<h4>Chapter 171: Chapter 171 : Dark Forces Assembling</h4>


    Allison.


    “So, as I was saying, Jessica, don’t you think Ba is apletely unfit mother?” I asked again, staring at my daughter’s friend with purpose.


    The girl was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen her as a mother.”


    “But Ba is promiscuous and violent and not a good friend to Tally, right?” I tried again.


    Jessica rubbed her chin. “Tally’s dead, though. How can she be any kind of friend to her?”


    I sighed and opened my purse, taking out a small stack of the financial reserves the Cartwrights had given me for... well... bribe money, to be blunt. “Think, Jessica. Think back. Didn’t Ba attack men, including Chad, at Tally’s parties?”


    Realization finally dawned in the idiot’s eyes, and she quickly pocketed the money I slid across the table. “You know what, you’re right. She did. And she tried to get back at Chad. And Tally said Ba sent her dad to beat up Chad.”


    Bingo. “Yes, that is true, isn’t it?” I simpered. “It would be a shame for Tally’s baby, little Alessandro, to stay in her custody while there is a loving family like the Cartwrights willing to open their home to him.”


    “That’s absolutely right,” Jessica replied with a vigorous nod.


    “Good. Good. I’m d we understand each other. You just make sure you tell all this to thewyer and the judge when the timees,” I said.


    “Sure will.” Jessica gave me a greedy, eager grin. “Should I be expecting anything else for my trouble?”


    F*ck no. “Of course,” I smiled, patting her hand.


    “Great. Guess I’ll see you in court, then,” Jessica said, getting up from the table and walking out, leaving me with the bill.


    Rude.


    I was having trouble believing my daughter had collected such a string of idiots as friends.


    But, as I continued vetting them, coaching them, and bribing them, each girl who came was stupider than thest, and each boy was a huge egotistical asshole.


    Not that that stopped me from asking both boys and girls if their fathers were single. I wasing up with quite a few prospects for myself. I knew after they had Alessandro, I wouldn’t be able to count on the Cartwrights for anything.


    Luckily, my next meeting was with Carter Cartwright himself. He could pick up the tab for all these vacuous people.


    Carter strode across the cafe as though my thinking his name had conjured the man himself. “So?” he asked, sitting down across from me.


    “Please hand the tab to this gentleman,” I said to a passing waiter. Then I smiled at Carter. “Easy peasy. There will be twelve witnesses there to poke holes in Ba’s character. And I haven’t even gottenpletely through the list yet.”


    “Excellent,” Carter responded, tossing a ck AmEx at the waiter when he came back with the tab.


    If James hadn’t divorced me, I would have one of those. I’d also still have my Tally. This was all his fault. Him and that bitch Ba.


    “Is there anything else I can do for you, Carter?” I simpered, leaning over the table to expose my cleavage as I put a hand on his. I could do worse than kicking out the current Mrs. Cartwright and raising my grandchild myself.


    “Allison, we’ve talked about this,” Carter said stiffly, snatching his hand from under mine. “I have no intention of ever leaving Cecelia. You’re a beautiful woman, but go fishing elsewhere.”


    I shrugged and sat back in my chair. “Can’t me a girl for trying.”


    “I will also require that you sign over any rights or im you might have to Alessandro now or in the future,” Carter intoned. “Frankly, I can’t have trash like you around the heir to the Cartwright fortune.”


    “Trash?!” I screeched.


    “Lower your voice,” Cartermanded. “I won’t have you making a scene.”


    “How dare you call me trash?!” I hissed, lowering my tone.


    “You and your daughter are both trash. And we’re going to have to change Alessandro’s name when we have custody of him. Alessandro is too... ethnic. Maybe Alexander,” Carter mused to himself.


    I stood, incensed. “You’re insulting the memory of my daughter.”


    “I’m telling the truth. Ugh, new money,” Carter grimaced as though he’d stepped in something foul.


    “I’ll have you know...” I began.


    “Know what? That your father had his own fishing boat? Good for him,” Carter said. “Alexander—yes, I like the sound of that—will have a multi-million-dor corporation to oversee. A lot more than a boat.”


    “My father, at least, was never stupid enough to y Russian roulette on his boat,” I sniffed.


    Carter scowled. “Fair point, well done.” Carter reached into his jacket and pulled out a packet of papers. “Everything is filled out. All you need to do is sign them.”


    I took the packet and looked inside. It was full of the necessary paperwork to remove any ims I might have on Alessandro and to bar me from seeing him until he was eighteen.


    “Is this really necessary?” I asked.


    “Oh, it’s necessary,” Carter said. “You grasping, money-grubbing whore. I won’t have you influencing MY grandson.”


    I shook my head and stalked away, tossing a middle-finger gesture behind me as I did so. “I’ll have to think about it.”


    “Don’t take too long,” Carter called back. “This arrangement only works if you keep up your end!”


    I marched out to the valet and got in my new BMW. Someday, soon, I’d trade up for more luxurious, more expensive vehicles, but this would do for now.


    A loft apartment in Greenwich Vige greeted me, and I promised myself a penthouse in Manhattan as soon as all this was said and done.


    I pulled a bottle of Merlot out of the fridge once I was inside my little safe haven, and tossed the man envelope down on the kitchen table.


    I got arge wine ss and poured myself a generous amount, not bothering to put the bottle back in the fridge. I would be drinking more soon enough.


    For the longest time, I stared at the envelope. Inside were papers, much like those Tally had drawn up, that would keep me away from my grandson. My only family.


    If I signed them, I would be totally and utterly alone.


    If I didn’t sign them, I was going back to prison.


    I sat down at the table and set my wine ss aside, pulling the papers out and reading them thoroughly. The Cartwrights hadn’t left anything to chance. I could have consulted my own attorney, but I, for one, couldn’t see any loopholes.


    “This is not the way it was supposed to be,” Imented, wiping a tear from my eye. I was supposed to be with James. We were supposed to live a fabulous life.


    Tally was supposed to have married well and brought my grandchildren home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we would summer together on Long Ind. We would have been a family.


    Then there was Ba. God, how I wanted to strangle that interloper. She’d destroyed everything. Everything, including my Tally.


    “I am going to kill you, Ba,” I whispered, mming my fist down on the table and causing some of my wine to spill, making it look as though I were signing the documents in blood. “I don’t care how long it takes, how much it costs. You are going to DIE.”


    I thought back to all the luncheons, events, and shopping I’d done with my Tally. How we’d been two peas in a pod. James had been stingy with me, and Tally understood that, graciously using her own allowance to keep me afloat.


    Then Ba turned her against me. I wasn’t allowed to see my grandson. I was cut out of any ability to raise him. I was left penniless without even James’s shoulder to cry on.


    Yes, that bitch had to go.


    “I’m sorry, Tally,” I slurred after the sun got lower in the sky and I’d nearly finished the whole bottle of Merlot. “I’m sorry they destroyed us. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you from that. Couldn’t save us from that. I tried so hard.”


    I looked at the wine-stained documents again, then stood and walked around the apartment. It was impossible to see the stars from where I was, but I still looked out at the dark horizon and imagined maybe my Tally was looking down at me right now.


    “You really wanted me to raise him, didn’t you?” I said to the windows. “You wanted me to raise him, but your father said he’d cut you off if you put me as a guardian. I understand, baby. I see it now. I see how they destroyed us.”


    A tear rolled down my cheek.


    “I don’t think I get to raise him, Tally,” I whispered. “We would have made such a great team, raising him together. And seeing how great we were as a family would have brought your father back to me, and everything would have been alright. If it weren’t for that harlot!”


    I threw my ss against the brick wall, and it shattered. “Tally, I’m going to end her. For you. For me. For Alessandro. I’m going to make it so she can’t hurt anyone else. And then I’ll get your father back. I won’t be destitute, honey. I know you worried about that, but I still have my looks. I’ll get by.”


    How long I would need to get by and with whom, I had no idea. But what I did know was that I had time. Plenty of time to n my revenge.


    “You’d be so proud, Tally. So proud of me. I’ve got all our best interests at heart, you know that, right? Your father needs ME, not HER. Alessandro needs ME, not HER. And if ites down to it, I will even raise that little bastard of theirs. I have a generous spirit,” I rattled on.


    I looked down at my chipped nails and sighed, deciding I was going to need another manicure. The botox in my face was wearing off as well. I could do with another breast lift, and my lips had lost their youthful plumpness. All of this, I would remedy with the Cartwrights’ money. Then, I would find a man who would keep me in the style I deserved while I plotted Ba’s death.


    It was that thought, and that thought alone that got me through sitting down at the table, taking up a pen, and signing away my rights as Alessandro’s family to see, speak to, or hold until he was eighteen.


    But when he was eighteen, he would be mine. And he would take care of his grandmother with the Cartwrights’ money.


    And Ba would be dead.