Red Alert/Red Notice (The "Super Jerk" Prequel)

22 - Limbo

^^Above, chapter title credit: Song by Bryan Ferry.^^

{Raina}

Geoff doesn't come to bed until late that night. For the entire rest of the day, after we got home, he shut himself in his office and didn't even come out for dinner. I feel even more alone than before. I've told him over and over that shutting me out isn't going to do any good, but he doesn't seem to want to listen to me.

But when he comes up that night, he seems surprised to find me still awake. I tried to sleep but couldn't, dull throbs of pain coming from my wrist and my mind whirling. So I propped myself up, turned on the lamp, and tried to read. But I can't concentrate.

"Raina?"

I look up, grateful that I don't have to keep trying to read. "Hey, Geoff."

"I didn't think you'd still be up." He begins to undress, pulling off his shoes, socks, and then his shirt. And, like a teenager, I blush.

"I couldn't sleep." I close my book and set it aside. "What's kept you up?"

"Louisa." He scowls as he comes over to the bed, sitting down on the corner near me. "Did you know she's actually taken the time to look into us? And then she went on to say how I was a slummer and that I don't deserve any better."

That stings, because literally everyone's said the same thing. "What'd you tell her?"

"That I've moved on," he says bitterly. "I hate that people keep doing this to you, Raina. I hate it. I married you because I love you, not because I cared about how it would look."

"But now it's ostracized you." I look down at my hands, rubbing the cast on my wrist. "She might have a point, you know. You probably do deserve better."

"And what does 'better' mean? Someone like her?" Geoff shakes his head. "I don't care about the money, Raina, you know that by now."

"You will when it starts hitting you in the pocketbook," I say, remembering Mom's words when I'd asked her for anything. You'll care, Rainie, when you have nothing left.

"I only want to make you happy," he says, raking his hands through his hair and leaning forward, elbows on knees. "You, Cam, Ettie. Because you're the most important things in the world to me."

"That's sweet, Geoff, but..."

"But what? You don't think I care?" He drops his hands and scowls. "You were injured today because I was irresponsible. You've already been injured twice because of Ridley. And you still think I don't care?"

"I didn't say that," I fire back just as quickly. "I don't doubt that you care. I know you do. But you know what Ridley's doing, don't you? Tell me you see that."

"He's trying to get me on his side," Geoff says, banging his forehead with his fists at every word. "I won't do it. We'd kill each other."

"I know." I move to sit next to him, rubbing his back. "But you can't just do nothing. I won't let you."

"So what'll we do? Besides going after Felicia?"

"I think it's time we get a look at where he's getting his supplies," I say, thinking of Wigmore and Sons. "And then we can hit Ridley in the pocketbook."

Geoff turns to me, seizes my face in both hands, and presses a hard rough kiss to my lips. When he lets me go, he's grinning.

"You're a genius, you know that?" He kisses me again, hands sliding back and tangling in my hair. "A genius."

I smile at him and bump the end of his nose with mine. "I know."

≈

It takes a little bit of research, but I find Wigmore and Sons' headquarters eventually. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It's nearly a century old, opened in 1901 and in the business of supplying medicines to doctors when they still made house calls. They began to lose clients when the war started, and then completely crashed with the stock market. But then somebody – an offshoot of the Carnegie family, apparently – bought up everything, fixed it up, and reopened right before the Second World War, and business has been booming ever since.