I Blame Wattpad for My High Expectations of Men

Chapter 51 - What just happened?

~Flashback Continued~

"So, you just found it in there, right behind your regular work check?" Hayden asks me to verify one last time, complete disbelief lacing his tone. Not that I really blame him, though.

"Pretty much."

"And you have no idea how he managed to pull that off?" Kelsey questions next.

"Not a single clue."

"So then, what makes you think it's him?" Hayden then fires the one question that I already knew the answer to the moment I had called my brother.

"Because Luca got one, too. With the same amount, bank, routing and account number on it, not to mention the same alias that lies at the top left corner," I respond, my blood beginning to boil all over again just like it had when I first saw the damn thing. "He may no longer go by his birth name, but hell, the bastard was still dumb enough to make sure that we both received it on the same day. It's definitely him, without a doubt in my mind."

I let out an irritated sigh, or maybe it's out of frustration, perhaps a little bit of both. Or a lot. I don't even fucking know anymore...One thing I do know, however, is that Ace is the only one that hasn't said anything after I'd just explained what I found in the envelope that Lisa had dropped off for me before closing time: a check made out for ten thousand dollars with my name on it. And as much as I should be worried about the fact that the fucker is here -in Santa Barbara- and that he'd managed to slip a check of that amount inside an envelope that's been handed to me by one of my bosses without her even knowing, Ace's silence somehow seems to terrify me more.

Luca, Kelsey and Hayden have all at least said something about it, but him? He's just been sitting there on his living room couch, yet to say a single word, looking as if he's preparing himself for how to get away with murder...And in all honesty, despite that being one badass TV show, even that description would be an understatement in Ace's case at the moment.

"So what did Luca say?" My best friend asks me, nothing but fear and concern etched across her forehead ever since I told them. "Did he shred his, too?" I nod my head in confirmation.

"Let's just say it didn't take us long to put two and two together."

The room goes mute for a while before Hayden brings up the million-dollar -or in this case, ten-thousand-dollar- question that I too found myself asking when I had turned on the bakery's paper shredder:

"Look, I get that you don't want anything to do with the guy -and I completely agree with you here, Lola- but shouldn't you guys have kept the evidence? If he's so desperately trying to establish any type of contact with the two of you -if that's even what he's really trying to do here because given his track record, we can expect anything from him- what proof do you have to offer if it ever comes down to, let's say, wanting to get a restraining order?"

I had answered that exact same question almost as quickly as I had asked myself it: I have so many other forms of proof lined up just waiting to be used.

        I refuse to let that fucker take back even the minimal of control that he once had over me. The day I burned his letter, I had also burned whatever remaining presence his memory dared to haunt and just because he made a ballsy move to show up in my life after all these years, that doesn't give him the right to produce any kind of fear around me, much less within me.

"Guess that's what our medical records are for then, huh?" I remind Hayden, the same reminder I had given myself right before I shredded the damn thing for good. "What better evidence than that?"