23. ETHAN
23
ETHAN
“Good lord, when you said punishment, you weren’t kidding,” I say, rolling out of bed and ruffling my hair.
Everything hurts, especially my leg, which is stiff and throbbing.
“Didn’t seem to bother you too much last night,” she points out.
That much is true.
I sit in a chair by the window and gently pull back the bandage on my wound.
It actually looks pretty good. The skin around where I had closed the front side of the hole with a field stitch is more pink than red. The back side, repaired with a pair of suture strips, looks angry but seems to be healing.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she says, making an exaggerated display of stretching. “Feel free to join me if you want.”
I grab my phone to check the news.
“Holy shit!”
Sophia comes racing out of the bathroom. Her eyes wide,
I turn the screen so that she can see.
Billionaire Industrialist Found Dead
Harrison Whitmore III was found dead in his home this morning as federal agents were there to serve an arrest warrant. As authorities failed to receive a response to their knock on the door of Whitmore’s home, they found the door unlocked.
A deceased male, later identified as Whitmore, was discovered on the floor of the living room, a single gunshot wound to the head. Whitmore was under federal investigation on multiple charges, including statutory rape and solicitation of a minor.
The investigation will continue as additional suspects have been identified. The FBI and local authorities will release further details as they become available.
Whitmore … dead?
I can’t say I’m not relieved.
It certainly takes a lot of pressure off of us. While it’s not a guarantee that we’re totally in the clear, it means that we should finally be able to go home.
That I’m not particularly looking forward to.
While it will be nice to finally be back home and mostly free from further threats, there will be a mess to clean up. Multiple messes, in fact.
After all, we have two dead bodies to answer for—not counting the FBI agent, which hopefully Mr. Kramer had successfully dealt with—and a lot of questions I don’t have the answers to.
The army might also wonder why we were snooping around a sensitive installation, but that could easily be put down to a wrong turn. They might be skeptical, but it can’t be the first time that’s happened.
Apart from all that, it’s the matter of how to break the news to Liam that his sister and I are … what?
Despite the romantic nature of our relationship, we haven’t really defined it.
I don’t have a problem identifying Sophia as my girlfriend, my lover, my ….
I don’t really know.
That might be the most difficult thing to face.
Without the distraction of being on the run and constantly having to look over our shoulder, it means we’re going to actually have to sit down and talk about the future.
What does that even look like?
I’m done doing business with my family.
It will be interesting to see if they manage to avoid becoming entangled in this mess.
Their lawyer, Rodney Pierce, will obviously have a lot to answer for.
Even if he wasn’t particularly tight with Whitmore, his part in the Lena Gardner thing will surely have consequences for him.
Even if he manages to avoid jail time and disbarment, his clients can’t be happy with the sloppy way he handled that.
The people he represents don’t tolerate sloppiness.
If nothing else, it will be sufficient motivation for me to get my own place.
Money is not an issue, but I want to stay on the beach.
I’ve had my eye on a place just down the coast from my family for a while now. It’s not extravagant, but that’s never been what I’m about.
I’ve always loved the movie Scarface with Al Pacino, and I’ll always remember the quote, “the guys who want it all, chicas, champagne, flash… they don’t last.”
In my experience, I’ve seen that to be true.
Ostentatious displays of wealth can be dangerous, both physically and emotionally.
It’s not worth the risk.
It’s too early to even think about asking Sophia to move in with me, but I can’t say the possibility isn’t swirling around in my head.
And what about Sophia?
When I asked her to join me, she accepted partly on the expectation that she would be paid for her services.
I feel like I owe her something.
But it’s a touchy situation.
I don’t want her to feel like our relationship is in any way transactional.
I want her to be successful and own her own business, if that’s what she wants to do, to have her own place.
But, I know she’s independent; I don’t want her to feel like I’m taking pity on her, or worse, paying her to be my mistress.
I guess I’ll just have to play it by ear.
Sophia wants to call her family to tell them she’s safe, but I ask her to reconsider.
We’re only thirty minutes away, and I’m concerned that if they know we’re on our way, they’ll have a “welcoming committee” waiting for us when we get there.
I know what we’ll be subjected to as soon as news of our return gets around, but I want to at least get some preliminaries out of the way.
“You know this is going to be hard,” I say.
We’ve both been so distracted by the news and alone with our thoughts, neither of us have taken our showers.
“Aside from the police and the media, Liam has to know about us,” I continue.
“What are you going to tell him?”
“The truth. I know sometimes that’s not my strong suit, but I’ve never lied to him as long as we’ve been friends.”
“I want to be there,” she insists.
I nod in assent.
On one hand, I have this macho streak that makes me want to do this man-to-man on my own, but the reality is that this concerns her too. It would be unfair to leave her out.
He also has to know that this was a mutual agreement—all of it.
I’m unsure of what kind of reaction that will draw.
I try to imagine how I would feel if the roles were reversed, but I can’t. Having been an only child, I have no frame of reference.
Joining Sophia in the shower, I enjoy the feel of the hot water cascading down my sore body.
I smile as I watch her soaping herself up, her back turned to me.
I reach both hands around her, nuzzling the back of her neck affectionately.
That is something else she has brought out in me, the ability to enjoy the closeness of a woman without it necessarily being sexual.
Her hands cover mine, resting on her smooth belly.
“You make me want to be a better human being,” I whisper softly into her ear.
She suddenly turns and draws me into a deep French kiss.
It’s long and deep and all-consuming.
We stand there in a tight embrace for a long time, until the stream of water begins to cool noticeably.
I finally turn the water off to prevent us from freezing.
I sense something has changed between us.
It’s like our relationship suddenly leveled up.
Perhaps it was my honesty.
Truth was, I hadn’t even meant to say what I said. It just kind of slipped out unbidden.
But maybe that was the key. Love can make us say things we wouldn’t ordinarily say.
I won’t lie, the loss of control is a little scary. It’s something I’m not used to.
On the other hand, it’s something I had better get used to if I want what I have with her to last.
We dress quickly and pack our belongings as I stream the latest newscast on my phone. It seems like the Harrison Whitmore story is all anyone wants to talk about.
Before we leave, I receive a call from Graham. He seems particularly pleased with the role he played in this, and I can’t blame him.
“I think you owe me one,” he says, and I can practically hear the smile on his face.
“We did it, buddy; we brought down the Kingfish.”
“You did most of the heavy lifting,” I argue.
“Yeah, well, it was worth it, even if it was pro-bono,” he jokes.
“Aw, come on now, you know I’m good for it.”
Graham was only joking about being paid for his work, of course. That’s just the kind of guy that he is. If justice is the cause, he’s all in, no matter the cost.
But I knew that he put in a lot of time and expense in tracking down and exposing Whitmore. He absolutely deserved to be paid for his work.
I would, at the very least, reimburse him for his expenses and include a tidy little bonus as well.
“Hey, you want to repay me, consider coming to work for me. The position is still open.”
“What about my dad? I thought he scared you off.”
“Suddenly he doesn’t seem so big and bad anymore. Besides, I think he’s going to have a lot more on his plate to deal with than to worry about some guy trying to steal his son away from him.”
“Have you heard from Yiva?” I ask.
She was as responsible as anyone for breaking the story.
“Talked to her this morning. She’s losing her mind. You know she keeps a very low profile, not many people know how to get in touch with her, but the major media outlets are killing themselves trying to find out who she is and how to contact her.”
“She deserves a lot of credit, but I hope she doesn’t go mainstream. We need people like her. It’s got to be hard to resist the call of big time exposure, not to mention the amount of money I’m sure they’re prepared to throw at her.”
“So, are you guys planning to head back anytime soon, or are you booking an island getaway until things cool down?”
As enticing as that sounds, Sophia’s family needs her back, and it’s time to face the music. The longer we delay, the harder it will ultimately be.
We make the drive back, the car windows down, and the cooler air a nice, although temporary respite, from the searing summer temperatures.
The closer we get to home, the more the apprehension builds.
I’ll bring Sophia home first, and with any luck, it’ll just be her parents at home. Dealing with these things in small chunks will be easier.
As I turn the corner at the end of her block, I’m once again jolted to alertness.
Parked at the curb is a shiny black Lexus with heavily tinted windows.
This is not a car I recognize.