I do not own these characters. All rights go to E.L. James.
"Falling For You"
Chapter 38 – Falling Apart (Con't)
Ana stumbled as the boat lurched forward but Ros held her tightly. For such a thin woman, she was certainly strong, Ana observed, trying to use the rocking motion of the boat to her advantage. But Ros' sea legs were better than Ana's and none of her attempts to catch the thinner woman off balance worked.
"Sit down." Ros waved the gun in the direction of a seat.
Ana plotted her escape as she weaved her way to the back of the boat. Her first thought was to jump overboard when Ros' back was turned.
Ros turned to Stephen at the exact moment and Ana took her opportunity, diving over the side. The water was cold, but she tried to ignore the shock as she kicked off her shoes and started swimming toward shore.
It took only seconds before the Bayliner started circling.
"That was a stupid thing to do, Ana. Get back in the boat." Ros pointed the gun at her.
"No." Ana's teeth started to chatter.
"Do it or I kill him." Ros switched tactics, pointing the gun at Elliot's head.
Ana hesitated. Elliot had stolen her ring but, even so, she couldn't let Ros shoot him. She swam to the side of the boat.
"Get her in here," Ros ordered, waving the gun at Elliot.
Elliot yanked her unceremoniously back into the boat. Ana smoothed her skirt down over her rear end and went back to her seat, shivering as the cold air hit her chilled skin. Stephen punched the accelerator again.
Ros sat on a stool at the front of the boat. Swiveling around to face them, she said tersely, "Don't try that again."
"I won't," Ana muttered through chattering teeth. She hugged herself, noticing that Elliot was watching her with an odd look on his face. She tried to ignore him as the boat banged up and down against the whitecaps frothing at the surface of the lake, tried to formulate some sort of plan to get them out of this mess.
"Thank you," Elliot said finally.
"For what?"
"For not letting her shoot me. I might not have done the same thing in your position."
Ana paused, feeling the light drizzle pelt her cheeks as the boat sped across the lake toward the University of Washington. "I know."
"You two shut up back there," Ros warned.
Ana ignored her in an attempt to find out what in the world was going on. "What's this all about, Ros? You said I've ruined your plans, but I don't have a clue what you mean."
Ros eyed her silently for a moment, and Ana thought she wasn't going to answer. Her answer, when it came, was so strange Ana wasn't sure she'd heard correctly. "Stephen and I had a plan to ruin Christian Grey."
"But why?"
"Because he's a bastard, that's why," the red haired man said angrily.
"Tell me something I don't know," Elliot muttered. Ana shot him an irritated glance.
"Stephen was in a band with Christian in college, the same band as Troy Whelan and Charlie Welch."
Ana remembered Christian talking about his college band and how all the members had gone on to successful careers except one. Obviously, Stephen was that one. What had Christian said about him? That he'd given the man a job, but he'd embezzled money to buy drugs? It seemed to her that Christian had been more than generous by not having the man arrested for his crime.
"Christian took care of everyone else in the band except Stephen." Ros confirmed Ana's hunch. "He helped promote Charlie Welch, gave Troy Whelan a high-powered job as head of A&R, but left Stephen to fend for himself."
"That was almost 10 years ago," Elliot protested.
Ana looked at Christian's brother in surprise. Couldn't he see his own grudge was just as ridiculous? From what she could tell, Christian had done plenty of things to help Elliot, too, but all he did was throw Christian's assistance back in his face.
"Yes, and for decades Christian, Troy, and Charlie have been living the good life while poor Stephen has been forced to take menial jobs just to pay the rent. He's been reduced to being a goddamn janitor for the parks department!"
"I don't understand, Ros. Christian's going to make you wealthy from stock options, too."
"No, I'm going to have to cash them all in as soon as I vest just to support us. If I could hold onto the options longer, they would be worth something, but as it is, they probably won't be worth much more than a few dollars a share."
Ana resisted the urge to tell Ros that that was her own fault for supporting the drug habit of an obvious addict, but decided that wouldn't help her cause much.
"What do Elliot and I have to do with this?" she asked instead, watching Stephen barely slow the boat as they raced through the Montlake Cut, which connected Lake Washington to Lake Union. Stephen passed an unfortunate couple paddling a canoe at the mouth of the Cut. The wake from the Bayliner slammed the canoe against the concrete sides of the canal and it tipped over.
"Jerk," the woman in the water shouted, grabbing the side of the capsized boat with one hand and shaking her fist at them with the other.
Ignoring the disturbance, Ros answered Ana's question. "Christian's brother doesn't have anything to do with it. You, on the other hand, do. Your meddling ruined our plans to get ten million in royalties, make money from pirating Grey artists, and garner a whole lot of bad publicity for Christian Grey."
"How did I do all that?" Inside, Ana was glad she'd been able to spoil Ros and Stephen's plan. She only wished she knew how she'd managed to accomplish it all without having any idea what she was doing.
"After we deposited the royalty check in your account, we were going to get it right back the next day. But we didn't count on you finding out about it so soon. By the time we were ready to get it back out of your account, you'd already given the money back to Christian."
"Well, technically, that's not my fault. Christian is the one who found the missing money," Ana pointed out reasonably, then another thought struck her. "How did you know my account number, anyway?"
"We broke into your house, found a box of new checks, and took a check and deposit slip from it. By the way, has anyone ever told you you're a terrible housekeeper?"
Ana sat up straighter on the seat in the back of the boat. It really shouldn't matter what this insane woman thought of her, but she still felt the need to protest. "I am not," she said, then opened her eyes wide. If Ros and Stephen hadn't been the ones who messed up her house, then who had it been? Good grief, was her house the target of every crook in the city? Did she have neon signs on her roof, flashing "Get Your Free Lunch Here?"
Ros shrugged, obviously not inclined to believe her. "In any event, it made our job easier since everything was lying on the floor. We found what we needed, and then, when the royalty check was mailed to you, we pulled it out of your mailbox, endorsed it for deposit only, and put it into your account. After it cleared, we were going to write a check to Stephen from you in the amount of ten million dollars."
"And you didn't think I'd notice?" Ana asked, her eyebrows peaking together on her forehead. Did they think she was so stupid she wouldn't notice that amount of money going into and out of her account?
"You didn't notice it when you worked at Inkwater Press," Ros said, leaning back on the stool in the front of the boat. Strands of hair whipped across her face, and she pushed them back with one hand, holding the gun on them with the other. "I called your old boss for a reference after you came in that first day and she told me the whole story. She didn't blame you for it, but she thought it would be best if I knew. That's actually where I got the idea. I figured the money wouldn't be in your account more than a day or two, and once you got a statement, you'd just figure it was a bank error. By that time, Stephen and I planned to be long gone."
Ana shook her head with disgust. She was sick and tired of being the dupe in other people's rotten schemes. It looked as if she were going to have to open a secret, coded account in Switzerland just to keep other people's hands off of her financial affairs.
Ros continued, "We had barely gotten your sister's pirated CDs out to a couple of stores when you found our warehouse. After a policeman came nosing around, we knew we had to clear out of there, fast."
Remembering the large policeman who had scared her and Paul that afternoon, Ana smiled. Maybe it had been their presence in the parking lot that had made him suspicious enough to hang around. In any event, Ana was glad Seattle's finest had been on the scene.
"It was bad enough that you screwed that up for us, but then you found the corrected royalty data. This morning, when I found out that you'd called all the artists and they agreed to waive the penalties, I knew it was time to move on to Plan B."
"Which is?" Ana asked when Ros seemed inclined to stop talking.
Ros met her gaze, and for the first time Ana began to realize the seriousness of the situation. Even with all the gun waving before, she hadn't really been frightened. It had felt as if she'd been a kid again and had walked in on her parents' rehearsals, as if it were just some bizarre play that would soon end. The overly bright look in Ros' eyes changed her thinking. It told Ana that Ros' intent was very serious, indeed.
"We have a check that you're going to sign that will severely diminish your trust account, then you and Little brother here are going to disappear."
Ana didn't think now was the best time to mention there was no money in her trust account. She figured it would be better to let Ros think she was going to get away with millions…maybe then they'd let her and Elliot go.
"What are you going to do with us?" Elliot asked as the boat began to slow. Ana looked over at Christian's brother and noticed that he wouldn't meet her eyes. She thought about how Elliot had stolen her ring, thinking it was valuable, and wondered if he had been the one to break into her house, ransacking it when he didn't find anything of value. She didn't so much care about the mess, but if she found out he had been the one to hurt Catticus, she'd kill him with her bare hands.
Ana noticed they were approaching Gas Works Park, a rusting refinery the city of Seattle had converted into an open air park.
"We're going to kill you, of course," Ros answered Elliot's question in an oddly matter of fact tone, as if she were ordering lunch rather than stating an intent to murder two people. "What better way to hurt Christian Grey than to kill two of the people he cares most about in the world?"
"Christian doesn't care about me," Elliot and Ana said in unison.
Stephen turned to look at Elliot as the boat bumped into the cement wall lining the park, and spoke for the first time. "Ha. All Christian ever talked about in college was his little brother. He drove us all nuts with stories about everything you did. We heard about your grades, what classes you liked, who your best friends were. On and on till I just wanted to tell him that nobody cared that his little brother's favorite ice cream flavor was chocolate chip mint or that his first girlfriend had a heart shaped tattoo on her ass."
Ana's mouth dropped open in shock. "I never realized Christian paid so much attention to the stuff I told him back then," he muttered.
Stephen snorted, then turned and cut the engine.
"And you." Ros nearly spat the words at Ana. "He moons over you like a lovesick calf. I thought I was going to puke this morning when he was all but pawing you in his office."
"Now get out, both of you." The silver barrel of the gun pointed the way off the boat.
AN: Chapter Title Song – "Falling Apart " by Michael Schulte