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After that fiasco, we decided to take our food to go. None of us wanted to sit there and endure the stares and whispered comments from the patrons. Mind you, finding out their meal was paid for created favorable comments, but for me, enough was enough. I want to go back to my penthouse apartment, eat my meal, then sit on the balcony and share a bottle of wine with
my companions. And the way today has gone, maybe we’ll share two bottles.
Back in the vehicle Jenna finally let her laughter out. “Now that’s the Anna I know and love,” she gasped between gales of laughter. “The take no prisoners, no holds barred b*tch that can kick ass! That was f**king priceless!”
I widened my eyes, and did a couple of slow blinks. “What? I didn’t do anything. Just told the truth.” My little miss innocent tone of voice set them all laughing, tears streaming down their
faces.
“Oh my land, did you see how fast Oliver turned tail and ran when he saw the pregnancy test?” Victor was wheezing he was laughing so hard.
“I guess when the blinders are off, you can see the path to run,” snickered Jenna. “Not saying I
don’t question his motives for asking Fiona out, but knowing she and Alan have been lying
through their teeth about who owns the company changed his mind about how desireable she
is.”
“He better not start looking at Anna, thinking that will get him anywhere.” Bradley muttered.
“He even thinks of looking at her that way and he can think again.”
“Ooohhh, I love it when you get all jealous and possessive.” I cooed at him, with a little grin.
“You don’t have to worry about that, my eyes are for one man only.”
“Yeah? Who would that be, Missy?” He had to ask?
“Weeellll,” I drew the word out teasing him. “I do believe it would be my snickerdoodle guy.”
By now we had arrived at my building and were already in my apartment. Between Jenna and I
we had the food plated, ready to eat. Bradley, bless his heart, had already opened and poured
wine for all of us. Just before sitting down I took the container of snickerdoodle cookies out of
the freezer to thaw. Pretty sure those bad boys wouldn’t last long once the men found them.
“That must have felt good. To finally say all that stuff to Fiona?” commented Jenna. She of all people knew the sh*t Alan and Fiona had pulled. I had tried to ignore them for the sake of the
business, but I had reached my limit with them.
“Yeah, it did. I wanted to say so much more, but legally I couldn’t. I’m glad she was in police
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Chapter 42
custody though, or she might have been able to follow us back here. I’m fairly certain that they are going to show up at the office on Monday. I have to make sure that Sean has a strong security detail in place that will prevent them from following us to the airport.”
“How are you going to handle your absence from the company for the next few months?” Bradley asked, knowing I wouldn’t be coming back and putting myself in the line of fire.
“I’ve thought about that a bit. I think I will say that I am taking an extended leave of absence. If I tell anyone that I am doing a job in Toronto, you can be sure that somehow the vipers will find out about it. So with Jonathan Proctor as COO, he will run the company on my behalf. I’ll stay in touch with him, and stay on top of any issues, but I think I need to disappear for a bit.” I sighed, thinking about how much my life is about to change.
“I am so thankful you are moving to Toronto with us, Jenna. Not only because you’re my bestie, but because the vipers would try to get to me through you. I don’t want you to be in
danger because of me.”
The three of them stopped eating, forks stilled, as that possibility sank in. “Frig, I never even thought of that.” Jenna breathed out. “Would they really do something like that?”
“I’m sure they would. After all, they have admitted to arranging my mother’s accident with the intent to kill her. They have admitted to wanting to arrange a similar accident for me, with the same intent. They admitted that they wanted Adam dead. So yeah, I do believe they would
harm you in an attempt to get to me.”
“Over my dead body!” Victor grated out. “Nobody is going to hurt my woman! Jenna, you are staying with me, where I can protect you. No arguing. I am not letting you out of my sight!”
“WOW” Jenna mouthed to me. She reached out and gently patted Victor on the arm, comforting and calming him. “Okay. What ever you say. You won’t get an argument from me
on that.”
“Thank you,” he leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.
“I will be so happy when we are all on that jet flying off to Toronto.” Bradley sounded anxious. “I don’t trust those three in the least. Thank heavens we’ll soon be on a cruise ship and away
for a month. Anna’s right. What they can’t find, they can’t hurt. I’m with Victor. Nobody is going to hurt my woman. I’ll bury them before I let them hurt a hair on her head.”
My heart swelled with love for this man. Yes, I still had a lot of things that I needed to talk to him about. But not tonight. I just wanted to spend time with my friends, talking about plans
for our futures.
“I was thinking,” I paused to take a sip of wine. “Jenna, you need to get packed up tomorrow
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morning, and we can load your stuff in the Rogue. We can all go to your place, along with a security team just in case, and get everything taken care of. Then we can come back here and I will get my stuff packed. We can put all our stuff in a Graystone Security panel van to get it all to the airport. Would that be acceptable to you guys?”
“Makes sense to me.” Jenna replied. “What time should we head ove to my place? Would ten in the morning be okay?”
“That works for me.” Victor commented. “Gives us a bit of snuggle time in the morning.” He
wiggled his eyebrows at Jenna causing her to giggle. I guess his efforts at charming her are working because she gave every indication that snuggle time would be very welcome.
We finished our meal, and the guys were the ones that cleaned everything up. Clearly their
mother’s had raised them right. That bodes well for the future.
While the guys were clearing up, Jenna and I went to my office where I wasted no time in
putting together the items I would be taking with me. It wasn’t much. A couple of sentimental
personal items from my grandparents and my mother.
Thinking of my mother, I looked at the urn in the glassed in cabinet. The accident happened
just as the covid restrictions were beginning to lift. That was one of the reasons I didn’t
question Uncle Caleb when he showed up with the urn, and the explanation of why there was
no funeral. But that didn’t explain why he had completely disappeared afterward.
I had been absolutely devastated by mom’s death. It was only now that I was questioning
everything. I know my grandparents were the type of people that didn’t display their emotions
for all to see. But thinking back, they hadn’t seem particularly heartbroken or grief stricken.
Not at the loss of my mother. And not at the sudden and unexplained disappearance of their
son. Yes, they became very sick soon after that but still.
And Sean Cummings. He and mom were deeply in love. Yes, he is very stoic, but shouldn’t he
have shown more grief than he did? Instead, he carried on. I should have clued into that so
much sooner than now. My only excuse was that I had been overwhelmed with grief, finishing
up my final year of university, taking over Fredericks Design Co, and travelling back and forth
to Toronto to look after ailing and ageing grandparents, who then died within days of each
other.
Errant thoughts kept swirling around in my head. I kept staring at the urn. Sean was good at
hiding things. Hiding people. He had worked for military intelligence, with special ops. He
could arrange things to look lie an accident. He could arrange it to look like someone had
died. He could hide people that were in danger. He could hide them to protect them. Could he
hide Uncle Caleb? Could he hide my mom? Was it possible that she was still alive? Hiding out
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somewhere with Uncle Caleb?
Without even considering that Jenna was in the office with me, watching my every move, I
went to the cabinet, opened the door and took out the urn. I brought it over to my desk and
picked up the letter opener. Yes, I have a letter opener. I inserted the tip between the lid and
the body of the urn and began to wiggle it around, breaking the seal, and prying the lid off.
“Anna, what are you doing?” Jenna cried out. “Stop, you can’t do that. Those are your mom’s
ashes. Stop.”
Bradley and Victor came running into the room in time to see the lid of the urn pop off and
land on the desk. I looked down and into the urn, puzzled by the smell that wafted out of the
contents. It smelled like wood chips. the contents didn’t look like ashes. It didn’t smell like
ashes. And that’s because it wasn’t ashes.
Sawdust. It wa f**king sawdust.
