16. Chapter 16 #2
Tristan couldn’t believe that she’d go so far as to wreck Jax’s job.
No, wait, he did believe it. She’d shown him her true colors many times, especially over their last years together, and she continued to do so.
Tristan didn’t know if Eve had always been like that or if she’d become that way, but it didn’t matter.
What mattered was clearing Jax’s name and removing Eve from all of their lives.
At the thought of Jax, another wave of guilt washed over Tristan, this one so strong that he almost lost his balance .
The sabotage, lying in pain on the floor, the trip to the emergency room? It had all happened because of Tristan. His ex had tried to ruin Jax’s career. His ex had caused Jax all that agony, and Tristan sat at the root of it.
The pizza ad he’d seen on the way home had been a sign in many ways, but he forgot about his order as he stayed in the shadows of the alley, taking pictures and video, capturing all the evidence he thought he needed, because he’d caused this mess and now he had the answers to fix it.
But his confusion built as he watched them.
Sure, there had been some canoodling and kissing, especially after a few more rounds, but Eve always initiated.
Derrick didn’t seem to like her as much as she liked him, so why was he risking his job?
He’d broken the law for her; there must be something else going on.
Deciding to stay until they left, he watched them go from kissing to talking, and Derrick must’ve said something that made Eve angry. Snapping at him, she dramatically put her purse into her lap and pulled out a familiar envelope.
Tristan forgot to breathe. It was the same envelope he’d given her last week, and he needed to concentrate to keep his hands steady as she opened it, handing Derrick some cash, which he quickly pocketed.
Thankfully, Tristan had managed to record the entire exchange before his stomach heaved, and he turned around, inhaling sharply and trying not to vomit in the alley.
Not only had Tristan torn Jax’s life apart, but he’d also been funding the destruction.
Sitting on the dirty concrete, Tristan put his elbows on his knees and bowed his head, taking deep breaths as the guilt tried to suffocate him. Yet he didn’t cry; he didn’t deserve to. He’d shed tears after he fixed things.
He just wished that he had someone to talk to, someone who wasn’t directly involved, which eliminated a lot of people he knew. But not everyone.
Pulling out his phone again, Tristan dialed, and it only rang twice.
“Tristan! How’s it going?”
“Gideon?” he asked weakly, and thirty minutes later, Gideon pulled up behind the pizza place in a minivan filled with video equipment. Thankfully, the passenger seat had been cleared, and Tristan sat, putting his cold pizza in his lap and the disheveled cake by his feet.
Gideon looked him over. “Let’s go for a drive. I’ll take a slice of whatever that is and you can tell me all about it.”
“I still can’t believe she blackmailed you to get to me.” Rain glanced at Mason, who nodded in agreement.
“Technically, it’s extortion,” Tristan corrected.
“Whatever.” Rain twisted his face, clearly disgusted. “You’re stupid, you know that, right?”
Tristan nodded. When he’d stopped by Mason’s place a few days ago to come clean, Rain had yelled at him for almost four minutes straight, and then he’d thanked Tristan.
“And I love you. You know that, right?” Rain darted over, hugging him, and Tristan tried not to cry.
“I love you too, kid.” He kissed the top of Rain’s head before they parted. “And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
“You won’t have to.” Mason pointed out as Rain drifted back to him.
“That’s if everything goes according to plan.” Tristan glanced toward the foyer.
Apparently, he hadn’t been the only one keeping secrets, because Eve’s Valentine’s Day visit hadn’t been her first trip to The Pointe.
Once Tristan had confessed, he’d found out that Eve had barged into the wedding hall last year to find and harass Rain, and she’d brought her greasy fling as backup.
However, Marci had tossed them out on their ears.
Come to think of it, Eve had always appeared far from the building, so she wouldn’t be caught on camera, which made sense now. Hopefully, she’d never step into their lives again after today.
“Everything is set,” Gideon strolled down The Pointe’s grand staircase into the foyer. “Owen’s desk has a microphone and there are three hidden cameras. I wish you’d told me about this earlier. I could’ve given you some to place around the kitchen, try to catch Derrick in the act. ”
“I don’t know…” Tristan smiled kindly despite the knots in his stomach. “Someone might have found them.”
“True, true.” Gideon looked him up and down. “Listen, friend. You’re doing the right thing.”
“He is,” Mason stated with less of a monotone than usual, and Tristan was touched.
“I just want Jax’s name cleared and The Pointe reimbursed, that’s all. I don’t care about what she did to me.”
“Well, I do,” Rain grumped similarly to Mason, crossing his arms.
“Are you sure you don’t want Jax here? Wouldn’t he want to see this?” Gideon asked.
Truthfully, Tristan did want Jax at the hall, so he could see that he was right; he had been targeted, and it was exactly who he thought it was.
But Tristan had to fix things before he could face Jax again.
“Not yet.” Tristan shook his head. “This might not go the way we hoped. Eve can be unpredictable, that’s why Marci’s here.”
While Tristan hadn’t liked telling Owen, Angelo, and Marci the full story about Eve and Derrick, including the threats and extortion, there’d been no need for him to feel embarrassed, because once he’d shown them the pictures, Angelo had grumbled in anger, and Marci’s aura had become quite threatening.
Owen had offered to fire Derrick on the spot, but on the drive with Gideon, Tristan had come up with a plan that Rain and Mason had also contributed to, and when the other three had been looped in, they had his back one hundred percent.
In fact, Owen had consulted Liam, who was versed in law, and they’d all managed to create something that was mostly foolproof, keeping it amongst themselves.
Funny, Tristan had almost turned down the ma?tre d’ interview, not thinking that he’d had a chance, and he’d ended up part of a new family.
In fact, Owen had been angry on his behalf, revealing that he had a malicious ex too, one who’d kidnapped his child, and Tristan was still stunned.
Overall, it made him feel less alone, but not any less guilty.
“We should get into place.” Gideon glanced out the window at the empty parking lot. Not wanting any interference, they’d scheduled this when the hall was closed, so their footsteps echoed as everyone went upstairs .
Gideon raced into Owen’s office, adjusting the few tiny cameras, and Tristan nodded at Marci and Owen before standing off to the side.
Rain and Mason went into Ollie’s office next door, where they could easily hear through the wall and stay out of sight.
They’d come to support Tristan but wanted to avoid Eve at all costs, and Tristan wished he could avoid her too.
“Is anyone here?” Eve’s high-pitched tone echoed through the place, and they all stilled.
Tristan wasn’t ready for the rage that washed through him, as if hearing her had broken the dam, and he inhaled sharply through his nose, trying to calm down.
“Nice voice,” Gideon stated, patting Tristan on the shoulder. “Good luck!”
“Thanks,” Tristan replied absently as both Gideon and Owen left, and a moment later, Owen came back with Eve.
She strolled in like she was meant to be there, like she owned the place, and that’s why people fell to her. It wasn’t just her beauty; it was her entitlement, and she wielded both like weapons.
But that entitlement also blinded her. She was at The Pointe because Owen had called her about a job.
He’d meant Jax’s job, but she had definitely talked herself into the idea that she’d find employment at a place that she’d been physically ejected from.
And she’d never consider that her little scheme had been discovered.
Tristan continued to be ashamed that he’d ever thought he loved her.
She stopped in her tracks as soon as she saw him, smiling brilliantly.
“Tris! Did you get me a job here?”
“Oh, I definitely want to talk to you about one.” Cutting her off, Owen gestured toward the chair in front of his desk, ice in his blue eyes as he took a seat across from her, pressing a button on his desk phone.
“Great!” She sat, adjusting her tight, purple dress, oblivious to the hatred from the people around her. Trembling with molten anger, Tristan had to bite his lip because he couldn’t speak, not yet.
“It turns out that we’ve been looking for a certain someone who can help us,” Owen stated, steepling his fingers.
“I could be that someone.” Crossing her legs, she flicked her long, dark hair over one shoulder, but all that feminine charm was lost on Owen .
“I think you already are,” Owen declared, and Eve looked like the cat that caught the cream, but her expression quickly flickered to shock when the door opened and Derrick walked in, Angelo right behind him.
They’d hooked Derrick with the same bait, and he most likely thought that he was about to rise another rank in the kitchen, but he was already fired.
Derrick stopped three steps in, panic across his face and sweat on his brow as he realized that Eve, Owen, Tristan, and Marci were all staring at him.
Turning, he looked at Angelo, who shooed him toward the desk.
“Why don’t you take a seat next to Eve? You two know each other. And I’ve got something to show you.”
“Fuck…” Derrick muttered under his breath, and Tristan would be lying if he said that he didn’t feel a bit of schadenfreude. Stiffly, Derrick walked over and plopped down next to Eve, giving her a hard stare.
She’d recovered, looking back coolly until Owen handed them the prints of Tristan’s photos; more than one showed her handing Derrick money.
While she didn’t say a word, her eyebrows went up a bit.
Tristan had known her long enough to read that as fear, but she could be ferocious when backed into a corner.
“I can fuck her if I want.” Derrick tossed the pictures back on Owen’s desk. “What? I’m not allowed to have a life outside work?”
“You can have a life,” Owen’s voice turned harsh, his eyes flashing. “But you can’t sabotage our sous-chef and The Pointe.”
“I did some hunting,” Angelo added, not letting Derrick reply.
“The guy you borrowed the key from? He sold you out, and we have video evidence of you leaving the walk-in.” The latter was a bluff but the former held true, and that seemed to be enough to convince Derrick, because he sat on that information for less than three seconds before rounding on Eve.
“I told you that was a shit idea!” he yelled, and her eyes went wide, but she couldn’t reply because Angelo slammed his hands on the desk, making them jump.
“You fucked with my kitchen, Derrick. My . Kitchen. Over what? A jealous girlfriend?”
Derrick cracked like a fresh egg at the bottom of a grocery bag .
“Naw, her pussy ain’t magic. She paid me to.” He jerked a thumb at her and she swatted it away, her face twisting.
“And you fucked up the job, you idiot!” she screeched at him, forgetting where she was.
“You break into this place then!” He stuck two fingers in her face. “I had to hide in the bushes for two hours until they left. A raccoon almost bit me!”
“A raccoon almost bit me!” She mimicked him in an even higher voice. “I gave you a lot of money-”
“Enough!” Tristan bellowed, unable to take it any longer.
When he’d originally left the relationship, he’d been the victim of Eve’s anger, letting her smash every plate in the kitchen and rip down the curtains mid-tantrum, absorbing whatever she’d thrown at him.
But now he was about to return all of that to sender with the help of his new fortitude, which had been laced with steel.
Because he had been angry too. She’d stolen a decade from him, ten years of feelings and emotions that she’d never intended to return, and when he’d moved on, she came back into his life and caused chaos, tearing everything apart.
Tristan could barely stand the sight of her, and he became a volcano of rage, ready to spew lava-hot words since it was finally his turn to speak.
“You came here threatening to cause trouble for Rain and me, and I paid you to stay away. But you didn’t stay away, you took that money - my money - and gave it to Derrick,” Tristan spat, staring at the line cook so hard that he looked down at his feet. “To sabotage Jax.”
Eve rolled her eyes.
“Of course I did! You were paying more attention to that twink than me. You don’t deserve to be with-”
All of a sudden, Tristan was looming over her, sheer hate pouring from him.
“Don’t call him that again,” Tristan said in a low voice, and she froze in fear before smiling nervously.
“You don’t have to be so upset, Tris-”
“Oh, I’m not just upset, Eve. I’m furious .
” He let out a dark, disbelieving laugh as her smile drained away.
Maybe now she’d realize that she was in enemy territory.
“I wish I had a better word than terrible to describe you as a person, because that doesn’t even come close.
You’re a selfish manipulator who uses people and tosses them aside, an empty narcissist who only takes and never gives, and even your son, your own flesh and blood, doesn’t love you. ”
She recoiled like he’d slapped her, opening her mouth to respond, but he held up a hand, not letting her speak.
“You tried to ruin Jax, and the stress from that hurt him. You hurt him, Eve. Just like you do to everyone around you, and I’m sick of it.
I’ve already lost too many years to you, but I’m not going to lose anything else, especially the man that I love.
That’s why I’m going to make sure that you pay for what you’ve done. ”
Tristan didn’t know what hit him first, the scent of mint or the motion in his peripheral vision, but something drew his attention, and when he glanced at the door, he froze, unable to hide his shock.
Jax stood in the doorway, staring at Tristan in wonder, his wide, brown eyes shimmering with tears.