30DaystoSyn (45 page)

“Why are you here?” she repeated. “Did he
send you to get the check back because if he did…”

“He doesn’t know I’m here,” he said. “And
I’m here for answers, Lina. I think you owe us answers.”

“Excuse me?” she said, beginning to get
angry. “How is it I owe
you
answers? It would have been nice if someone
had warned me not to get close to him, not to let myself have feelings for him.
If one of you had told me not to get invested in him it wouldn’t have been so
bad at the end.”

“Feelings for him?” Jonny questioned.
“That’s rich, you completely devastate the poor bugger and then sit there and
tell me you have feelings for him?”

“
Me
devastate
him
?” she
snapped. “What about me?”

“What about you?” he sneered. “You got what
you signed up for didn’t you? You got the fucking money!”

She shot up from the chair and stormed to
the kitchen. Sweeping the pieces of the check into her palm, she intended to
take them back to the living room but when she turned around he was standing in
the doorway to the kitchen.

“Here’s your fucking check!” she said and
threw the pieces in his face.

He looked down at the paper on the floor,
stared at it, and then leveled his gaze on her. “You tore up the check?”

“Pick it up and get the hell out of here,”
she said. “I don’t want anything more to do with him or the rest of you
deceitful bastards.”

“Deceitful bastards?” he echoed. “What is
that supposed to mean?”

“One of you should have told me about the
other girls,” she said. She put distance between them by going to stand beside
the stove. “Oh, I knew he had other women but it would have been nice to know
about the clones before I let myself think about a life with him.”

He blinked. “A life with him?”

“Yeah, stupid huh?” she snapped. “Idiotic,
naïve Southern girl who bought his entire line of shit, who let herself fall in
love with a prick who has mommy issues. Tell me, did any of the clones know
about the ones before her?”

“Clones?” he questioned. “What the hell are
you talking about? What clones?”

“All the women who look like Mommy
Dearest!” she yelled. “Those other eight girls with long brown hair and green
eyes like Olivia’s! All the women he gave money to so he could bust their
cherries like dear old rich man Dad popped Mom’s! All those women who were just
like me!”

“Now, wait just a damn minute,” he said,
anger turning his cheeks red. “Those bitches weren’t anything like you. They
were in it strictly for the money and he knew that.
They
knew there
wasn’t going to be anything after the last day of the sessions. They knew it
because he made it perfectly clear to them right from the fucking start! He
never once took them anywhere other than the Room or to the Dungeon. Never to
the dining room of the Club or to his private suite. He never took them to
visit their brothers or out for ice cream. He didn’t want to be seen with them.
He kept it strictly business. He was paying for their services like…”

“High class prostitutes,” she finished for
him.

“Like the grasping, greedy bitches they
were!” He shook his head. “But we thought you were different.
He
thought
you were different. And he was different when he was around you. He was happy,
Lina. He was enjoying himself but you put a stop to that, didn’t you? You left
him down there and sent him into a tailspin. You’ve no idea how much damage
you’ve done!”

“I’m sure the next girl will assuage his
hurt feelings,” she said.

“What next girl?” he demanded. “He wants
you!”

“Oh, sure, he does,” she said with a snort.
“That’s why he’s already looking for the next clone?”

“
What are you talking about
?” he
yelled. “He’s not out looking for another woman! The man is lying in the fetal
position in the middle of his bed with his heart broken.” He pointed a finger
at her. “
You
did that to him.”

“He’ll get over it when the next girl
answers his ad,” she told him.

“There wasn’t going to be another ad,” he
told her.

“Bullshit!” she said. “Do you really think
I’m that much of a fool, Jonny?”

“Why would I lie?” he asked.

“Why indeed?” she asked. She came over to
the table where she had placed the manilla folder Jake had given her. It had
been her intention to leave the folder and the check when she left the house
for the last time. She snatched up the folder and slapped it against his chest.
“Explain that!”

“What is it?” he asked, taking hold of it
before it fell to the floor.

“Look at it and you tell
me
what it
is!”

He opened the folder, scanned the page
inside it then slowly—very slowly—lifted his eyes to her face. “Where did you
get this?” he asked, his voice nearly a whisper.

“Does it matter?” she countered. “If there
wasn’t going to be another ad, how do you explain that?”

“Where did you get this?” he repeated, this
time with a fierceness that made her uneasy.

“He was going to put that ad in the South
Carolina paper,” she said.

“No, he wasn’t,” Jonny said.

“That is his handwriting!” she said,
stabbing a finger on the line that read
Contact Janice Layne Jan. 2 for run
Feb. 1.
“Are you going to tell me that he didn’t write that?”

“He may have but I swear to you it had
nothing to do with placing any ad,” Jonny told her.

“Cut the crap, will you?” she shouted at
him. “That is the same ad he placed for all the other women. I know. I saw
them!”

“Okay,” he said, closing the folder and
tossing it onto the kitchen table. “Number one, he never placed any of the ads.
I did. Number two, I want to know where you saw those ads and who gave you this
one!”

“Get out, Jonny,” she said. “I’ve had
enough lies for one morning.”

“Who gave you the fucking folder?” he
bellowed at her.

“Jake!” she replied. “Okay? It was Jake.”

He looked as though she had smacked him
brutally across the face. He literally stumbled back, his eyes wide and mouth
open. When he closed it, it was with an audible clicking of his teeth. She
watched his lips peel back and when he spoke, he spoke through the tight clench
of his teeth.

“Son of a whoring cunt!” he cursed. “That’s
why he’s not answering his fucking phone!”

“Just go,” she said. “I—”

He snaked out a hand and grabbed her arm,
dragging her with him as he exited the kitchen. “I’m not going anywhere until
you and me have a nice informative chat, love!”

* * * * *

He was as silent and still as a stone as he
sat beside her in the car. His big brown hands were tight on the wheel, his
lower lip thrust out in a pout that would have done a former U.S. President
proud. He wasn’t angry at her but he was angry. No, he was infuriated and it
was a wonder steam wasn’t puffing from his nostrils.

“What will he do?” she asked.

“Before or after he pins Jake’s balls to
the dunny wall?” Jonny asked.

She bit her bottom lip. “I don’t want to be
the cause of their friendship ending, Jonny.”

“Too late for that,” he mumbled. “And it
ain’t your fault that it’ll be over and done with when he hears what the
bastard did to him.”

Turning to look out the side window, she
thought back to what Jonny had told her after he pushed her none too gently
onto the sofa at her house.

“Woman, you’ve been played.”

When she went to speak, he held his palm
out to her as though he were a traffic cop halting her vehicle at an accident
scene—which is exactly what it felt like to her.

“Let me tell you something about the
five of us,” he said. “When I’m finished, you can say whatever the fuck you
feel the need to or ask any questions you have. Are we clear?”

She felt chastised. “Yes,” she said.

“All right. Here’s the way it was.”

It had started to rain again as they got on
the interstate and headed for Stockbridge. The glare of the headlights
intensified her hunger headache and made her a bit nauseous. She wanted to ask
him to stop so she could get a Pepsi. She desperately wanted to take some
aspirin but his mulish silence and set jaw didn’t bode well for asking favors.

“We were poor kids,” he said. “Hand-to-mouth
poor. We stuck together because…well…” He shrugged. “We clicked, you know? We
became tight as shit in a constipated man’s bowels and there wasn’t anything we
wouldn’t do for Synnie or him do for us. I can’t tell you how many beatings
that boy took for things either me or Craigie did.”

“He loved you,” she said.

“We loved him,” he replied. “And when
his father offered him the golden ring, he took us on the merry-go-round with
him. He was responsible for all four of us going to college, getting our
degrees. He laid the world at our feet and stood back saying, ‘Okay, mates. I
gave you the chance. Make what you will of it.’ He helped us get apartments and
furnish them. Gave us jobs or saw that we got one. He paid for law school and
medical school—the full ride—for Craigie and Jake. He did right by us, Lina,
because we always did right by him. I didn’t think it was possible for any of
the four of us to betray him.” He snorted. “In that I was wrong.”

He asked to borrow her cell phone and she
fished in her purse for it, handing it to him without asking if she could dial
for him. The traffic was fairly heavily, the road slick, and it made her
nervous for him to thumb in the number while he was driving eighty miles per
hour down the interstate, but she kept silent. He put the phone to his ear.

“How is he?” he asked. He listened then
nodded. “That’s good I guess. Hey, has there been any word from Jake? Still?
Okay. If you reach him, let me know, but do me a favor, eh? Don’t let him know
I’m trying to reach him.” He listened again. “No, I just want to know where he
is. It’d be best he not know I’m looking for him, okay? Unh huh. It’s got
everything to do with our boy. Huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, will do.”

He hung up and handed her back the phone.

“How’s the Kiwi?” she asked.

“Craigie shot him full of a sedative so
he’s sleeping like a baby.”

“I’m sorry, Jonny,” she said for the fourth
or fifth time.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “We’ll
sort it.”

“You know Synnie,” he said, “is a tough
little bugger. What he don’t have in size, he makes up in attitude. You get on
his bad side and you’re likely there for life, you know? There’ve been a few
blokes who found that out the hard way. But if you are one of his, he’d lay
down his life for you without a second thought. That’s the way he’s built.

“When he took over the reins of MI, he
did it with single-minded intent, you know? He wanted to prove to the old
man—in whatever heaven or hell the bastard was in by that time—that the faith
placed in him had been warranted. There were days on end there in the beginning
when he didn’t just burn the midnight oil. He set multiple fires with it. He
burned away all the excess shit, burned out all the non-productive hangers-on,
and fried to a crisp anyone he found out who had been fleecing, bilking or
undermining the company. He took charge and he took names. Those who had the
company’s best interest at heart were kept. Those who did not were swept out
quickly and efficiently like ashes in a hearth. He meant to see the company
double in revenue in ten years but he missed the mark. It doubled in three.

“Fast forward a few years and here me
and Spike come to work for him. He gives us shit jobs to begin with—didn’t
start us where we are now—so he could see how we’d do. When we showed him we
were up to snuff, he advanced us up the ladder. In a few years she was his
executive assistant and I became his main go-to guy. He brought another Kiwi,
Anderson Holt, up to be Chief Financial and Acquisitions Officer. Hired Kit as
head of security. He surrounded himself with people he liked and could trust.”

She looked over at him. If anything, his
face was colder than it had been when they started their drive. “Was all this
my fault, Jonny?”

“No,” he said. He glanced at her. “Well,
maybe. I guess it would have happened sooner or later if Synnie got serious
about a woman. No one really thought he ever would—especially Jake—because of
Olivia. She spoiled women for him for a long, long time and then there was Anne
Sheridan.”

“Who was she?”

“She was a TV presenter in Atlanta. Had a
show called
StarTalk
. She interviewed him, got the hots for him and they
had a fling for about two months. He always thought she was dating him for the
publicity and the clout it gave her.”

“Was she?”

“Who knows? The woman was a bitch and when
he stopped calling her, she got mean and wrote some pretty nasty stuff about
him on her blog. She labeled him the Kiwi Kutie and basically made him out to
be a callous, heartless, Lothario out to wax his punga with every chickie he
saw.”

“Sounds like wounded pride,” she commented.

“Oh, it was more than that. She keyed his
car. Slashed his tires. Broke out his taillights. Went over to his house and
used grass killer to write ‘Synjyn McGregor is a flaming queer’ across the
front lawn.”

“Nice lady,” she said and could only
imagine how angry the Kiwi must have been.

“She is a lot of things, love, but lady
ain’t one of them,” he said.

“What did he do about her?” she asked. “I
know he did something.”

“He got her fired from her job and made
sure she couldn’t get another presenter job in Atlanta. Last I heard, she was
in L.A. doing some cheesy tabloid show.”

“I wager she doesn’t say anything about the
Kiwi.”

Jonny laughed. “You’d win that bet. Like I
said, get on his bad side and you’ve fucked up for good.”