Chapter 22
Darius
“She will,” I said, settling into my seat with confidence I genuinely felt. “She’ll be here shortly.”
The hostess nodded and left me with the wine list. I ordered a bottle of the Cabernet that Solei loved.
I felt hopeful. Was I being naive? Tonight had to be different.
We had to talk–really talk–about us. The wedding, Money, the kids, and every complication that kept dragging her away.
We couldn’t keep drifting. We had to find our way back.
I’d been patient and understanding. I’d given her space to navigate her co-parenting relationship and never pushed too hard about the lingering tension between her and her ex-husband.
But after the way she fucked me the other night and watching the way Money stared at Solei during Junior’s basketball game, I knew we needed to clear the air.
Soon, the server brought the wine, and I poured myself a glass and waited.
By 7:45 PM, my phone was in my hand. I called Solei, and it rang four times before going to voicemail. “Hey, I’m at Majesty’s. Just checking in. I love you.” I hung up and took a sip of wine, telling myself it was nothing but traffic.
The server appeared again. “Are you ready to order, sir, or would you like to wait for your guest?”
“I’ll wait,” I said, forcing a smile. “She should be here any minute.” I wanted my confidence to sound real, but behind it, uncertainty prickled. He nodded and disappeared. After fifteen minutes, the optimism I started with was thinning. It was 8:15 now, and Solei still hadn’t reached out.
The message showed as delivered, and I drank more wine until 8:45 PM, when my annoyance was starting to override my concern. I called again and had no choice but to leave another message.
“Baby, I’m still at the restaurant. I’m starting to get worried. Can you just text me and let me know you’re okay?”
I hung up and immediately texted her again.
I flagged down the server and ordered bourbon. I needed something stronger than wine for this bullshit. As I drank, I watched couples laughing. A man proposed two tables over, and the restaurant erupted in applause. I clapped along, jaw tight, mind racing. Where was my fiancé?
The server returned, his expression sympathetic. “Sir, would you like to order something? Or perhaps I could bring some bread for you while you wait?”
“I’m fine,” I replied bluntly, loosening my tie. “Just... give me a few more minutes.”
He retreated, and I sat there, staring at my phone as if it held the answers to the universe.
I sat back in my chair with my heart pounding and my mind spinning through every possible scenario.
And then, slowly, a different kind of realization started to creep in.
My hands clenched into fists. Solei was with him.
I should’ve paid the bill, gone home, and salvaged my dignity but I didn’t. Some stubborn, self-destructive part of me stayed, drinking bourbon I could barely afford. I just stared at my phone, waiting for an explanation that wasn’t coming.
The server had stopped asking if I wanted to order. The hostess avoided making eye contact when she passed. I was that guy now. The guy who got stood up, the one everyone pitied. By 9:30 PM, I texted Solei again.
I was spiraling–anger, hurt, and humiliation tangled in my chest. After everything I’d done to get her, everything I’d given her, Solei had chosen him. She chose chaos and instability over me. Maybe I always knew, somewhere deep down.
I laughed, bitter and sharp, the sound at odds with the empty, echoing restaurant. No one could see the real me here: rejected, desperate, and drunk. I was reaching for the check when two men appeared at my table.
They were the kind of men who took up space just by existing.
Both wore expensive suits, tailored perfectly, and their shoes were polished to a mirror shine.
One was Black, mid-forties, with a neat beard and cold eyes.
The other was younger, maybe early thirties, Latino, with a scar running through his left eyebrow.
The older one smiled politely. “Darius Jennings?”
My stomach dropped. “Who’s asking?”
“Friends of a friend.” He gestured to the empty chair across from me. “Mind if I sit?” It wasn’t really a question, though.
The older man sat down smoothly, folding his hands on the table. The younger one remained standing, positioned slightly behind me, close enough that I could feel his presence like a weight on my shoulders.
“We apologize for interrupting your evening,” the older man said, his voice calm and professional. “But we have some business to discuss.”
“I don’t know who you are, but…”
“We work for Mr. Madden,” he said simply. The air left my lungs as the man reached into his jacket and pulled out a manila folder. He placed it on the table between us, his movements deliberate and unhurried. “Mr. Jennings, you seem like a man who understands how the world works.”
I stared at the folder, my heart hammering. “What is this?”
“Information about you.” He opened the folder.
Inside were bank statements, wire transfer receipts, and account numbers I recognized with a sickening twist. There were emails I’d thought were deleted and spreadsheets showing discrepancies between client accounts and company accounts.
Everything. Every corner I’d cut, every rule I’d bent, and every dollar I’d moved from one place to another to keep up appearances, to afford the ring, the dinners, the life I’d built to impress Solei.
“How did you…?”
“Mr. Madden is a thorough man,” the younger man said. “When he takes an interest in someone, he likes to know everything about them. Their habits. Their finances. Their... vulnerabilities.”
I couldn't breathe. “This… this is illegal.”
“So is embezzlement,” the younger man said mildly. “So is wire fraud. So is money laundering.” He tapped one of the documents. “You’ve been very creative with your clients’ money, Mr. Jennings. Very creative indeed.”
“I didn’t…”
“You did.” His voice was still calm, still polite, but there was steel underneath. “You stole from your company to fund a lifestyle you couldn’t afford. You bought Mrs. Winters-Madden an engagement ring with money that wasn’t yours. You’ve been living a lie, Mr. Jennings.”
The younger man shifted behind me, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “What do you want?” My voice came out hoarse.
“We want you to understand your position,” the older man said.
“You’re a smart guy, so you understand leverage and consequences.
” He closed the folder. “All of this–every document, every receipt, every piece of evidence–can disappear. Or it can end up in the hands of federal prosecutors. Your choice.”
“You’re fucking blackmailing me?”
“We’re offering you a choice,” he corrected. “A very simple choice.”
“Which is?”
“Forget about Solei.”
“We’re engaged.”
“She’s still married to him,” the younger man said flatly. “They never divorced. They’re only legally separated.”
“She doesn’t want him!”
“Doesn’t she?” The older man tilted his head. “Where do you think she is right now, Mr. Jennings?” I couldn’t bring myself to say it, and he chuckled, shaking his head. “She’s with him,” the man continued. “With him and their children, where she belongs. Where she’s always belonged.”
“This is insane, and you know it.”
“This is love," the man said, and for the first time, there was something almost sympathetic in his eyes. “Obsessive, possessive, all-consuming love. The kind of love that doesn’t take no for an answer. The kind of love that will burn down the world to keep what’s his.”
He leaned forward slightly.
“I’m going to be straight with you. You can’t win this fight. You don’t have the resources, the connections, or the ruthlessness to go up against Mr. Madden. And if you try, you will lose everything.”
“I love her…”
“So does he.” The younger man’s voice was gentle now, almost kind. “And his love takes priority.”
“Why?” The word came out broken. “Why does his love matter more than mine?”
“Because he’s willing to do what you're not.” The man stood up, smoothing his suit. “He’s willing to destroy you to keep her. Are you willing to destroy him to have her?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. The truth was, I wasn’t willing to break the law, hurt people, or become a monster for love. “I could go to the police,” I said weakly. “I could tell them about this. About you.”
The younger man laughed as the older man smiled. “You’d go to the police and tell them what? That you’re being blackmailed because you committed multiple felonies? That’s not smart, Mr. Jennings.”
“I could and…”
“You could do a lot of things,” the younger man interrupted. “But you won’t because you’re a smart man. A reasonable man. And smart, reasonable men know when they’re beat.” He picked up the folder. “Just move on with your life.”
“And if I don’t?”
The man’s expression didn't change. “Then this folder ends up with the FBI. Your career ends. Your freedom ends. Your life as you know it ends.” He paused. “And Mr. Madden still gets his wife. You’ll be in prison getting fucked by your cellmate while he’s fucking his wife and rebuilding his family. ”
Hanging my head low, I tried to keep my emotions in check. They both straightened, and the older man said, “One more thing, Mr. Jennings.”
“What?” I watched him pull a small black phone from his pocket and push a button. A few seconds later, he held it out for me to take. Skeptically, I reached for it and placed it up to my ear. “Hello?”
I was met with nothing but silence until I heard Money’s voice on the other end as if he was right next to her. “Go ahead and tell him, Soul.”
I swallowed, staring up at the two men who kept their cold, dark eyes on me the entire time. After another moment of silence, I heard her sigh deeply into the phone. “I never meant to hurt you, but… I love my husband, and we’re going to work things out.”
“Solei… why?”
“I’m sorry, Darius.” The line quickly went dead, and I just gazed at the phone with my eyebrows bunched together.
The younger man looked down at me, and for the first time, I saw something like pity in his eyes. Then, the older man gathered the papers into the folder, and they both left, disappearing into the night as if they’d never been there at all.
I sat there feeling my entire world crumble around me.
Money had been plotting against me and building a case against me, as if I were some kind of criminal he needed to eliminate.
And the worst part… he was right. I was a criminal.
All the things I secretly judged Solei for defending, all the things I’d looked down on Money for doing–I’d been doing them too.
I was a hypocrite. A fraud. A fucking joke.
The waiter approached cautiously. “Sir? Your check?” I reached into my pocket for my wallet and threw money on the table without counting it. Then, I grabbed the almost empty wine bottle and walked out.
I don’t remember driving to Solei’s condo.
One minute I was leaving Majesty’s, and the next I was parked across the street from her building, staring up at her dark windows.
I knew she wasn’t home, and the thought made my stomach turn.
She’d let me sit in that restaurant for almost three hours like an fucking idiot.
My hands clenched around the steering wheel. This was her fault. All of it.
If she hadn’t been so out of my league, I would’ve never felt the need to overcompensate for my shortcomings.
She could’ve been honest with me from the beginning and told me she was still in love with Money.
I knew it, though. I fucking knew it. But I wanted to keep her.
Hell, I’d done enough hell to get her. Solei let me fall in love with her, propose to her, and want to plan a future with her.
All while knowing she would never fully leave Money.
The rage built slowly, like a fire catching.
She’d used me and made me look like a fucking fool.
She destroyed my life because that folder was real.
And even if I walked away, I’d spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, waiting for the Feds to come knocking.
And for what? For a woman who didn’t even have the decency to break up with me to my face?
I took a long drink from the bottle of wine from the restaurant. I wasn’t going to walk away. Fuck Money Madden and his threats. Fuck Solei and her lies. I was going to make them both pay.