Wife's Bitter Revenge Against Neglectful CEO Husband-Chapter 110: Confronting Mrs. H

I walked into Mrs. H’s office on the pretense of making a payment. Why she would think I’d walk in a payment when I had the information to make a bank transfer was beyond me. Perhaps she wanted to see my reaction to the contracted hit.

"How are you?" Mrs. H asked. "Is revenge sweet?"

"Not quite."

I took out the tablet, onto which I copied all the information I had about her and the failed attack on Jake.

"I think you should see this."

Experts say there are seven stages of grief. Mrs. H went through at least that many stages while she watched the forty-five minutes worth of material.

By the time she was done, she’d settled into a low-boiling rage that just barely allowed her to remain seated. Her eyes were wide. Her hands shook even as she had them clasped on the desktop.

"Why are you showing me this?" Mrs. H asked.

"Simple. I want to know who arranged my friend’s accident."

"Who is your friend?"

I provided Bea’s name and the details about her accident.

"How do you know I’m involved? Not every crime in the city was orchestrated by me."

"You weren’t my first stop on the path to answers. I have a documented chain of evidence from the crime right back to you."

"And if I give you the information you want, what’s in it for me?"

I smiled. "You’ll give me the information." I slid a stack of bills across the desk at her. "You give me back my collateral and cancel my debt. If your lead pans out, you can keep the Hermes."

Mrs. H waved the tablet at me. "And this evidence against me?"

"I keep it. This is your stay-out-of-jail card. You give up the strongarming business, and I let you keep the loan sharking."

"Sometimes strongarming is necessary to collect my money."

"Find a different way."

"You are being ridiculous. I have to be tough with these people. They’re desperate. They’ve got nothing to lose by not paying me otherwise. If I don’t send y men to lean on them, I become just another unpaid creditor in a long line of creditors."

"Mrs. H, banks lend money all the time. Deadbeats are the risk factor for the rewards. I know firsthand the type of rewards you rake in. You can afford the risk."

"It won’t matter if I charge twice the rates. Without consequences, I’ll never get paid."

"Then approve a better quality of client."

"You might as well send me to jail. I’ll be out in six months and free of your blackmail."

"What a coincidence. I’m more than happy to do just that, but first, I want a name and my collateral."

"I get to keep the Hermes?"

"Jail or no jail, you provide me the name, and the bag is yours."

"And what keeps me from killing you instead?"

"Easy." I pointed to the surveillance cam pinned on my blouse. "I’m not in this alone. You kill me, my partner sends the information caught by the cam of my death to the cops along with everything that is on the tablet—more if he’s really pissed off and he will be.

"Plus, Jake is standing right on the other side of that door with backup. I utter one word—the safe word—and he takes you down.

"I’ve seen what he can do. When he’s done with you, you will wish you had cooperated sooner."

"I don’t believe you."

This was the fun part. "Mrs. H, I’m very good at what I do. An expert, you might say. If I can take down key members of the Heavenly family, do you honestly think someone like you is a challenge?

"Provide me the name I want."

Mrs. H’s eyebrows arched higher. "Heavenly, you say? As in Heavenly Enterprises?"

"Yes."

"Then you know Anya Heavenly?"

"I do."

"You should speak to her about your friend."

"Anya? Anya put out a contract on Bea? Why?"

Mrs. H shrugged. "She wanted a multi-million-dollar loan at first, but then she backed out and asked for the contract. I suspect it had something to do with your friend."

Bea and Father DiMarco had said something about a revenge plot against Anya, but I wasn’t aware they’d done anything about it yet. I needed to talk to Bea.

"Thank you, Mrs. H. Now, I need a decision. Do I report what I know to the police, or do you operate by my rules?"

"Can I think about it?"

"Your office, you’re rules. I’ll need an answer before I leave."

See how she likes the pressure on her.

"You are unreasonable."

"I’m being as reasonable with you as you were with me when you pressured me into the contract and the loan."

"Fair point. Very well, I concede. I’ll take your offer to stay out of jail for now, but I want to retain the right to change my mind if my losses are too great when playing by your rules."

"I thought you might say that."

I handed her the contract I had prepared. Ten minutes later, I left with the signed contract and my possessions.

I liked Mrs. H, in a way. I was glad she’d taken the deal. She wasn’t a good person by any means, and I wouldn’t be sending her a Christmas card, but she had a quiet dignity about her. She didn’t belong in prison.

Anya, on the other hand, would do fine in prison. It was where she belonged. And I’d be doing Joshua a solid by putting her there.

I headed straight to the hospital to talk to Bea. I needed to know more about what pushed Anya to such drastic measures.

Bea was ready for me when I got there as if she were expecting me all along. "I want to go home, Teela. Can we do that? Tonight, I mean."

"What does your doctor say?"

"He’d rather keep me here until after the transplant. But, Teela, I need out. I need to see the sun and play video games with the boys. I want to taste your cooking and make out with CK on the couch when everyone is sleeping."

"Ew, in a church?"

Bea radiated with a smile. "It’s also our home, and CK and I aren’t doing anything wrong."

"True, but ew, a church." My smile matched hers briefly before I got back to business.

"Bea, why did Anya order the accident against you?"

"It was Anya? I thought it might be her. We pushed her very hard."

"What happened?"

"We had her convinced the church remodel was part of an urban renewal project that we could get her into for the right price. She’s part of the Heavenly household, though, so we didn’t think she would have any problem raising the money. Only she did.

"She called me and Father DiMarco like a dozen times a day. It was crazy. Too crazy for us. We finally cut her off. I chalked the revenge up to the drug-induced diarrhea that I gave her and the mania she developed. Although, I suspect the mania was always there. We just escalated it.

"The last I heard, she was taking flack for failing after bragging all around town about how she would double the Heavenly empire with her secret real estate deal."

"Yes, that humiliation would be enough to make her lash out. But why did she go after you and not Father DiMarco?"

It was Bea’s turn to look guilty. "She did, Teela. The week before the accident, someone tried to break into the church. Fortunately, enough of the security team was off duty and staying there to scare them away, but they threw a Molotov cocktail on the way out. It landed against the stone wall outside the side door, so no real damage done. We were able to clean up most of the evidence before you ever found out."

"Why were you keeping all this from me?"

"You have enough on your plate. We didn’t want to worry you, especially since this was our special side project. We thought we had it handled."

"And when the accident happened, you didn’t think to clue me in that Anya might be behind it? You let me go down the winding path to answers instead? Do you have any idea how much time we’ve all spent on this?"

"Did you always tell your mother when you fucked up?"

"I’m not your mother. I’m your best friend and the person who loves you the most. I’m hurt that you didn’t tell me."

"I’m sorry. And I’m sorry for all the time and money you invested into finding the person behind the accident, but Teela, I didn’t ask you to do it. All I want from you is your support. I can do without the revenge factor."

"Yeah, well, I can’t. No one can hurt my family without paying a price. I love you, Bea. It kills me that you and the boys were seriously injured because you did something dumb on my behalf."

Bea held her arms open, and I rushed into her embrace. "I love you too, Teela, but you can’t blame yourself for this. You’re right. It was dumb, but it was as much for me as for you. Watching that woman mistreat you galled me to the point I was losing sleep coming up with dastardly plans for that woman. After all that has happened, I’d still do it again, only without the boys in the car with me.