Derailed (23 page)

But Bear grabs me and hangs onto me.

“That’s fucking below the belt, you dirty…”

“Yeah? There’s more where that came from. What you have is the tip of the –”

“Brad,” Bear says, “that’s enough. Mate.” His voice is warning, his eyes hooded.

Undeterred, Bradley turns on Bear. “You…you are going to lose every single client I got you. I will make it my duty to find a way to get clients to take their business away from you. I will make it my duty to bring you both down to your knees. You have no idea how determined I am to do that. I am Bradley Murdoch – you don’t cross me and get away with it.”

Bear says nothing. He’s a man of few words, but he feels everything. Me, I’m bristling. Touching on my kids is crossing a very, very sensitive line. I can kill for that. I
have
killed for that.

“Keep an eye on the news,” Bradley says. “Who knows, you may be in it.”

He looks at Girly. “Your visa, consider it revoked.”

Girly places both hands on her chest, a look of terror on her face.

“I will inform immigration that you have lied on your application and –”

“Bradley, shut the fuck up!” I warn, furious that he could attack my defenseless housekeeper.

“– I will motivate for them to revoke your visa.”

Girly looks at me in horror. “Pig!”

I shake my head at her. “Don’t worry, Girly. Don’t worry.”

“Oh, no, you
should
worry,” Bradley says in a sneering voice. “You’re going back to Thailand. Bet on it.”

Liefie rushes to comfort a visibly distraught Girly. “Stop, will you?” Liefie hisses to Bradley. “You’re being such a jerk.”

“Jerk?” Bradley smiles at Liefie. “This jerk will be sending you back to Ukraine.
Without
the two girls.” He wriggles his eyebrows. “Back to being the prosti –”

That does it – furious, I dodge Bear, then Vlad, to get to Bradley. SWAT style, I grab him, slam him to the ground, and twist his arm behind him. “Shut the fuck up or I will smash your face into the ground,” I say with my knee in his back. “Disrespect her again, and you will eat dirt. I mean it.”

It takes Bear, Vlad, and just about all of Girly’s male friends to yank me off Bradley.

But that rough handling has put an end to Bradley’s disrespecting of Liefie. He gets up, wipes blood off his mouth, and without another word, leaves. 

The music has died, the laughter has ceased, and for a party, the place is eerily silent.

Bear runs his fingers slowly through his hair, his eyes to the ground. Arena stands with her hand over her mouth, her eyes on me. Rival sinks slowly into a chair, her eyes brimming with tears, while Girly rocks quietly in a chair. 

Now totally sober, I open my mouth to speak, but close it again. What can I say right now that can reassure them that Bradley merely
threatened
? He had to be just threatening. Surely he wouldn’t carry out his threats. Would he?

SCARLETT

Having witnessed Ritchie and Rival go down in such a dramatic way was incredibly exciting. I didn’t want to miss a thing, so I’m a mere moment ahead of Bradley in returning home. When he enters the house, I’m seated in front of the TV. He is far too busy nursing his shattered ego to even realize that I’ve been out of the house. Well, it’s more than ego, actually. Ritchie’s deception was totally unexpected, and I have no doubt it will be a major loss to my husband. In one vengeful second, I caused him to lose the object of his affection, as well as his best friend, his
only
confidant. Bradley really has no one else he cares to share his woes with, except…me. However, let’s face it, Ritchie has kept his trap shut about so many things. It’s rare to find a person like that these days.

“Bradley? Is that you?” I call from the TV room.

He doesn’t answer. I walk up to the lounge and catch him pacing. His hair is a mess, his shirt has blood stains from the cut on his lip and his clothes are crumpled. I have never seen Bradley in such a state of disarray or looking this lost. 

Slowly, his turns to look at me. “How long has this been going on?” 

I move to pour us both a drink before I answer. “A while now.” I hand him a drink. “Just about everyone knows about it.”

His shoulders sag at my words. He accepts the drink but does not drink it.

“They’re not your friends, Bradley. None of them are.”

With a slight nod, he stares at the drink in his hand, a wounded look on his face. Then he shakes his head from side to side. “I trusted him so much. I can’t believe he’d do something like this to me. Man, it just sucks.”

I nod my understanding, thrilled that he’s actually
talking
to me. Good has come of my deed after all – the wedge between us is rapidly shrinking. “Drink up,” I say, jerking my chin toward the drink in his hand.

He looks at me, at the drink, then puts the drink on the table. “No. No more drinks for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been distracted by alcohol, and look what happened. I’ve allowed my best friend to rob me. No more. I’m done with it. I’m taking control of my life again.” He pushes the drink down the table, far away from him.

He walks into our study and turns on his laptop. After a few minutes I saunter up to the doorway. “It’s almost midnight. What are you doing?”

He types furiously. “Getting even.”

With a frown I peep over his shoulder and look at his screen. I see something about a prisoner exchange in Australia.

“Let’s see how the fucker reacts when I bring Olga over from Bali to serve her sentence in Australia.”

“Wait, isn’t Liefie’s name Olga?”

He looks at me and wriggles his eyebrows. “What if I can prove other –”

Our conversation, which I am thoroughly enjoying, is interrupted by a knock on the door. I rush to the window and peer outside. “It’s Rival!” 

He freezes. Then he gets up and starts to walk toward the door. As he is about to open it, he stops and walks back to me. “I don’t want to see her. Tell her…tell her I’m asleep.”

Did I hear correctly? Did he just say he didn’t want to see Rival?

“Go! Tell her.”

Luckily, my heart resumes its beating, and with a giant nod I sashay toward the door to deliver the good news. I jerk open the door and face the bane of my existence. “Yes, whore?”

“I want to see Bradley,” she says, looking as rattled as my husband.

“He doesn’t want to see you,” I say in a buoyant voice.  

“I don’t believe you.” I don’t blame her for not believing it; I didn’t either.

“I don’t give a shit what you believe. So, fuck off before I call the cops on you for harassing us at this
ungodly
hour.” As I shut the door on her face, she shoves it open. I’m a little surprised at her strength. A
lot
surprised, actually.

“Do that again and I will fold you like a paper airplane,” I snarl before I slam the door on her uncertain face.

Life can be so peachy at times, I think as I walk back to resume my chat with my husband which, by the way, I was enjoying immensely. This incident has been nothing short of a godsend – Bradley, for the first time, is flatly refusing to see his traitorous ex-wife (I’m sure he will deny her access to the kids too), and he is actually talking to me again.
Confiding
in me, because in one acrimonious move, I removed the two people who stood between Bradley and me – Ritchie and Rival. Why didn’t I think of doing this before? I lick the cream off my lips. Now Bradley and I can resume the rock-solid relationship we once had and get on with our lives without distractions from the thorn in my side.

Chapter Seventeen

RIVAL

Scarlett being rude to me and slamming the door in my face is the least of my worries. I have other things to be concerned about, like is Bradley going to stop me from seeing the kids? Is he going to contest my request for shared custody at our next hearing in family court? Is he going to find a way to send me back to Dunhill like he threatened to?

Then there’s the other issue – even though he was rude and obnoxious earlier on, I am haunted by the hurt look on his face. I feel like a heel and I wish to God I had told him about Ritchie and me before he found out. I drag myself back home to Ritchie, who sits in the lounge with Bear and Arena, looking glum. He doesn’t ask me what happened, doesn’t look at me, so I know he’s mad at me for going to see Bradley.

“What happened?” Arena asks.

I shake my head. “Couldn’t get to see him.” I take a seat next to Ritchie. “Scarlett slammed the door in my face.”

“Crap!” Arena says.

“Look,” Bear says, “Bradley’s angry, and he’s making all sorts of threats. I have a feeling that when the dust settles, he’s gonna back down a bit. So you both, don’t stress, don’t let it get you down.”

Ritchie and I nod.

“Just apologize and…” he shrugs. “Do your best.”

We continue our synchronized nodding, then say goodnight to them.

That night, while I lie in the dark, wide awake and fretting about tomorrow, Ritchie tosses and turns. When our eyes meet, he says, “I feel like such a jerk.”

I nod.

“I wanted to tell you so many times how he really feels, what he said about you, but I didn’t want to betray his confidence, Rival.”

I nod.

“In hindsight, I
still
wouldn’t tell you. It would be just a shitty thing to do. Yet, I feel so bad. What a mess.”

I say nothing, but rest my forehead on his chest.

His hug is fierce. “Don’t worry about your kids, Rival. We’ll fight him if he tries anything. I swear I will. Seriously.”

Even though I nod, I do worry about tomorrow. What if he blocks me from seeing them? I wouldn’t be able to cope with that.

RITCHIE

6 a.m. I get out of bed and take a shower. I just couldn’t sleep with Bradley on my mind. I need to see him and apologize. He may not want to see me, he may refuse to accept my apology, but still, I have to do it.

At 9 a.m. I knock on Bradley’s front door. It’s Saturday, would he be awake? He is awake. He answers the door, coffee in hand, a  blank look on his face.

“Bradley, I came to apologize,” I say.

To my relief, he steps aside. Maybe he has cooled down after all. Now we can talk like adults.

“I am sorry I laid my hands on you, bro.”

“Don’t ever call me bro!” he snarls, waving his index finger at me.

I jerk away, taken aback by his rage.

“You want what I want, because you just want to be
me
.”

“No, that’s not –”

“I am going to teach you a valuable lesson. I am going to show you what it’s like to be fucked over. I’m going to destroy
everyone
around you – Nadia, Girly, Bear, and Arena, and they are going to despise you for putting them in that position.”

I say nothing, look at the floor and let him rant, realizing that he hasn’t mentioned anything about destroying Rival. Why?

“But most of all, I am going to fuck Rival.”

My head jerks to look at him.

He smiles. “She will have no choice. She fucks me…she gets to see her kids. She refuses to fuck me, she never sees her kids again. What would you do if you were in that situation? Huh? You big fucking piece of shit.”

Even though I feel my hackles rising, I hold my tongue.

He takes out his wallet, removes a five-dollar bill and flings it at me. It falls on the floor between us. “That’s our going rate for a bet, right? Five bucks. I’ll bet you five bucks she will fuck me in spite of you and her being together.”

Slowly, he circles me. “By betraying me, you did me a favor. All along I
couldn’t
get her to fuck me, because she was in love with you. But now, the stakes are high. Highest they’ve ever been, and…all in my favor.
All
in my favor. Mate. It’ll be taking candy from a baby. Five bucks says I can fuck the woman you live with, the woman you love. Every day and in every position.” He kicks the five-dollar note towards me. “Five bucks.”

Even though I am one step away from pummeling the motherfucker, I manage to exercise restraint. 

“I know you – you will cut and burn when she returns home every day with my cum on her. Your relationship won’t survive it. I know you well enough to know that you can’t handle that. After the deception you’ve been through, you won’t be able to live with that, and soon, you and Rival will be –”

Bradley wins – I turn and storm out the door.

He runs after me, stands at his front door and yells, “Hey, come back.
Bro
! I haven’t finished tormenting you.
Bro
.”

Gritting my teeth, I start the engine.

Bradley runs out and taps on my window.

I look at him. 

“I’m going to have fun fucking her,” he says with a smile.

Fury overtakes me – I throw open the door of my Jeep, knocking him hard in the torso. He staggers back and doubles up in pain. Feeling a little better, I drive off.

SCARLETT

Wow, Ritchie stormed out of our house purple in the face, cords thickening in his neck, teeth gnashing – I really expected him to kick the shit out of Bradley. But Ritchie needn’t worry; because Bradley’s threats about fucking Rival are empty. I won’t allow it. In spite of bringing things out in the open, I secretly want Rival and Ritchie to be together so that I have Bradley all to myself.

Feeling high on life and to celebrate life without Rival and Ritchie, I order in a gargantuan feast for breakfast for all of us and prance around in a sexy hot-pink negligee. Hopefully, Bradley will look at me in a new light now that Rival is out of the picture.

Then, to my ire, the doorbell goes. Damn! “I’ll get it,” I say and reluctantly answer the door. 

It’s Rival. God! She knows how to ruin a good morning. I open the door and glare at her. “Didn’t I tell you to fuck off?”

She pushes past me. “Get out of my way!” she spits, her eyes bulging.