Bailout (Out of the ATL Book 1)

by Kimbra Swain

  I thought she was exactly the marrying type. In fact, as I looked through the long articles online about her, it seemed all she needed was a husband. I stopped swaying when I realized the thought that had crossed my mind. That’s it. I’d been looking at her as a potential wife. Not for myself, but for anyone. She didn’t want that. She wanted to be her own person. She told me as much when she talked about climbing the ladder at Pyramid.

  “Ask about me,” I suggested.

  “I already know a lot about you,” she said.

  “Yes, but none of it you learned from me,” I countered.

  She nodded her head. “You are right. I apologize. It’s just how I conduct business. I like to know everything I can know. For the most part, I know a lot about you already.”

  “Hm, boxers or briefs?” I asked.

  She laughed. “Boxers.”

  “Blondes or brunettes?”

  “Blondes,” she smiled.

  “What’s my favorite meal?”

  “The lobster pasta at Serafina,” she said. I blinked.

  “How do you know that!?”

  “It was a guess. I saw you there last week with Kelly. It’s what you ordered with Chardonnay,” she said.

  “I didn’t see you there!” I exclaimed.

  “You weren’t looking, I guess,” she said.

  “But you were?” I asked.

  She grimaced. “Well, not exactly, but I have a photographic memory, so it was easy to dig it up when my assistant asked me about seeing you at the restaurant. Even if I don’t lock on to something, I can remember it.”

  “That’s impressive as hell. Helpful in business, too,” I said. “How do you remember it all?”

  “I had to learn to store it. Just a technique that a shrink taught me,” she said.

  “You went to a shrink?” I asked wary of crazy bitches.

  She laughed again. “No, I dated one.”

  “Well, of course! My bad,” I laughed. “Alexa, why didn’t you just approach me? We could have been friends.”

  “Could have?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “Could be,” I corrected myself.

  “I contacted you requesting a lunch. That’s when I asked my assistant to find out your favorite place for lunch, but you never called back. I’m not in the habit of chasing anyone,” she said. “I can be prideful and arrogant, just like you. I just assumed you would want to have lunch with me before we met in the boardroom.”

  “No, it makes sense. I never read email. I’ve got a lot of shortcomings when it comes to business. I know I need to lock in and really try to save Bright. It’s just been very overwhelming,” I admitted to her.

  “I’d like for us to work together to save Bright,” she said.

  The music ended as we stood there together. An evil thought crossed my mind. She’d taken my company without blinking, but here she was groveling. I intended to get to the bottom of it. If I agreed to work with her, it would give me the opportunity to get into her good graces. I could turn the tables on her. Instead of her destroying me, I could expose her for the weak fool that she was. “I will work with you,” I said.

  “Really?” she seemed genuinely pleased, and I pushed back a pang of guilt.

  “Yeah, I want to save the company,” I said because I did.

  The door to the club opened and one of her hulking brothers stepped in the door. “Lexy, we have to go. Right now.”

  “Sebastian, what’s wrong?” she asked pulling away from my arms. He leered at me, and something inside of me cringed. He wanted to beat my face in for touching her. I heard the squeal of tires.

  “Too late. Get down,” he yelled as a gun erupted outside showering the club with bullets. I dove toward her pushing her to the floor. I landed on top of her and covered her head. The tires squealed again. They were turning around for a second pass.

  Twelve

  ALEXA

  “They are coming back! Hurry, behind the bar,” my brother said pushing Jamey off of me.

  We rushed to the cover of the bar when gunfire pierced the air again. Behind the bar, I crouched as Sebastian covered my body with his. Everything got quiet and somewhere in the distance, I heard sirens wail. I stared at Jamey whose eyes were locked with mine. I felt the panic attack surging in on me. I tried to suppress it. I closed my eyes tightly as my breath grew short and rapid. He moved over to me.

  “She’s having a panic attack,” he told Sebastian who still huddled over me with his gun out. He looked down at me as my hands flexed open and close.

  “Lexy, not now. You can’t do this now,” Bastian said looking me in the eye.

  “I can’t. Help. It,” I managed to choke out as the panic rippled in my chest. It had almost been a year since I’d had one.

  “Look at me,” Jamey ordered.

  “Leave her alone,” Sebastian said pushing him away from me.

  “No, I can bring her out of it. My sister used to have them,” he said reaching for my shoulder.

  My chest heaved painfully. “I said, don’t touch her,” my brother growled at him. I tried concentrating on anything except the gunfire, the dust particles floating around us and the piercing green eyes of Jamey Elliot. My body shook, and I just didn’t have any control over it. My stone exterior crumbled right in front of the man that I needed to see me as unmovable.

  “Hey,” he said cupping my cheeks in his hands, ignoring the rumble of frustration emanating from my brother. They were warm. Soft for a man. “What’s my name?”

  “Mr. Elliot,” I choked out. Clasping my fists at my chest, my heart pounded into my ribs rattling pain across my body. My fists held tight to the point of causing my forearms to scream in pain.

  “Nope. Try again,” he smiled, but the worry touched his eyes.

  I gritted my teeth and spouted, “Jamey.” The room started to spin as my heart pounded and I gasped for breath.

  He smiled. “Nope. Try again,” he said.

  “I don’t…get…it,” I sputtered barely hanging on.

  “Rat bastard,” he said. “My name is Rat Bastard.”

  I huffed a laugh as the panic began to subside. “Bastard,” I managed to eke out.

  “Yeah, see, you know it’s true,” he laughed still holding my cheeks.

  “It is. I agree,” I said almost plainly. “Kellan.”

  “Kellan is here?” Sebastian asked.

  Jamey nodded. “He went in the back. Go check. I’ve got her.”

  “Thank you,” I muttered.

  He released my cheeks and pushed my hair behind my ears. Grabbing a bar towel, he wiped my cheeks. “My sister used to do it all the time. I was the only one that could bring her back.”

  “Where did you learn to do that?”

  “Shrink,” he said.

  “You dated one too?” I laughed uneasily. My arms and chest ached with soreness.

  “No, it was my sister’s shrink,” he said lowering his eyes.

  I put my hands over my mouth realizing the truth. “I’m sorry, Jamey.”

  “It’s okay. She had her demons. Most of us do. Her demons won,” he said sadly. In all my research, I never came across the mention of a sibling. Much less one that had committed suicide.

  Kellan and Sebastian returned from the back room. Kellan whined about the holes in the front wall and the broken glass. The police arrived and asked a ton of questions. Sebastian finally convinced them to let me go home. As we exited the bar, a familiar face climbed out of an unmarked car.

  “Lexy!” Garrett called out to me.

  “Hi,” I muttered as he rushed up and embraced me. It felt so good to have his familiar comforting arms wrapped around me. There were times when I wondered why in the world I ever let him go.

  “Dear God, what happened?” he asked holding me tight to him.

  “Drive by,” Sebastian said.

  “Who are you?” he asked Jamey.

  “I’m a business partner,” Jamey responded.

  Pushing away from his chest, �
��Detective Garrett Shepherd, this is Synclair James Elliot, head of Bright Technologies.”

  “Oh, the bailout,” Garrett said. “I saw it on the news.”

  Jamey groaned. “I should get going. We can finish our talk tomorrow.”

  “Um, okay. Are you alright?” I asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said.

  “You have my number, right?” I asked.

  He waved me off. “Yeah, Alexa, I’m fine. Talk to you tomorrow. Go home and rest.”

  “What the hell?” Garrett asked.

  “Are you here officially?” I asked him.

  “No, I heard your name on the scanner,” he said. Great. That means there would be reporters crawling this area before long.

  “We gotta go,” I told Sebastian. He took me by the arm, but Garrett protested.

  “Let me drive her home,” he said.

  “She’s not any safer with you, Shep. No offense,” Sebastian said.

  “Very well. I’ll follow,” he said.

  “You don’t have to,” I replied.

  He touched my cheek where I knew he had to see the tracks of tears. “I know,” he said.

  Sebastian guided me toward his car parked across the street. He practically pushed me into the front seat. He circled the car only holstering his weapon at the last moment. He was allowed to keep it with the cops because of his private investigator status. As he slid into the driver’s seat, he glared at me.

  “I know,” I said.

  “We will talk about it at home,” he said.

  “What the fuck were you thinking?” Sebastian growled. He and Damien both paced in the kitchen of the townhouse. Charity stood behind them at the counter with her arms crossed.

  “I went to talk to Kellan. I had no idea that Elliot was there!” I protested.

  Garrett entered from the front room. “It has the signature of the Mexican cartel. Have you crossed ties with them lately?”

  “No, I steer clear of Abrego and his crew. We track their business moves so that we don’t interfere with them. I have no desire to tie up with the likes of Abrego,” I said.

  “Well, there were only three people there, that means they were shooting at one of you,” Garrett said.

  “Perhaps your Mr. Elliot has a deal with them,” Sebastian said.

  “First, he’s not my Mr. Elliot. Secondly, I found no evidence of anything with Bright and the cartel. I’ve been over all the financials.” I thought back over my notes. I’d looked at everything from Bright’s financials for the past ten years. Every single deal. I flexed my fingers on my hand. I’d balled my fists during the panic attack. My hands were sore from the constant tightening of muscles. Garrett sat down next to me and grabbed one of my hands. He started massaging it without saying a word. He knew about my panic attacks. He knew I must have had one.

  “The four liquidations,” Charity said.

  “Fuck,” I replied remembering that we couldn’t trace the money with the four liquidations that Bright conducted recently with Mr. Elliot in charge.

  “And a bunch of bad tablets with tracking technology,” Damien added.

  I took a deep breath. Perhaps I was very wrong about Mr. Elliot. I knew he was in over his head, but mixing it up with the cartel was beyond what I thought was the depth of his desperation. We would have to clear it up tomorrow. I was all in now. If that meant that we had to take on the Mexican mafia, so be it. It was too late to back out.

  Garrett switched hands, and I allowed him to do it. I watched Sebastian eyeing him. No one commented on the intimate touch because he approved of Garrett. They were best friends. My cell phone rang in my purse. Sebastian answered it.

  “Hello,” he said. He listened to the voice on the other end. It was definitely male. He held his hand over the phone and said, “It’s Javier.”

  I reached for the phone, and answered, “Hello, Javier.”

  “I hate to bother you this evening. I’ve seen the news reports. Without alarming you, I’ve seen these tactics before with the Abrego cartel. I was concerned,” he said.

  “Thank you for calling, Javier. How do you know it’s the Abrego cartel?” I asked as if we weren’t already on that track.

  “My brother is in the cartel. Our family disowned him. It shames me to speak of it, but I’ve seen the way they go after a target. If they are after you Alexa, they won’t stop until you are dead,” he said.

  “Javier, thank you so much for your concern. My brothers are here as well as Detective Shepherd. I am quite safe,” I said.

  “You may be now, but they will find a way. See you in the morning,” he said, cutting off the call abruptly.

  “Goodnight, Javier,” I said hanging up. “His brother is in the cartel. He says the shooting was a cartel tactic.”

  “We already knew that,” Damien said.

  “Yes, but we didn’t know that one of our employees had such a close connection to the cartel. Javier is the one that found the tracking on the tablets. Perhaps the cartel, Elliot, and the tablets are connected,” I said. “I’ll convince Javier to have lunch with me tomorrow. Maybe he knows something he’s afraid to tell. Perhaps the tracking on the tablets had some sort of signature and he hid it for his brother’s sake.”

  “He better not have,” Damien said.

  “Easy there, Bro,” Sebastian said.

  “What? He’s covering the tracks of the cartel within the business! I’d say that is pretty bad,” Damien replied.

  “We don’t know any of that. Yet,” I said.

  “I’m taking Charity home,” Damien said.

  “Stay with her,” I instructed.

  She blushed. “Already planned on it,” he replied.

  “I’m going to get a shower. You staying for a while, Shep?” Sebastian asked.

  “Yes. Alexa and I need to talk,” he said still holding my hand, but not massaging it anymore.

  After Sebastian left, Shep got up and pulled me to the living room. We used to curl up on the couch and watch television. Well, sometimes we’d watch television. He assumed that familiar position, pulling me to his body on the couch. I needed it, so I relaxed into his arms.

  “When did you have the attack?” he asked softly as his breath passed through my hair.

  “It started after the first round of bullets. I couldn’t hold it back. It’s been over a year since I had one,” I said.

  “You come out of it by yourself?” he asked.

  “No, Mr. Elliot pulled me out of it,” I admitted. He squeezed his arms around me possessively.

  When Shep and I were dating, I did see him as a potential husband. He’s everything a woman could want. Strong, assertive, truthful and faithful. I knew we were headed toward marriage. He had done everything right, but it wasn’t what I wanted. Part of me did. I won’t deny that settling down had an appeal. But the drive to do more with my parent’s business propelled me forward. I would have been a terrible wife trying to do both, so I turned him down.

  “How did he do that exactly?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “He said his sister used to have them,” I said not revealing everything that Jamey told me. I shifted uneasily in his arms. As much as I wanted the comfort my brain wouldn’t allow me to enjoy it because I didn’t want him to think it was more than it was.

  “Just sit still. I’m holding you. Not asking you to marry me,” he said. He knew me so well. Too well.

  “I hate you sometimes,” I said.

  “I know,” he said. “But it’s the truth. Just relax for a minute. You got shot at today, honey. No harm in letting a friend comfort you.”

  “Is that what we are? Friends?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he said. “I know why you ran. No matter how hard I try. I can’t hate you for it.”

  I relaxed and pressed into him. He stroked my hair, and before I realized, I was asleep in his arms.

  Thirteen

  JAMEY

  My alarm went off at 5 a.m. I’m not sure what I thought I was doing setting it that early, b
ut I wanted to get a shower and get to the office as fast as I could. I started a pot of coffee, then slipped into the shower. The warm water rushed over my head, and I relaxed for a moment. I’d slept tense causing all my muscles to ache.

  I hoped that the shooting was random. Abrego and his crew were adamant that I keep my promises to them, but I wasn’t in control anymore. Alexandra Malone was. Perhaps he thought I would renege on our deal. If so, I needed to either tell her or resolve myself to be the cause of not only my death but probably hers, too. I gave into her, in order to get to know her. To destroy her. But even then, I didn’t want her dead.

  Then she had the panic attack. The wild look in her eyes reminded so much of Hailey. I missed her so much. She was the light of my life. A seventeen-year-old bundle of energy that got mixed up with the wrong crowd. Strung out on drugs, I found her one night in a club in downtown Atlanta. She was only fifteen then. Her naked body laid on a bed in a VIP room. I wrapped my suit coat around her and hauled her to my home in the mountains where she detoxed. But the wild bent she’d been on damaged her soul. The panic attacks were frequent. Father told me to deal with it. He stayed in Atlanta while I tried to get her sober and sane.

  When we returned to Atlanta, she went right back to the same crowd. The drugs and sex. Father disowned her for all the trouble she was causing. I dragged her out of the clubs over and over. Until one day, she didn’t come out. She overdosed in the back of one of the hell holes. She was barely cold in the grave when Father died in the car accident. I could hardly function, much less run a company.

  My bender was a streak of one-night-stands. I was lucky not to have caught some sort of disease. I’d turned down plenty of women once I got them back to my place, but there were just as many that I fucked.

  I stepped out of the shower and wiped off the mirror. The stubble on my face was too long to be considered distinguished, so I prepped my face shaving it cleanly. Staring at myself in the mirror, I said, “You decide now. Either you are going to make Alexandra Malone pay for stealing your company, or you are going to work with her to save it. You have to decide now.”