’ll be using?” Angie asked courteously.

“She can hardly not know,” Mr. Neiland replied. “However, if she’s unaware, she should know. She has a man named Peter Waite looking after my grandson. He’s a member of a motorcycle gang that’s known to be felonious, and he himself has a history of criminal activities.”

“Peter Waite,” Angie said, sounding confused. “A man known as Big Petey?”

“I don’t know what he’s known as, Angie,” Mr. Neiland said impatiently. “I just know it’s a demonstration of a serious lack of conscience to allow an infant to be looked after by a known criminal.”

“Well, Big Petey is also a man who won the Illinois lottery about nine years ago,” Angie told Aaron’s dad.

My head slowly turned to her.

She kept speaking.

“He won a good deal of money. He also gave most of it to a hospice that was, at the time, providing his ailing daughter with care. So much money, he endowed it. Sadly, his daughter passed. But his generosity has made it so hundreds of patients and their families could avail themselves of the service from this hospice, which I do believe, since his hefty donation, has won awards.”