14. Evan
EVAN
If I could focus on the hate and leave her all alone,
I’d be able to move forward, if only I had known.
I can’t speak the truth, I don’t want to make it real,
I can’t stand what I’ve done or what it makes me feel.
Regret will settle in my chest and suffocate the day.
If only I could make it right, if only there was a way.
“ I t’s good to see New York again,” James says as I walk into his office on Greene Street in lower Manhattan.
Even as he speaks, he stares out the office window. It’s an impressive eight-by-eight-foot picture window, making the view seem like it’s not quite real.
I don’t return his sentiment. I’m fucking miserable regardless of the scenery or location.
I want to drop to my knees and confess everything to Kat.
The weight of it all is burying me. I think she’d forgive me.
I can see it in her eyes that she wants to accept anything I’m willing to divulge.
I could tell her almost everything and I think she’d let me stay.
I’m too scared to do it, though, and bring her into this mess. If they find out she knows … she just can’t know. Not until I end things here at least. It’s step one to getting my Kat back.
“It’s crazy how you miss it, isn’t it?” he continues as he turns to me. He’s more relaxed than he was in London, although his suit is crisp and fresh from the dry cleaner. I close the door as he takes a seat at the desk, unbuttoning his dark gray jacket.
“Sorry you had to wait a minute, I was just getting this paperwork wrapped up.” He leans back in his chair, loosening his slim navy tie and unfastening the top button of his crisp white dress shirt.
“Are we going to talk about it?” I ask, needing to get this shit off my chest. I kept quiet in London, but I can’t anymore. It’s been weeks. That must be enough time.
Is that how long it takes to get away with murder?
“Talk about what?” he questions and his voice is gravelly and low.
“Talk about the fact that the charges against Bruce are dropped?” I say then hold his cold gaze with one I hope informs him I have no time for bullshit and I’m out of patience.
He may have been relaxed before I sat down, but now he’s still. And silent. I let my eyes fall to the stack of papers on his desk, then drift to a small picture frame. It’s a cube and matte black on all sides, and I have no idea who the woman in the picture is.
I absently pick it up, ignoring how his eyes bore into me, how his icy gaze heats as I let the question hang in the air, forcing him to answer.
The block is lighter than I thought it’d be and I don’t recognize the broad with a closer look either. It’s not his ex-wife, or his current girlfriend. Not that I thought Luna or whatever her name was, the fling of the month, would have a place in his office.
“My sister,” James says, answering the unasked question. “A Christmas gift.”
I nod my head once, putting the block back down and waiting for him to answer me.
“Bruce didn’t do anything, so of course the charges didn’t stick,” James states in an eerily calm voice.
“We knew he was innocent.” James pulls out a drawer and shuffles something inside of it, but I can’t see what.
He doesn’t elaborate or give any room to further the conversation that we should have.
“What’s done is done, and there’s nothing more to say.”
“That’s not what Sam told me. She told me she’s scared.” It’s the only reason I let her get so close. She’s terrified that the truth is going to come out. She helped me, so she’d go down with me.
“Whose fault is that?” James sneers.
“She’s your wife,” I say, pushing out the words through my clenched teeth.
“I don’t have a wife,” he answers me with a sly smile, as if he’s clean of this mess. As if it’s all on me. Deep down in my gut, I know it is.
“Ex then,” I concede and add, “I didn’t know the divorce had been finalized.
” He picks up a pen and taps it against the desk but doesn’t take his eyes off me.
It hasn’t gone through yet, according to Samantha.
All the money needs to be split one way or the other, and neither him nor Samantha, his ex-partner in this business and future ex-wife, wants to take less than the other.
“Either way, what’s done is done and the two of you need to let it die.”
“An innocent man?—”
“Got off!” He looks me in the eyes as he leans forward and adds, “And a guilty man got away.”
“We should have come forward.”
“Should have, but you listened to a shady bitch. That’s your problem, not mine.”
My gaze falls to the desk as my fingers itch to form a fist. I called him . The number I dialed that night was to his office. I had no idea she’d be the one who answered.
“I panicked—” I start to say, but he cuts me off.
“Because you fucked up. And now I have to clean up your mess and make sure you stay out of trouble.”
“Is that what this is? You doing me a favor?” I ask sarcastically, letting the memory of that night fade.
I can’t quit while there’s still an investigation.
I can’t bring more attention to myself or to the company.
One of my clients dies and I get fired or quit shortly after?
Yeah, that’ll get the police’s attention.
I wish I could tell Kat everything, but then she’d know she was married to a murderer. Even if it was just an accident. I’m a coward and I’ll never be a man she deserves. But every day that goes by, I want to be more of the man I was the day before it all changed.
“I need time off,” I state, fed up with the conversation.
I imagine this isn’t the first time something like this has happened and I sift through the memories of all the shit that’s gone on behind the scenes for years.
I never questioned anything, I never suspected a thing.
Not until James brought me into the inner circle.
“No,” James answers immediately with no negotiation in his voice.
“Then I quit,” I tell him as my fingers dig into the chair. The only thing I can think about is Kat. She’ll get over the fact I kept this from her. I know she will. It’s not the first time I’ve kept a secret from her. We’ll be okay as long as I’m through with this shit.
His thin lips twist into a half smile as he says, “Well, that can’t happen.” He looks at me with a calculated glint in his eyes. Like he’s been waiting for this and he’s ready for my rebuttal, eager for it even.
“Why not?” I question as my muscles coil. Even though I’m aware it could cause suspicion, I can do whatever the fuck I want. “I’m not going to work for this company anymore.”
“That’s not?—”
“It’s called quitting,” I spit back at him. I don’t need this job; I’ve got plenty of money in the bank and my investments, and Kat’s career is finally stable. She bled money for years, but it’s leveling out. We’ll be all right financially and this is what she wants and what I need.
“You can’t just quit.”
“I can, and I am.”
James’s smile fades and he tilts his head to the side, an expression of the utmost sympathy on his weathered face. His deep brown eyes look darker as he picks up a folder on the left side of his desk. It wasn’t hidden, but it’s not labeled and it looks like all the rest.
My eyes follow his movement and my brow furrows until he opens it.
“The hotel had cameras. They’re gone now, of course, but a few snapshots were taken. Some I think you’d find particularly interesting. Maybe enough so to stay.”
I can imagine what they are before he flips the folder open.
The eight-by-ten glossy photo paper shows the one thing that proves I lied.
I’m walking into the hotel lobby I claimed I didn’t enter.
And I’m not alone. Standing right next to me is Tony.
Only hours before he was found dead in the rec room of the hotel.
The one reserved for our company and the division Bruce is the head of.
The photograph of Tony and his bloodshot eyes takes me back to that night.
To the moment I found him dead on the floor.
My limbs freeze in waves. Like the betrayal that moves through me.
“It’s a security net on my end,” James says and then closes the folder, pulling it off the desk and into his lap.
“So if I quit,” I start to say, but instead I stop and stare ahead out of the window. I want to kill him. There’s never been a time in my life when I’ve desired someone dead. But right now, it’s all I want.
“Then I assume it’s for less than moral reasons,” James says, spelling it out for me. “I need to protect myself.”
“That’s bullshit,” I tell him and my words are hard. My hands turn to fists as they tremble with the need to get this anger out.
“I know, trust me I know,” James says. “And I don’t like this any more than you do.”
A sarcastic huff of a laugh leaves me. “Fuck off,” I sneer at him.
I stand up from the office chair so quickly it nearly falls over. I grip it so tight I think I’ll break it. Fuck, I want to break it. I can picture beating the piss out of him with the broken wood.
My body is hot, my mind in a daze of regret and sickness.
“I’m leaving,” I barely speak as I turn my back to him and start to walk off.
“The fuck you are,” he says.
My body whips around, tense and ready to let it all out.
Every day it’s been building and building, the tension winding tighter and the need to destroy something climbing higher and higher.
I only took a few steps away, and with his words I’m right back across the desk, ready to do something stupid.
My body heats as my fist moves from the chair to the desk and I lean closer. He may not want to show it, but I see the fear in his eyes.
He should be scared. He’s fucking with me. Threatening me. No one is going to take my wife from me. I won’t allow it.
“I need to get away from this. From you.”
I never should have listened to him and try to cover it up. He set me up. He used that night to his advantage and I played right into his hand.
It takes everything in me not to reach across the desk and haul him up by his collar. To fist the fine cloth in my grip and spit in his face.
Pure rage and adrenaline pump through my blood.
“Careful now, Evan.” James smiles as he says it, but I notice how he leans back. Both of us know he’s scared. If I throw this punch, if I push, he could bring it all to light.
And then I’ll lose her forever.
“I’m going home, and I’ll let you know when I’m available again.” Never. The word is whispered in the back of my head. I’m never returning to this office. I’m never doing another thing for this prick.
“You can’t leave me. I’ll ruin you,” he practically whispers with nothing but hate. He says the words I already know.
“Ruin me then,” I respond easily, looking into his dark eyes as I turn the doorknob and leave him behind me. On the surface I’m calm, but brewing just beneath my skin is nothing but chaos. Everything I’ve feared has finally come.
Proof I was there.
Proof I lied to the police.
I leave the office with the threat echoing in my head. I did this to myself, digging the hole deeper and deeper.
There’s no way Kat will stay when it all goes down.