* * * * *
Thursday, three days after Jessica's encounter with Rachael
Rachael sat in her office while working at her computer. She heard a knock on the door and said, "Come in." She looked up and saw Tyrone walking in her office. His unannounced visit surprised her. He had never shown up to her office before, especially after his expulsion from the university.
"Tyrone, what a surprise. Take a seat. How may I help you today?" said Rachael.
Tyrone sat in front of her and said, "Well I found out that you've been plotting a lot of things recently. I thought we both should discuss it face to face."
"I don't think I follow you."
He said nothing, just pulled the mini-recorder out of his pocket and started playing the recording. He had removed the irrelevant conversations from it and just kept the juicy pieces only. The facial expressions of Rachael told him everything. She had utter shock on her face. First time in all her planning, she let her guard down around Jessica and it turned out to be a disaster.
When the recording ended, Tyrone continued, "Do you have anything to add?"
She sighed after realizing there's no point in lying from here. Jessica had outplayed her this time. She replied, "If it's any consolation, I didn't want to do it. Devin was desperate for your help, and you wouldn't listen. He asked for help, and I had to help him."
"And that's supposed to make me feel better?"
"No. It's the truth. You asked for it and I told you. Now you can handle it or not, it's up to you. I mean, don't get any wrong ideas, you're nothing without your brother. If you want to fight him, you can. But I wouldn't bet on you."
Her audacity to still be cocky around him snapped something inside him and instantly jumped on her desk and grabbed the collar of her blouse and pulled her face near his. His anger came through his words, "You're a fucking bitch. And I'm going to make you, my bitch. You think when I tell Devin that the only way, I will work with him from now on is if I take you down. What would he say?"
His anger didn't faze her a bit. She took a deep breath and said, "First leave my blouse and take your seat," while continuing to stare directly into his eyes. He released her collar and took his seat back. "Why is she not scared?" thought Tyrone.
There was silence for the next few seconds, and then she stood up from her seat. While walking towards him, she said, "You want to run to your brother and snitch about what I did to you, go ahead. Go run. Shoo." Tyrone couldn't say a word at her condescending and overconfident tone. "Why is she not scared of Devin?" he thought.
When she didn't get any response from him, she continued, "You want the actual truth? Can you handle the truth? You can't handle it? You've been in a shell for far too long because of your brother. If you knew who you were yelling at, you'd be shitting in your diaper by now. You think I fear your brother? Go run to him. Beg for help. Let me know what happens next."
She stumped Tyrone. When he said nothing, she continued, "Now I'll Tell you the truth. I made the decision that you needed to be a full-time part of the group and I made the plan.
Devin knew everything, and I told him what the plan was. He agreed it was the best way forward. Now why would I do that? The answer to that question lies within another question. Let me ask you that question. WHO DO YOU THINK RUNS SHIT IN THE GANG?"
Tyrone swallowed, realizing what she implied with the last question. She continued again, "Let me answer that question for you. I. AM. THE. REAL. BOSS. OF. THIS. GANG." She stopped for a few seconds to let this information sink in then said, "When Devin returned from the army he was in a seriously dark place. I took him out of that place. It was then we both laid the plan for this gang. The plan was for him to be the face and pretend boss while I'll run everything from the backend. I'm the brains and he's the muscle. I give the orders and he will blindly follow them."
By now, he had lost every hope of any revenge on her. Rachael continued, "I planned everything. How to take down the Latinos? How to establish our ground and fear among the people? It was an unbelievably detailed and futuristic plan. I needed it to expand nationwide. For that, I needed you. Your excellent knowledge and zeal towards the technology was all I needed. But no matter how smart you are, it's not possible to create grand scale technology infrastructure overnight. And I didn't have all the time for it. Here comes Steve into the plan."
She was still in her anger mode and continued, "I had to make a deal with Steve no matter what he needed. I couldn't offer him money. He already has more than he needs. The only thing he couldn't get was Jessica. I used my sister to increase his urge towards Jessica so that she became an uncontrollable urge for him. To the point where he couldn't resist not having her any longer. Then he agreed to the deal with me. The entire baseline tech infrastructure you're using right now belongs to DarkWeb. He approved an illegal tech research farm just for us."
"And he did all this just to get Jessica for his club. Don't worry, he'll make every penny back from her and more. He has his own kinks and gets a lot of favors from many people who are secret members of his club and are extremely influential worldwide. But then you wanted to ruin everything. You wouldn't let Steve have her for the club. Your need to be her primary owner and inability to leave control of her caused so many problems for me. If you were anybody else and not Devin's brother, you would have disappeared by now, but I had to work through the plan. I kept Steve at bay for as long as I could, but then, after investing so much money, he wouldn't listen to me anymore. I had to invite him to that party so that I could buy some time."
She took a few deep breaths and continued, now a lot calmer, "Now you have to realize Tyrone, she needs to join the club, there's no choice in the matter. I can't save her, and neither can you. It's for the greater good. You can't save her anymore. And anyway, you've done so much to her I don't understand why you need to be her angel suddenly?"
Tyrone responded after a long while, "She's my responsibility. I can do whatever I want for her. But I can't let anyone else own her."
"So, it's an ego thing? You don't have enough power over Steve. I'm going to give her to him, and the club, and you won't get me in my way this time. You and your brother both are emotional wrecks. He slept with her and promised a lot of shit to her. I had to plan accordingly so that he doesn't get any closer to her, otherwise he would have ruined everything."
Something snapped within Tyrone now, and he stood up and left for the door. As he held the doorknob, he turned and said, "I don't have enough power over Steve because you and Devin took his side. Let's have it then. I'm done with both you and Devin. I will not give my Jessica to him. You, my brother, and his friends on one side and I alone on the other. Let's see who wins this war. It took you years to reach here. I promise you right here, I'll crumble everything in the next two months. Let the battle begin."
He opened the door and was about to leave when she said, "You're being stupid here Tyrone. You know there's no way you can beat us and if you try, we won't forgive you this time." He said nothing and left her office.
In recent days, her plan has been falling apart. The sudden anger creeped up again, and she threw the coffee mug at the wall, and it broke in multiple fragments as she yelled, "You are a fucking whore. I let my guard down one time and you fucked up everything. Once I handle this fucking idiot, I'll show you what I'm going to do to you."
As she cleaned the mess around her office, there was another knock on the door. She said, "Wait a minute." Once she sat in her chair, she said, "Come in." To another surprise, in came the last person she could have thought of, Rose. "Fuck me, what does she want now," she thought.
Rose sat in the chair opposite to her and said, "I'll get straight to the point. This is the last thing I want to do, but I can't handle it anymore. When you did what you did, I wanted to take my revenge on you. But now I have realized that there's no way I can do anything to you. I give up. I don't know what I ever did to you, but I need to get back to being Jessica's mistress. I'm here to make my peace with you and I'm asking you what I can do to get things to be normal between us?"
