The Valentines Day Proposal

by Bella Winters

  The guard at the gate waved me in without giving me a second look, knowing exactly where I was going and who I was meeting. You didn’t get to fuck Garth Liston without everyone in his direct circle knowing, and I almost felt like a cheap hooker just thinking of that. I couldn’t believe I had let him do the things he had done to me, let alone be somewhat okay with him bragging about it. After my night with Alex, the whole history with Garth felt like a bad dream that left a nasty aftertaste in the back of my throat.

  A lot of the houses in the compound were still unoccupied, construction workers walking back and forth as they put finishing touches to them. In a couple of years, driving through here would be like taking a cruise down a posh suburban campus, with front yard wine tastings and teenagers driving with their tops down and their girlfriends on their laps. Hope Enterprises was already starting on another compound further down the main road that eventually led to the universities, and there was talk going around that they had sealed a deal to build the university dorms as well.

  All in all, this side of Kent was going to turn into a hub of drunk drivers and frat parties that would make the locals wish they could just detach themselves from the whole thing completely.

  I pulled up in front of Garth’s house, the Mustang parked in the driveway where one of his cronies was busy cleaning it. He barely looked up as I got out of my car and made my way to the front door, ringing the bell incessantly.

  “For fuck’s sake, shut up!” I heard someone call out, and that made me only ring the bell more.

  The door flew open and I stared at the angry face of Heath Collins. He immediately smiled at me. “Jenni, how are you?”

  “I’m here to see Garth,” I said, pushing past him.

  “Woah, what’s the hurry?” Heath asked, closing the door behind me and following me into the house. “Don’t have time to talk to an old friend?”

  “Where is he?” I asked, spinning on my heels and facing him.

  Heath gestured with his thumb to the second floor. “Upstairs, taking a nap,” he said. “I could keep you company while you wait.”

  “Why?” I asked, pursing my lips. “Can’t find any old men to beat up?”

  Heath winced, but his smug smile never left his face. “You heard about that, huh?”

  “I need to talk to Garth,” I said, pushing past him and climbing the stairs.

  “Always good to see you!” Heath called.

  “Fuck you!” I shot back.

  I stormed across the second-floor landing and opened the door to Garth’s room, not even bothering to knock. He was lying on his back, clad only in his boxers, snoring up a storm. His cock hung out through the front of his boxers, and I grabbed the closest piece of clothing to me and threw it on top of him.

  “Get up!” I yelled.

  Garth grunted, his eyes fluttering open as he turned to look at me in confusion. “Jenni?” he croaked, coughing to clear his voice. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “We need to talk,” I said, waiting as he stretched and yawned, turning to give me his back.

  “Come back later,” he said.

  “Now, Garth,” I pressed.

  “Whatever.”

  I grabbed him by the arm and forced him towards me. He pushed me away angrily, and jumped out of bed, the grace of his movement taking me by surprise. He grabbed my arm forcefully, squeezing so hard it hurt.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he hissed.

  I tried to wrestle free, but his grip was like a vice on my arm. “Let me go.”

  “Who gave you the fucking right to just walk in here and wake me up?” he spat. “What’s wrong, your pussy on fire or something?”

  “Let go!” I yelled, and finally pulled away.

  He glared at me, his nostrils flaring and his eyes boring into mine. “You want to talk, then talk,” he said. “Say what you have to say, then get the fuck out. I don’t have time for you.”

  “Make it,” I shot back.

  He curled his fists. “You’re really getting on my last nerve, Jenni,” he said through clenched teeth. “What do you want?”

  “That little piece of shit downstairs,” I said.

  “Heath?”

  “Yeah, him. I want you to stop standing up for him. You haven’t seen Samuel. You haven’t seen what that asshole did to him.”

  Garth shook his head in confusion. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You went to Sheriff Blake today,” I shouted at him. “You made it seem like Samuel was some raving dog and Heath needed to protect himself. You lied to the police to cover for that bastard you call a friend. I want you to stop!”

  Garth began to laugh. “Is that what this is about?” he asked. “What? Are you trying to help your new boyfriend, or does Alex need a girl to fight his battles for him?”

  “I’m not joking, Garth,” I said, pointing a finger in his face. “Turn Heath over and stop acting like a prick.”

  “Get that fucking finger out of my face.” Garth slapped my hand away, hard, then grabbed me by the neck, choking me. I gasped in surprise, scratching at his hands as I fought for breath. He pushed me back against the wall.

  “Who do you think you are?” he hissed, pushing up against me, his cock pressed against my thigh. I felt a wave of disgust wash over me. “I don’t know what Alex’s convinced you of, what he’s made you think you can do, but I know you. I know everything there is to know about you. Does he know about us? Does he know how you screamed my name when I shoved my cock in that pussy?”

  He grabbed me between my legs, and I squirmed, trying to break free. I felt his hand tighten around my neck. My head began to swim.

  “Does he know he’s getting sloppy seconds?” Garth said, his lips against my neck, making my skin crawl. “And you’re here for him? Really? Maybe I should take you right here, right now. Fuck you hard the way you like it, fill your pussy my sperm so you can go back to him with it dripping down your thighs. Who knows? Maybe that turns him on?”

  I kicked at him, but he was pressed up tight against me, and my efforts were useless.

  “Let me say this as slowly, and as clearly as I possibly can, so you get it through that thick head of yours,” he said. He pressed up against me harder, his lips against my ear. “Come here again, and I’ll fucking kill you. Then I’ll kill him. Then I’ll take that little girl of his and show her a good time before I toss her to the others just for fun. Then I’ll kill her, too.”

  He let go of me, and I fell onto my knees, gasping for breath. He took a few steps back and looked down at me with a smug smile on his face.

  “Now get the fuck out.”

  * * *

  I got into the parked car just outside the compound gates and broke into tears. I could still feel Garth’s hand around my neck, and I shuddered at the thought of how close he had come to choking me to death.

  That went horribly wrong.

  I tried to calm down, but my mind spun, and I began to worry that I had just made things worse. I had come here with the belief that I could solve all this just by standing up to Garth, but he had proven that he had no problems killing me if I got in his way. I had always known he could be aggressive, but this was a new side to him that scared the shit out of me.

  And he threatened Kelly, too. You really fucked this up.

  I slammed my hands against the steering wheel and screamed as loud as I could.

  It took me another ten minutes before I was calm enough to drive back home.

  Chapter 18: Alex

  “Her car’s here.”

  The day was quickly coming to an end, the sun setting behind us as I rolled the car to a stop in front of the house and looked at where Kelly was pointing. Sure enough, Jenni’s car was parked a bit down the road, almost out of view behind a large maple.

  I had gone directly to the hospital after my disappointing encounter with Sheriff Blake, and although my nerves were wrecked and I had the urge to punch my fist through a wall, the fact th
at my father was awake immediately turned that all around.

  They had rolled him out of the ICU into his own private room, and he had been flanked by nurses all day. Apparently, the old man still had his charm working for him, and he had become a bit of a celebrity around the hospital. Samuel Logan, standing up to the misfits of Kent and taking one for the team.

  I only wished he could have earned his popularity through anything else.

  After a flurry of questions, and my incessant questions to a doctor who had looked like he wanted nothing more than to run far, far away from me, I had finally been able to calm down and enjoy the fact that, yet again, I had Samuel and Kelly ganging up on me.

  I had called Jenni and given her the good news, fully expecting her to show up after her shift. Needless to say, we were all just a little disappointed, and I had started to worry when she had stopped answering the phone.

  “Maybe knowing grandpa’s alright made her go back to her life?”

  Kelly had looked like she was begging me to disagree, but I hadn’t really known if I could. I still held onto the hope that we would come back home and find her, probably asleep with her phone silenced.

  Which was why I let out a sigh of relief when I saw her car.

  “That’s a good sign,” I said.

  Kelly nodded, a smile creeping onto her face. She looked a lot gladder about Jenni being here than I was.

  She met us at the front door, towel in her hand, hair flowing around her face. She looked pale, her eyes bloodshot as if she had just been crying, and her shoulders sagged a bit. Nothing like the woman who had cooked breakfast and shoved us out of the house this morning.

  “You okay?” I asked, kissing her cheek as I shrugged out of my coat.

  Kelly had already made her way upstairs after giving Jenni a quick hug and a concerned look. My daughter had the good sense not to ask, though. Whatever was wrong with Jenni, it didn’t seem like something she’d be openly willing to talk about. She already looked like she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

  She attempted a smile, and it only made her look worse. “I’m fine,” she lied.

  I kissed her again and let the matter slide, for now. There would be time to talk about it later, with the door closed behind us and her lying in my arms. I kept a close eye on her, though, as we went about emptying the groceries I had bought on my way back.

  “How’s Sam?”

  “He’s doing well,” I said, smiling. “Looks better, except for the bruises and all. Besides, I think he’s actually happy he’s in the hospital. The nurses are all over him.”

  “I’m not surprised,” she said. “He’s always been a sweet talker.”

  “We missed you at the hospital.”

  She sighed and smiled weakly. “I’m feeling a bit under the weather, that’s all. Didn’t think it would make sense to show up and spread whatever it is that’s got me feeling like this.”

  “Samuel would have loved to see you,” I said.

  “I know. I’ll visit him as soon as I feel better.”

  I didn’t push, knowing that if I did, I would either make her angry, or worse, scare her away. Right now, having her around made me feel a lot better, and I didn’t want to do anything that might risk endangering that.

  “I’m sorry about what happened with Sheriff Blake,” she said, cutting through my thoughts.

  I felt a small pang of anger at the memory of this morning’s waste of time. “Yeah, well, apparently Garth Liston has a lot more pull in this town than I thought.”

  I felt her body stiffen at the mention of Garth’s name, and frowned. Before I could read any more into it, my cellphone began to buzz in my pocket, and I fished it out, Raul’s number flashing on the screen.

  “Gotta take this,” I said, leaving the kitchen and walking all the way out the front door.

  “Catch you at a bad time?” Raul asked when I answered.

  “Nah, was just about to help with dinner,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “For starters, I don’t know how you do it, but you hit a gold mine, man,” Raul said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Hope Enterprises.”

  I had completely forgotten I had asked Raul to look into that. “What did you find?”

  “Their CEO, Alexis Hope, real pile of trouble that one.”

  I leaned against the porch railing, glancing into the house to make sure I was out of earshot, and pressed Raul for more.

  “Apparently, she’s on everybody’s radar. FBI, Interpol, even MI6 is interested in her,” Raul explained. “Hope Enterprises has its name associated with a bunch of crap all over the globe.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Seemed pretty innocent.”

  “That’s just it, no one’s proven anything yet,” Raul said. “I have a contact in the FBI that swears the company deals in everything from human trafficking to money laundry. It’s just, this woman’s so damn good, she really knows how to hide her tracks.”

  I felt my stomach turn, suddenly feeling a lot worse about the company’s activities in Kent.

  “And it doesn’t stop there,” Raul said. “Apparently, one of the big cash cows is drugs, cocaine specifically. Some say this Alexis woman has ties with some of the biggest drug lords in South America.”

  “How the hell has this woman never popped up on our radar?”

  “Because the business is so decentralized, it’s like she’s not even a part of it. You got layers upon layers of people. Crime families funded by her and giving her a cut, Big names scattered all over the country. In some cities, she’s supplying rival gangs as long as they keep the peace.”

  “And no one’s been able to get anything to stick?”

  “Not yet,” Raul replied. “A few have tried, and the ones who got closest usually ended up dead or missing. But listen, the fact that her company’s fooling around in Kent makes sense.”

  “Why is that?”

  “They invest in real estate, increase the population, and then set up their illegal activities using locals. I heard a community college is supposed to be opening up over there.”

  “Yeah, they’re building one outside town, big money.”

  “Sounds about right,” Raul said. “You want to know the kicker, though?”

  “Shoot.”

  “You obviously remember how you almost got us killed in that drug bust.”

  “My leg doesn’t really let me forget,” I replied.

  “That van we pulled in was registered to a local company here in Miami, right?”

  “Small delivery store, I remember,” I said. “They had reported it stolen, didn’t they?”

  “They did,” Raul chuckled. “I looked into them when I began to realize just how diluted Hope Enterprise’s operations is. Apparently, the delivery store is part of a group of delivery companies all owned by an Italian family. Ricci or Rossi, something like that.”

  “So?”

  “One of their kids, the eldest, major shareholder, moved out to Connecticut a decade or two ago. Built a small compound in Kent, married a local girl.”

  I felt my body go numb. “Darlene Liston,” I whispered.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Raul said. “How did you know?”

  I pushed away from the railing and made my way across the porch, looking into the house and watching Jenni move about the kitchen as she prepared dinner.

  “Anyway, this guy writes off all his shares to his new wife and her son, and they inherit the whole business when he died a few years back. A year later, his wife dies, and everything goes to the kid. Hold on, I have his name here somewhere.”

  “Garth.”

  The phone went silent for a second before Raul asked, “Yeah, you know the guy?”

  “We crossed paths.”

  “Well, he runs the company now out of Connecticut, and there are enough connections between him and Hope Enterprises to make your head spin. I mean, it’s almost as if Alexis Hope is funding them personally.”

 
“You think he’s their drug player in Kent?”

  “Looks pretty much like it,” Raul replied. “What’s going on over there? You need me to book a flight in?”

  “No, that’s fine,” I said. “I got this handled. Thanks, Raul.”

  “No problem,” Raul replied. “Just enjoy your vacation, alright. We need you back here. Office is kind of lonely without you.”

  I thanked him and hung up, then walked back into the house. Jenni had some explaining to do.

  Chapter 19: Jenni

  I knew something was wrong the minute Alex stepped into the kitchen. His jaw was clenched and his eyes were cold as he glared at me.

  “I’m going to ask you a few questions, Jenni,” he said, “and I want the truth.”

  I frowned, my heartbeat suddenly accelerating, hammering in my chest. “Okay,” I said.

  “Garth Liston,” Alex started, and I felt my breath catch in my throat. “How long has he been distributing drugs in Kent?”