Chapter 36 Elodie
Elodie
God in heaven. I’m going out of my mind with worry.
I pace back and forth across the living room floor, my heels clicking against the hardwood in a rhythm that matches the crazy hammering in my chest.
Keith dropped me home almost an hour ago. I’ve heard nothing from Dorian.
Skylar is on the sofa, watching me wear a track into the rug. She's been here for twenty minutes. I called her from the car.
"Elodie, please try to stay calm," she pleas, her voice gentle in a way that tells me I look as bad as I feel.
"I can't." I press my hands to my temples.
I keep seeing Jack's face, the officers, the handcuffs.
And that sound of his chair scraping against the floor as the office hauled him up.
"You didn't see it, Skyler. They just grabbed him.
Right there in the middle of the restaurant.
Like he was — like he was some kind of criminal. "
Possession and distribution of controlled substances. They were talking about drugs.
My mind was such a wreck I had to look it up. And I wish I hadn’t.
Having a charge of possession and distribution of controlled substances, depending on what the police found, meant going away to prison for years. Anything from one five to fifteen years.
If Jack is guilty, I know no money or magic can help him. But he said it was a mistake. It has to be. It just has to be.
Skylar rises from the sofa and crosses the room. She wraps an arm around my shoulders, and pulls me into her. “We don’t know anything yet, Elodie” she says softly “Dorian’s handling it. Please let him handle it and try to stay calm.”
“He’s my brother, Skylar. My big brother. I would be so crushed if it’s true and we can’t figure this out.”
She pulls me closer and I rest my head on her chest. I want her tell me it’ll be okay, but I know she can’t. She’s known me long enough to piece together things about my brother, though she’s never said anything against him.
“Come on, let’s sit. We might be waiting for a while.” She inches away to look at me. “These sorts of things tend to be a little tricky.”
I nod, agreeing. There’s nothing more I can do.
Placing her arm around me, she guides me over to the sofa and sits me down. And she’s right.
It’s another three hours before we hear the front door open, then the familiar thud of Dorian’s shoes on the floor.
I’m exhausted and my body feels broken with worry, but I still bolt up at the sound.
Dorian comes into the living room a moment later and the moment his gaze lands on me, I know… I know it’s bad. His eyes have that sad, sullen look.
He manages a soft smile when he glances at Skylar, but the look in his eyes doesn’t change when he meets my eyes again. “I’m sorry, Lamb. It’s bad news. I couldn’t do anything. And I really tried.”
“Oh God.” My knees tremble and my hand goes to my stomach. I’m going to be sick.
Skylar is at my side. “I’ll let you two talk in private. I’d like to stay over though, if that’s okay. Just to be here if you need me.” She glances at Dorian, who is already nodding.
“Of course, go find one of the guest rooms and make yourself comfortable. Albert’s around. He’ll get you whatever you need.”
“Thank you.” She taps his arm before heading to the door.
I watch my friend go, glancing at me over her shoulder before going through the door. Shaking, I meet my husband’s eyes again.
Dorian.
How many hours did he spend with Jack? Almost five. It’s the early hours of the morning now.
He tried to help. Despite the past, he went out of his way to try.
My mind was stalling, caught between the confliction of wanting to know how bad the situation was, and wishing I could go back to yesterday when none of this had happened.
Either way, I get the feeling I would have had to face this at some point.
“Tell me,” I rasp, my voice shaking.
“He’s been set up.”
“Set up?” The words tumble out of me.
“Yes.”
“So he’s innocent. He was telling the truth. It was a mistake.”
My hope fizzles when he shakes his head, the slow sway stretching, as though it’s dragging through water.
“He’s admitted to being an accomplice.”
Jack. What the hell? What the actual hell?
A sudden dryness fills my throat. “An accomplice…to possession and distribution of…drugs?”
“Yes, but the police are charging him with everything.”
“But he was set up. They just need to find the person who set him up.”
“Baby, it’s worse than you think.” I don’t miss the endearment. He’s never called me that. I can only take that to mean I’ve only given a taste of how bad the situation is.
Dorian lifts a brown envelope from his side. I only just noticed it. He opens it, takes out two large pictures, and hands them to me.
I take them. They’re of Jack embracing a woman. The woman is…
My blood turns to led in my veins and it just stops flowing.
The woman is… “Clara.” I hear myself say.
Clara—my ex-best friend who stole from me, betrayed me, got me mixed up with Marcus and the loan, and nearly got me killed. That Clara.
Dorian takes out two more pictures. These are of Jack and Clara kissing on a beach. They were seeing each other, involved.
And there’s a time stamp on the picture. That happened last month. After everything.
He knew where she was—the whole time.
“Dorian…”
“I know, Lamb. I know.” He drags a hand over his face.
“Apparently, they’ve been together for over a year.
And she’s the drug dealer. Or rather she’s been working with a ring linked to a cartel leader the police have been tracking.
They’ve have been looking for her, and they think Jack has been working as a mule.
He denies it but… there’s no way to tell if it’s true or not. ”
The shaking has stopped. Now I’m frozen, cold from the inside out. “Jack. And Clara. Jesus.” And there I was so worried about him.
Fuck. I’m so stupid. When I first went to Jack about the loan, he must have known about it already. And God, he lost his mind when I told him about Dorian. All that time he knew what Clara did and where she was.
“He’ll go to prison for a long time.” I still sound like the little sister.
Reluctantly, Dorian nods. “But they also want to pin charges from the past on him.”
“The past?”
“With your family business.” I didn’t think it was possible for Dorian to look more uncomfortable.
"What do you mean, Dorian?"
He releases a long, sad breath. “I think it’s time I told you about the past.”
A tremor shoots through my heart, then I go numb.
He takes my hand and we go back to the sofa to sit. My body finds a moment of reprieve in the softness, but the tension returns the instant I stare into Dorian’s piercing blue eyes.
“Your family business went under because of Jack. He embezzled the money, siphoning all the profit and client investments.”
Everything in me locks down tight, like clamps are sealing shut over my organs. “What are you saying to me? Jack. He…”
“He got mixed up with the wrong people,” he breathes.
“At first, I didn’t know how bad it was.
He was gambling and then he got out of control.
I tried to stop him but he wouldn’t listen to me.
Then it got worse when he started losing and gambling what he didn’t have.
Then he began owing the wrong people. By then your dad was really sick and it was clear he was going to die.
” He pauses and a few seconds pass before he continues.
“Your father suspected Jack was up to no good so he removed Jack as your executor from your trust fund and put the money in my care.”
“My father did that?” I gasp.
“It was the only thing he could do to protect your future. Make sure you could go to college and have your dream to become a teacher. I wanted that for you too, so I promised I would look after it.”
“Oh God.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“After your father passed, the business went under. It was too late then. Jack had taken everything too far, and unless you got a big lump sum, nothing could save the business. To save himself though, Jack pinned everything on your father. You can’t take a dead man to court, so everything was wrapped up.
And the only people who knew the truth kept quiet, out of respect for you and your father. ”
A tear drops onto my lap. “You. You knew?”
“Yes, me. But my brothers came to know about it, too, because Jack went crazy trying to demand our help. Then I had to involve my father. I wanted to help Elodie, but if I had, our company would have been implicated in the investigation. There was no way we couldn’t look like we were trying to cover up what Jack did.
” He swallows hard. “What was worse was, years before our company had already come out of a big scandal that nearly ruined us. The best thing to do was stay out of it.”
I keep my eyes on him, watching his expression soften as he relays the truth. A truth I never knew existed, and ran so deep.
“The last time I saw Jack…” he mutters. “He came to demand the money your father wanted me to set aside for you. We stopped being friends because I refused to give it to him, and made it hard for him to even try to get it. I had it secured so the funds would release when you needed it. And you’d never know I had any involvement in it. ”
I can’t look away from him. I can hardly blink. Everything I thought I knew was a lie.
That money took me right through college and only finished months ago when I had to use it to pay the loan.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I say, my voice rough with emotion.
He shakes his head. “Jack was your world. Your everything. I didn’t want to spoil that for you. Especially when I knew your father wasn’t exactly the best with your mother.”
The affairs. He knew about that from back then.
“You helped all along, making sure I was okay and got my future.”
He nods curtly. “Yeah.”
Fresh tears come and he pulls me into his chest.
“Thank you, Dorian.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I do. I truly do.” I lean into his chest.
I had it all wrong. So very wrong.
Jack wasn’t who I thought he was.
And Dorian was never the villain.
The villain was always my brother.
Jack.