Somebody To Hold (Book 0.5) (AU series) - INTERSEX

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Josephine

I want to be angry with her for not knowing where Kilian is, but I can't. Nobody has ever been responsible for me, and I never needed them to be. Or at least I didn't think I needed them to.

Her words calmed all the anger I had boiling inside me. She gives me this look that I can't quite pinpoint, and it makes my stomach do flips and my palms start to sweat. This can not be happening. Please God no. It's hard enough for one but two. This is too much. I wipe my hands on my pants and bring down the walls around my heart again.

"Whatever," is all I can say before walking past her. I don't know what else to say. She definitely didn't mean it in the way she said it. She probably just meant I'm her responsibility because we have a child together. I walk to the podium and of course, Julio is working. It's not always him, but he tends to pick up a lot of shifts.

"Ms. Jackson. I'm glad to see you doing better?" Kilian must have stopped by.

"Where is Killian? Has he been here in the last week?" He reaches into the shelf of the podium and pulls out a manila packet. I grab it, and it has his handwriting on the front.

"Yeah, he came by six days ago. He said that you would be out for a while... I mean, not like you really come here. I- I mean because you're the boss and the b-boss doesn't have to come to work... because you... own... the pla..."

"Julio! Kilian! What else did he say?" I ask, trying to snap him out of his rambling.

"Yes. Killian said to give you that when you showed up," he points to the package.

I look at him, getting impatient "Is that all?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Great! Just Great!" I push past him and walk into my restaurant. It's mid-day, and the place is booming with people. On any other day, I would love to see this, but I have more pressing matters to attend to. I get to my office, and when I try to close the door, Alex's foot stops it. She closes the door but not before coming in.

"Alex, don't you have other things to do. Like tending to your wife's needs. I don't need a bodyguard." She disregards my question and takes a seat on the opposite side of my desk. I sit across from her and open the stuff Kilian left for me. I pull the stack of papers out of the envelope and start glancing over them. She stares intently at me, and I raise my eyebrow in confusion. In trying to ignore her, I avert my attention back to the papers, but the more I read the more my brows furrow.

"What the fuck Kilian," I say to myself once I realize what this is.

"What?"

"This son of a bitch! He washed all my shit!"

"What does that mean? English Josephine." I give her a blank stare.

"Estoy hablando inglés. Puta." [I am speaking English. Bitch.] I say, making a face at her and mocking her. She shakes her head, not the least bit amused. "Lo siento."[I'm sorry]." I say in a low voice, looking back at the papers. "He washed all my companies from all the dirty money."

"Isn't that good? Now you don't have anything incriminating in records."

"It's good for me, yes. But all the extra money I had, besides my parents', was stolen from the Santiago cartel. It was my idea, but when I killed their leader, I stole multiple shipments and laundered my business with them. We used my family bank account to wash the money, but... shit, Kilian!"

"What Josephine?"

"He gave it back... or at least I think that's what he's doing. He washed the systems clean, there's no trail that I had used their money. And he took the last shipment we stole."