12. Echo
ECHO
Forever kept breaking my heart.
“Her vitals are normal, but I suggest bringing her by for a full checkup, Demetrius,” Doctor Holland said after I followed her out into the hall.
“Especially since…” She shook her head and turned.
“If you can convince her to come to the compound, we can figure out if there’s something wrong or if it’s just amnesia from trauma. ”
“Physical trauma?”
She nodded.
“Maybe to the head, or she could be dissociating. I can’t be sure.”
I closed my eyes and tried to breathe the frustration away, but no such luck.
“My father sends his love,” she said before walking away. “If you need me, call the emergency line.”
Forever was standing when I entered again. She’d been against me calling Alyssa at all, but I couldn’t sit back after she passed out in my arms and do nothing.
The Hollands were a family of doctors who rejected but still found a way to stay afloat in a city where physicians from the Collective were in the highest demand.
For me, any doctor who’d break the Hippocratic oath couldn’t be trusted.
“Maybe I should go,” Forever said, looking as if she wanted to be anywhere but here. “This is too much.”
I nodded and stepped aside, my heart beating to her every step. She stopped at the door and held onto the handle.
“My forever,” I murmured. “That’s what you are to me. I’ll wait however long you need, but I won’t stop my plans.”
She spun around and walked up to me.
“What exactly are your plans?”
I forced myself not to touch her.
“Make you fall in love with me again.”
Forever looked away, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“Kill everybody who’s trying to keep us apart,” I went on. “Find out if my ma is dead or alive, but you’re my top priority right now.”
I thought she’d ask about my mom, request the name I hadn’t gotten to drop at the gala. But instead, she stared off into space for far too long and then blurted, “I’m sorry.”
She turned to leave again, and I did the only thing that ever worked and wrapped my arms around her from behind.
The move was a long shot, but I couldn’t let her leave like this. My heart wouldn’t allow it.
“I’m the one who’s sorry,” I whispered, grateful she didn’t pull away but wishing the love was understood and reciprocated. “I didn’t protect you.”
“I don’t even… I’m not sure how much of my memories are gone, but I know myself, and I don’t think I’d blame you for this. But… ho-how long did we know one another?”
She slipped from my hold and faced me. Our eyes met, and hers were making me regret my jealous ways the other night. Had I stayed the course, we’d be having this conversation in a few weeks, not today.
“One year and eight months.”
She frowned and mumbled something under her breath.
“So, over a year of my life is gone if I can’t remember our time together. How did we meet?”
I took steps away from her and went to sit behind my desk. No matter how much I loved her, or how badly I wanted to be near her, she didn’t know me.
“You took a contract to kill a rejector accused of raping a society girl,” I revealed, leaning back in the chair and staring up at the ceiling. “I stepped in after he sought me out and begged for help.”
The first time we met was because of a message I left in her office at EG headquarters. She talked about how security in my building was lacking, but it’d been easy to slip into her workspace undetected after hours.
My carelessness was calculated; theirs was because of ego.
“He didn’t do it, and I believed you?”
I chuckled, turning in the chair to face the window behind me.
“Nah, you pointed a gun at me and said I’d be the first to die and then Nicholas, but I had proof and we both know, even now, you only deal in truth and facts.”
Her silence lasted longer than I could handle, forcing me to turn around, only to find she’d moved from the door and was now sitting in one of the chairs across from me.
“And then what?” she asked, brows pulled together like she couldn’t believe anything I was telling her. “I fell in love?”
“Nah. But I did.“
I leaned into the desk and stared at her, taking in every part of that pretty face.
“If I never get to see you again, I hope I always remember how beautiful you are.”
She fucking gagged, and I dropped my head to hide the smile pulling at my lips.
“Please tell me that didn’t work, that isn’t how you won my love, is it?” She was smiling, too, when I looked up. “I’m way too cool to let that happen.”
Forever was a completely different person in love. But I enjoyed every version of her, the one sitting in front of me included.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” I asked, hoping to piece together a definite timeline for her and me.
She shook her head.
“I don’t… I never thought of what else I might’ve forgotten, just that I didn’t remember the job I’d been on.”
Right.
“ Can you tell me why you accepted the marriage alliance?”
Her eyes searched mine, and then she stood and turned toward the door.
“It was supposed to be a favor, and now I’m sort of stuck.”
I got up to follow.
“Not for long,” I said, stopping halfway. “You won’t be stuck for long, Forever. I want you to know this isn’t me trying to save you because I think you need it. I’m doing it because I’m selfish. None of them can have you.”
She pulled the door open and looked over her shoulder.
“You can’t have me either, not until I say it’s okay.”
Then she was gone, and all I could think was that my heart really didn’t belong to me. Wherever she went, that’s where it wanted to be.
“I can’t take the sad puppy dog look,” Solei said, snapping me from my thoughts an hour later.
Had I been sulking since Forever left? Maybe, but I couldn’t help that shit.
I was down bad for my woman.
“What can I do for you, Sol?”
“Can I tag along later?” she asked, dropping down where Forever had been sitting.
“What’s happening later?
She frowned, and Oliver burst into my office, saving me from having to turn her down. What I needed to do from here on was on me alone.
“I saw Forever and she asked if I knew her, too,” Oliver blurted, slamming the door behind him. “Didn’t we say you wouldn’t reveal yourself too soon?”
Solei cleared her throat, then let out a little chuckle
“Sorry, I got excited and ran my mouth, but she should know we’re her real family!”
I sighed when the tears filled her eyes, but it wasn’t shit I could do about it.
Forever meant everything to me, but my siblings loved her too. Almost two years of building together were gone, and I wasn’t the only one suffering.
Mine was just… soul deep.
A part of me was missing without her.
Thankfully, Solei and Oliver were the only ones to know in our family. My aunt and uncle would have a lot to say about me falling in love with her.
But she hadn’t been the Broker when we met or during our time together. I left for six months and came back to her flying up the ranks in a matter of months.
“Has the assistant known all along about me and Forever?”
Oliver sat down and hunched over, elbows on his knees.
“Today, she admitted to pursuing me because of it,” he revealed. “And wouldn’t elaborate but said she was on Forever’s side. I can’t lie, she’s hard to read.”
My first time laying eyes on Carmen in person was the day she walked out of Oliver’s office with that hat pulled down to conceal her face.
Forever trusted her with a lot of things, but our relationship hadn’t been one of them.
“We knew there were risks,” I said, standing.
But so much time had passed, and nothing happened, then my mother’s box was delivered, and a few months later, Forever was gone.
“I need you two staying at the compound for the foreseeable future…” My eyes met theirs before continuing. “Nobody new in or out until I say, and if I die—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Oliver cut in. “Ain’t nobody dying. We’ll stay at the compound and keep shit in order for the next two weeks. Not the foreseeable future, because I go wherever my brother goes. I’m giving you two weeks to move alone, and that’s all I got. Use it wisely.”
The nigga got up and left the room after that.
“He’s a little old to be throwing temper tantrums, but I’m with Oliver. Two weeks and that’s it, because we’re a team.” She got up and moved toward the open door. “I would use the bulk of it on Forever. Looking into Ma was her idea; she should be part of this, don’t you think?”
Why the fuck did everybody keep walking away from me?
Shaking the question from my mind, I grabbed my secured line and shot off a text.
Same time and location.
I left the office and went to my apartment in the heart of Everwood, right in the mix of society and rejector shit.
My favorite thing to be was in the know.
“Mr. Cannon, welcome home,” the doorman greeted me as I approached. “There’s a few messages for you at the front desk.”
The twenty-four-hour concierge service in my building doubled as an information hub for rejector families.
With fifteen floors and two luxury apartments on each, it brought in a lot of revenue, especially with the crowds that liked mixed company.
The Everwood Group pretended to bring us together, but I really tried to make space for everybody, mainly the families who ranked on the lower end of the society spectrum.
People like teachers, city workers, and laborers.
“Welcome home, Mr. Cannon,” the woman working the front desk mimicked, sliding a box over with all they’d been holding on to. “Everything’s included. I can have it brought up for you.”
I shook my head and picked it up. It’d been a while since I came to this place.
Without Forever, nothing we shared felt like home anymore.
“Thank you.”
I went up to the fifteenth floor, only sparing a glance at Forever’s door before getting to mine.
She didn’t even know the place existed. I wondered how she felt being back in the home her parents had complete access to.
Did it feel off to her? Or maybe like something was missing, like I was missing?
The automatic lights flickered on as I stepped into my place, the faint smell of lemon and cleaning products telling me cleaners had been inside in the last day or two.
I dropped the box on the floor at the end of the coffee table and went straight to the bedroom, trying my best to ignore every piece of her left behind.
No matter what, Forever was part of me, this place, and the one down the hall. She was never far from my mind, and I let thoughts of us plague it during my shower, while getting dressed, and forcing myself to eat.
A few hours later, I left my feelings at the door and headed to meet with Millicent Everwood.
She owned a mixer bar downtown, really driving home the bring Everwood together bullshit.
“Yo, Echo, what’s good?” the bouncer, Kenny, greeted, holding his hand out to dap me up.
I looked at it, then back at him.
“What’s my name?” I asked.
He laughed, but I wasn’t joking or in a good mood. Anybody could feel my wrath tonight, especially for calling me what only Forever was allowed to.
“My bad, Demetrius,” he said, stepping back to allow me inside. “Millie is on the second floor.”
I slipped past him without another word, maneuvered through the semi-crowded lower-level and up the stairwell, where two guards moved aside for me to enter the empty VIP space.
“Mr. Cannon,” Millicent mused from her spot behind the bar. “Take a seat, I’ll make you a drink. Whiskey, right?”
I accepted the offer to sit but waved off the drink.
“No need,” I said, wanting to get down to business and the fuck on right after. “Appreciate you for getting Violet and Forever in the same room.”
She’d also been the one to approve the hit on my head before it landed on my baby’s desk.
“I see this is a business meeting and nothing more.”
Her assumption would be correct, and it stumped me as to why she thought otherwise. Millicent was in this for revenge against the Carroways and understandably so.
Before Forever, she was set to marry Jayden until Jeremiah forced himself on her in this very bar. The details weren’t mine to repeat, but in order to placate her, Jayden agreed to fund the hit on his brother’s life.
Not because he was some stand-up guy with morals, but to keep his political ambitions on track. Marrying Millicent would’ve taken him far on that front, especially with the public. Tying himself to the James family opened up another set of doors he’d never get to walk through.
The society wouldn’t have agreed to killing Jeremiah without Millicent admitting to what he’d done, and she didn’t want to expose herself in that way. That’s where I came in, and it’s where our familiarity ended.
Everything I did, was doing, and would do was for Forever and only her.
“When can I expect delivery on Seo-Yeon’s head?” she asked, moving the conversation along after I ignored her attempt to bait me into more.
I tsked.
“When the contract is issued, I’ll do what I agreed to,” I said, lifting from the stool. “As long as you keep up your end of the bargain, that is.”
She eyed me closely with a frown pulling at her overlined lips.
“Violet is safe in Everwood.”
I nodded.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked as I started to walk away. “I wasn’t aware you and Forever had history before now.”
I kept moving until I reached the stairwell entry and only then did I respond.
“You still aren’t aware of anything, Millicent,” I told her, meeting her gaze over my shoulder to make myself clear. “I’ll be in touch.”
There was no room for error, but I needed her for full access to Forever. And Violet could only be in Everwood as a member of an outside crime family with either Millicent or the head of the Collective’s approval.
She’ll have to die , too , I thought as I slid into the driver’s seat.
The presence I felt wasted no time pressing the barrel of their… her gun to my head.
“You don’t have to put a gun to my head to get me to do whatever you want, baby…” I met Forever’s eyes in the rearview mirror and smiled, even though she looked distressed. “Ride shotgun, I want to take you somewhere.”