Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
Connie
After months hiding away at the Four Seasons in Oahu, Connie decided she needed another mini vacation, somewhere quiet to decompress and figure out her next move.
Bali it was.
Not only was Connie able to wrangle information out of Mr. Ng? on Duc’s whereabouts and pinpoint a general location, but she also had a plan. Her coward of a husband was supposedly hiding out in a Buddhist monastery high up in the northern regions of Vietnam. She couldn’t tell if the old lawyer was lying to her or not, but he gave up Duc’s location too easily, which made it even more suspicious. The two of them had always been more in a marriage than Connie and Duc had been, so why’d he spill so easily? He wouldn’t tell her which monastery, though, and there were thousands of monasteries and temples scattered across Southeast Asia alone.
The mystery of why Duc was hiding out in a monastery made her veins boil. While she was out here, fending for her life, tracking down legal documents, Duc was finding himself at a monastery ? She wanted to wrap her hands around his wrinkly, thick, rich neck, and watch the life drain from his eyes as he begged for forgiveness. If there was anything she loved more than a good shopping trip, it was hearing the words “I’m sorry.” Especially when they came from a man.
But death would be too easy, especially for someone like Duc, who had more than nine lives. She needed to figure out if they were ever legally married and if Evelyn and Duc actually got legally divorced.
Once Connie descended into Bali, she headed straight to the Four Seasons resort in Sayan. Indonesia was close but not too close to Vietnam. But even across the ocean, she could smell his deception, and her paranoia was eating away at her. Were they ever legally married?
She immediately headed to the pool to scheme. She needed to get to Duc before any of his children got to him. If her lawyer was correct and there was a possibility Connie and Duc’s marriage license had never been officially filed nor had Duc officially filed for divorce from Evelyn, she needed to talk to him directly, far away from the eyes of Mr. Ng?. She’d always been suspicious that the man never really liked her, and she suspected he botched the paperwork on purpose.
A knock at the door of her private villa. “Ma’am? You have a message.”
“Who’s it from?” she shouted back.
“Someone named Duck? Dook?”
Connie quickly jumped out of her pool, threw on a robe, and sprinted to the door, yanking it wide open, startling the poor bellboy. He handed her a note and scurried away. She ripped the envelope open, looking for clues, anything, to let her know that perhaps this was all a sick joke. That Duc wouldn’t cut her out like that without something .
There was just one sentence on the card, which sent a chill down her spine.
You’ll be fine! Stop digging! Go home! Duc
Fine? Fine? Just fine?
All she could see was blood. The phantom copper taste of revenge filled her mouth, and she imagined Duc’s head on a pike, parading him through the streets. Crowds throwing tomatoes and baguettes at him, yelling COWARD! DIRTBAG! SHAME! But no one would ever blame the man; it was always the woman who shouldered the burden. No one was going to come to her aid. They’d drag her through the streets instead, yelling GOLD DIGGER! SLUT! SHAME!
But she was Connie goddamn V?.
No man was going to toss her aside like she was nothing and the only parading through the street she would ever do was if there was a red carpet rolled out. Duc had been her 401(k) plan, her early retirement, and a way for her to climb out of the hole she was born in. The only type of slut she was, was for a stable and comfortable life.
Among the gorgeous flora and fauna of Indonesia that coated her private villa, draping vines hung daintily all around her. She swatted them away like gnats to get to her balcony and breathe in some fresh air. From high up in the mountains, she could see the infamous rice fields of Bali that curved for miles and miles, as if a giant had etched drawings into the earth. But none of the beautiful views in one of the most beautiful, remote parts of the world could stop Connie from wanting to scorch everything.
Connie had been played. Throughout their entire marriage, she thought she was playing Duc, but Duc was smarter than she gave him credit for. She knew Duc never loved her, and she never loved him back but had assumed that there was a silent understanding between them. Duc never got over his first wife, Evelyn, after she left them all. Connie went into the marriage not caring. She just wanted to survive.
She whipped out her phone and called her lawyer once again. On the fourth ring, he finally picked up.
“Connie! What on earth!” A bleary-sounding voice came out of the speaker. “It’s one a.m.”
“Well, it’s only three p.m. over here. Took you long enough to pick up,” she snapped.
“Connie, what is it? How can I help?” Jason responded, yawning loudly.
“Status update?”
She could hear shuffling on the other side of the phone, and a muffled woman’s voice cursing Connie’s name and telling Jason to hang up the phone and to deal with her “crazy ass” in the morning. But Connie could tell she had won in the marital bickering because soon all she could hear was the shuffling of Jason dragging his feet to his desk, the sound of a light flickering, and the greeting of his laptop being turned on.
“I do have an update,” he said, finally settled in, his voice still heavy with sleep. “I got a copy of the will. You’re not getting a lot but you’re getting something. I also figured out the status of each of Duc’s kids and what’s going on now.”
“Speak faster, Jason,” she barked into the phone so loudly birds resting in trees nearby flew off, scattering to all corners of the earth. “Don’t I get billed every six minutes by you greedy charlatans?”
“So, it looks like the kids have already received part of their inheritance, at least the daughters have. They each inherited a store from the chain, specifically put in their name. Jane got the original store in Houston, Bingo got one in Philadelphia, Paulina’s is located in San Jose, and Georgia got one in New Orleans,” Jason said, picking up the pace. “But to be honest, we looked into those stores. They’re all dumpster fires. Most of them non-operational. They’re playing a losing game. Never bet against the house as the saying goes.”
“I’m not worried about the daughters. Those girls have no work ethic,” she scoffed, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the iron railing of her balcony. “What about the son? I suspect Duc loves Jude the most.”
“He… hasn’t gotten anything so far,” Jason said cryptically. Connie could hear more paperwork shuffling, and the sound of his mouse clicking through his computer. “But he will once he’s married. But ultimately, only one kid will inherit everything. Depends on who wins Duc’s very odd, odd game.”
“Who determines who wins? I don’t understand. What’s the point of all of this?”
More shuffling of paperwork could be heard. A stifled yawn. Jason’s wife in the background cursing Connie’s name. Connie closed her eyes, waiting to hear her husband’s name, bracing herself. Quick clicks and clacks of the keyboard. Connie’s impatience grew like a virus, infecting any living organism near her.
“Uh, Con,” Jason whispered. “Remember to breathe, okay? Looks like Duc lied to his own kids. It’s not about who turns the revenue around first or if Jude gets married first. Ultimately, none of that will factor into the final decision.”
“Just spit it out,” she screamed into her mouthpiece. “Enough of this meditation crap! It doesn’t work! It’s a scam! Who decides who wins?”
“Evelyn Lê,” he finally responded. “The mother of the kids. It looks like it’ll all go to her.” She could tell Jason had stopped moving. His breathing was shallow, almost scared.
Connie felt slapped in the face. This whole time she’d been chasing the wrong person, following him nearly six thousand miles across the globe. It wasn’t Duc she had to go see. Of course the old fool had never gotten over Evelyn—she had always known that. Over twenty years of marriage, five kids, and one empire together, no one could ever forget their first love, not even if one was hiding out in a monastery on the most beautiful mountain in the world.
While Connie had been chasing Duc this whole time, Duc had been chasing Evelyn the last two decades.
She had two options. She could find Evelyn, her archnemesis, and start from the beginning. Maybe even try to reason with her. Plead with her to see her side. Two scorned women, former lovers of Duc. Maybe she’d understand, woman to woman. Or she could blow up each of the Tr?n kids, one by one, and make their lives a living hell, and make them want to drop out of Duc’s harebrained inheritance scheme.
The ex-wife or the children? Who will suffer the most?
“Con?” Jason mumbled through the phone. “You still alive?”
Connie softened her grip on the balcony railing and went inside to grab her cocktail. She threw out the straw and took a big swig.
“I’ve never felt more alive.”