36. Echo
ECHO
When you decide someone’s time is up, their shit becomes yours by default.
I leaned back and propped my feet up on Millicent’s desk after adjusting the chair. My phone rested on my thigh, the live stream of Forever’s hearing playing at a low volume.
She was laying herself bare for the greater good, but I mostly gave a fuck about the parts pertaining to us. More specifically, the way she viewed me.
I scrolled through the comments and replied to a few for the hell of it, then left a few of my own.
The Cannon family came up now that she’s part of the mix.
“Is there anything else you’d like to present today in defense of being removed from your post, Mrs. Cannon?” the chairman asked, face red as he shuffled through the papers in front of him.
“No,” Forever replied, voice clear and confident through my phone’s speakers.
I smirked, adding another comment to the live stream.
Forever Reid Cannon Forever Reid James
The Fairchilds had been smart to broadcast this shit. Forever and I were about to become the poster children for their unity campaign, whether we wanted it or not, but I didn’t mind. Not when it put us in a position to leverage more power.
Forty-five minutes had passed since I’d picked the lock on Millicent’s private entrance. Oliver had slipped into the bathroom fifteen minutes ago after securing the bar downstairs.
Opening wasn’t for another five hours, and according to Violet, the staff didn’t start showing up until about an hour beforehand.
I stuck Gaia’s encryption key into the router and shot off a text.
Do your thing.
Even though Gaia had gone back to D.C., where she and her husband lived full-time, she agreed to play around with Millicent’s security cameras for this job specifically.
And she hadn’t been cheap either, but money wasn’t an issue when it came to my wife.
Forever’s hearing concluded, I tucked my phone in the black coveralls I wore and waited in the silence.
Ten minutes later, I heard her voice as she slammed her car door shut and approached the entrance.
“No, Jayden! You already agreed and she has proof.” Millicent’s voice carried through the door, her frustration clear. “The goddamn license was sealed until just now, so how was I supposed to know?”
I listened to her punch in a code, get it wrong and then try again twice before access was granted. The sequence of numbers sounded the same each time, which led me to believe Gaia was fucking with her on purpose.
“And that was my mistake for hiring him but we both know your mother isn’t going to retaliate against us. She’ll direct her anger toward them. You’re her only son left.”
She wasn’t wrong but was obviously not thinking her logic through. Seo-Yeon wouldn’t hurt Jayden, but Millicent on the other hand was a different story.
Luckily for them, I liked to eliminate threats before ideas of revenge can form completely.
The door swung open, Millicent stepped in and pushed it shut behind her. When she looked up, our eyes met.
“We can’t meet yet—”
She froze mid-sentence, phone still pressed to her ear.
“I have to go,” she said softly, never breaking eye contact with me as she ended the call.
With impressive speed, she reached for the gun holstered at her hip.
“You’re ahead of schedule…” she raised and pointed it at my chest. “She said three days.”
I lifted an eyebrow, curious about what Forever had told her. But before I could respond, Oliver emerged from the bathroom, his footsteps silent until he was directly behind her, pressing his gun to the back of her head.
“I’ll take that, Ms. Everwood,” he said, plucking it from her hand.
Millicent chuckled.
“What’s this about three days?” I asked, watching as her composure crumbled slightly.
“Your wife said I wouldn’t make it three days before you killed me.”
That brought a smile to my face. Forever was catching on fast, knew I wouldn’t let a threat to her breathe longer than necessary. Still, there was something to correct.
“I’m still working on her understanding of me,” I said, dropping my booted feet to the floor and standing. “After this she’ll know there ain’t too many days I’ll let pass with a threat to her life walking around free.”
I tugged at my coveralls, adjusting them before flexing my gloved hands.
“I do have a question for you. The way you die depends on how you answer.”
Oliver guided Millicent to the chair I’d vacated, keeping his gun visible as a reminder. I moved to stand in front of the two-way glass wall that overlooked the empty bar floor.
“Or we can make another deal and—”
I hummed, cutting her off to save us both time.
“Unfortunately, there’s no deal I’d be willing to accept. Don’t get me wrong, Millicent, I appreciate the door you opened for me to get close to my wife again…” I glanced at her over my shoulder. “However, now you pose a potential threat to her life and I can’t have that.”
Silence stretched between us. I could practically hear the gears turning in her head as she thought up an escape route that didn’t exist. I’d closed them all before she even walked through the door.
“You want to know about Jeremiah, right?” she finally asked, seemingly coming to terms with reality.
I turned to face her completely, leaning back against the glass before nodding once.
“It shouldn’t matter but I didn’t lie about what he’d done to me,” she confessed. “Just left out the part where I set it into motion, lured him in with little glances every blue moon until he couldn’t help himself. A sick man can never hide his true urges for long.”
Her manipulation of Jeremiah wasn’t relevant to me. I didn’t care about her motives with him, only how it connected to Forever or of it did at all.
When I didn’t respond, she continued.
“You know…” she leaned back in the chair, briefly cutting her eyes at Oliver who remained positioned by her side. “I thought about telling it all and taking my chance at a less painful death, but why should I make it easier for you?”
That pulled a genuine smile from me. Had to respect a woman standing her ground even when death was certain. Her cooperation wouldn’t have saved her life anyway. Nothing would. But her defiance, even now? That was something I could admire.
“It’s too bad you never got to experience the kind of love I have,” I told her, nodding at Oliver who placed a liquid-filled vial, about the length of a finger, on the desk.
“Relax a little. Drink that, and thank whatever high power you believe in I wanted to personally handle this. Had I sent my sister or Violet, who knows what kind of torture you’d be going through right now. ”
She looked at the vial, then back at me before picking it up.
“You may not think so…” she gently swished the liquid around before removing the cap. “But Jayden will stop at nothing to avenge me.”
Oliver and I exchanged a look before laughing. The delusion of this woman hadn’t been visible until now. If Jayden thought of her as anything other than a pawn who he could fuck whenever the feeling sparked, he’d be here looking for her by now.
Forever could never end a call abruptly and I don’t go see what that was about.
“As a thank you, I’ll give him time to make his move,” I said, crossing my arms. “How does a week sound?”
Millicent snorted, shaking her head slightly before bringing the vial to her lips. She downed the fentanyl and Ativan concoction in gulp, a final act of defiance in her eyes as she stared me down.
Almost immediately, her body responded. She gasped, struggling for air as her lungs began to fail her.
Foam formed at the corners of her mouth, her eyes widening in panic as the reality of death overcame her bravado.
Within seconds, she slumped forward, her forehead hitting the desk with a dull thud.
She wasn’t dead yet, but after a couple hours no life saving measures would bring her back.
“Damn, she really died thinking that nigga would avenge her,” Oliver said, tucking his gun away.
I shrugged and moved to the desk, pulling Gaia’s encryption key from the router.
We worked efficiently around her body, wanting it to look more like a suicide than an accidental overdose or murder. Oliver wiped down every surface we’d touched afterward, even with gloves on to protect us. DNA was a tricky bitch and our involvement couldn’t be exposed.
“Aye,” I called out to my brother before we split up to get to our own cars. “I love you.”
He looked over his shoulder, a kid-like smile on his face.
“I love you back.”
We separated from there and a block away, I slid into my car after discarding the gloves and coveralls in the compartment in my trunk to be burned later.
I checked my phone before pulling off and there was a text from Forever.
Find me when you’re free.
Her location was pinned near the red-light district.
Headed your way, baby. Stay put.
The sun hadn’t set yet but the district was alive when I arrived, signs lit and all. I took a slow turn onto that main strip, window down so everyone knew who was inside.
Forever being here felt like a step in the right direction. This place held more our beginnings than I could account for, back when these people were the only ones who knew about us.
The irony wasn’t lost on me either, that the day she announced our marriage is the same day she came to see the ones who were in it from the start. We hadn’t come full circle yet but we were getting there and I was enjoying the journey back.
“Congrats, D!” somebody yelled from the right side of the street.
I honked just as I spotted Forever, perched in the raised trunk of Carmen’s truck. The crowd was thick around them and she was smiling, head leaned against the inside with her leg propped up.
She was engaged in conversation with KK, while Carmen handed out duffle bags.
I made a U-turn at the next block, circling back to approach from the right. When I pulled up, I reversed, backing my truck until the open trunk faced her.
Our eyes locked as I hopped out and popped the trunk. I blew her a kiss after settling in the back and she rolled her eyes but didn’t look away.
“What’s up, D?” KK greeted, her eyes darting between us curiously. “The city’s been talking about the two of you all day. You just missed the real crowd. It dwindled.”
I nodded, acknowledging her words while keeping my eyes fixed on Forever. The slight upturn at the corner of her mouth told me she was pleased with how things had unfolded.
My baby put on a performance worthy of a standing ovation and I was fucking proud.
“Oh yeah?” I replied to KK, though my attention remained where it always wanted to be. “What they saying about us?”
Forever’s eyes sparkled with amusement. She knew exactly what they were saying, how a society girl and a rejector defied every boundary set before them. How we made fools of the establishment. How our union created a crack in the foundation of Everwood’s rigid hierarchy.
When the truth was nothing of the sort. Power had simply latched on to us, my bloodline allowing for something no other rejector could fathom getting away with. This was privilege, nothing less or more.
The intensity in her eyes spoke volumes; my wife was in love with me. She was borderline obsessed, too. That’s the part of her I wanted to unearth again.
I was so lost in her eyes, in the subtle shifts of her expression that told me more than words ever could, I didn’t notice KK slipping away. One moment she was there, leaning against Carmen’s truck, and the next she was gone, disappeared into the crowd that flowed around us.
“How many more bags are left before we can leave?” I asked, tipping my head at Carmen who was on the sidewalk talking to Oliver now.
Forever smiled and hopped to her feet.
“I’m ready now. You?”
Always.