Chapter 25 - Eve
The rooftop garden at Sinclair Designs has become my sanctuary. I stand among the carefully tended plants, sketching the next piece in the new collection, and feel something I haven't felt in years.
Joy.
Not the desperate, fragile contentment of someone who's given up fighting. This is deeper. Quieter. The peace of someone who's found their place in the world, even if that place isn't what they expected.
My pencil moves across the page, and I lose myself in the flow of lines and curves. This—this creating—is what I was meant to do. Not the board meetings or the financial decisions or the endless pressure of running a company. Just this.
Lucy appears with a tablet, her expression professionally neutral. We've rebuilt our relationship slowly, painfully, one careful interaction at a time. It's not what it was. It may never be what it was. But it's something.
"The fabric samples arrived. And the photographer wants to schedule the lookbook shoot for next month."
"Perfect," I say, making a note in my sketchbook. My hand is steady. No trembling anymore. No constant anxiety. "Can you have the samples sent to my studio at the penthouse?"
"Of course." She turns to go, then hesitates. "Eve? The designs are beautiful. Really beautiful."
It's the first genuine compliment she's given me in weeks, and it makes my throat tight with emotion. "Thank you, Lucy."
She nods, and I see something soften in her expression. Not forgiveness, exactly. But maybe understanding. Maybe acceptance that I've made my choice, and it's not the one she would have made for me.
She leaves, and I'm alone again with my sketches and the distant hum of the city.
I've lost my best friend. But I've gained something too—a creative freedom I'd forgotten existed. Nathan handles all the business concerns, leaving me to focus solely on the art.
This is the bargain I made. My independence for my passion. My freedom for my craft.
And standing here, looking at the collection taking shape before me, I can almost convince myself it was worth it.
Almost.
***
The loft looks strange now that it’s empty. Nathan has moved all of my stuff out, save for some last remnants of my old life. He insisted on keeping the lease for another month, letting me pack the last things at my own pace.
It's a kindness I wasn't expecting. But then, he's full of contradictions—the monster who worships, the captor who sets me free creatively.
I'm sorting through a box of old books when I find it. A leather photo album wedged between college textbooks I haven't opened in years. The cover is worn, the binding cracked.
Alex's handwriting is on the first page: "Junior Year Adventures."
My breath catches. My hands start shaking. I haven't seen this album since before the accident. I thought it had been lost, donated, thrown away in the chaos of grief and moving.
I flip through the pages slowly, my vision blurring with tears. Alex at seventeen, all lanky limbs and easy smiles. My parents, younger and happier. Our old house with its sprawling backyard.
Then I turn a page and freeze.
Alex has his arm slung around another boy—tall, dark-haired, grinning at the camera with unguarded joy. They're at what looks like a school event, both in suits that don't quite fit, their ties slightly askew.
The caption beneath reads: " Nate and I, Homecoming 2008."
Nate.
Nathan.
I stare at the photo, my chest tightening with emotion. The boy in the picture is so different from the man I know. His face is open, vulnerable, unscarred by whatever turned him into the controlled, dangerous man who now owns my world.
There's no darkness in his eyes. No weight. Just pure, uncomplicated joy.
My fingers trace the edge of the photo, and suddenly I'm thirteen again, sitting on our back porch with my sketchbook.
"That's really good."
I'd jerked my head up to find Nate standing there, hands in his pockets, looking at my drawing over my shoulder. Most of Alex's friends ignored me—the chunky little sister with paint on her fingers. But Nate always seemed to see me.
"It's just a sketch," I'd mumbled, trying to close the book.
"No, seriously. You've got something there—the way you do shadows. It's like you understand that darkness isn't just the absence of light. It has weight, you know?" He'd crouched down beside me, genuinely interested. "What are you trying to capture?"
I'd been drawing a bird with a broken wing, trying to show pain and beauty at the same time. No one had ever asked me what I was trying to say with my art. They just patted my head and called it "nice."
"Something broken," I'd whispered.
He'd been quiet for a long moment, then: "Broken things can still be beautiful. Sometimes more beautiful because of what they survived."
Then Alex had called him back inside, and the moment ended. But I never forgot it—the way he'd looked at my art like it mattered. The way he'd looked at me like I mattered.
I close my eyes against the tears. He saw me even then. Saw the parts of myself I tried to hide. Maybe that's why his obsession feels less like a violation and more like... continuation. Like he's been seeing me my whole life, and I'm only just now catching up.
I flip through more pages with trembling hands. More photos of them together. At football games. In someone's garage, working on a car. On a beach trip, both sunburned and laughing.
They were best friends. Real friends. The kind of friends who share everything, who are inseparable.
Brothers.
Tears stream down my face as I close the album.
I need to understand how the smiling boy in these photos became the man who destroyed my life to remake it.
***
Nathan is in the penthouse library when I find him, reading a business report with that focused intensity he brings to everything. He looks up as I enter, and his expression shifts to pleasure.
"You're back early," he says, setting down the report. "I thought you'd be packing all afternoon."
I hold up the album with shaking hands. "I found this."
His entire body goes still. For a moment, the controlled mask slips, and I see something raw and vulnerable flash across his face. Fear. Pain. Grief.
"Where did you—"
"My loft. In a box of Alex's things." I move closer, my heart pounding, tears threatening to spill again. I open the album to the homecoming photo.
He stares at the photo, and I watch his throat work as he swallows hard. His hands are trembling. "It was a long time ago."
I sit beside him, turning pages with tears streaming down my face. "You were together constantly. You were brothers in everything but blood."
Silence fills the library. Nathan's hands are shaking—actually shaking—as he takes the album from me.
He clears his throat. "Eve—I need to tell you something."
He stares at a photo of him and Alex, both grinning at the camera, and his voice cracks when he speaks.
"We were celebrating. High school graduation. We were drunk—too drunk to drive, but too stupid to care." His voice drops to barely a whisper, thick with grief. "I should have called a cab. Should have stayed at the party. Should have done anything except get behind that wheel."
"Nathan—"
"He tried to stop me." A tear slides down his cheek. "Alex tried to take the keys, but I was being an arrogant ass. Told him I was fine. That I'd driven drunk before and nothing happened."
His hands grip the album so tightly that the leather creases.
His whole body is shaking now. "I lost control on a curve.
Hit a tree. Alex..." His voice breaks completely, a sob tearing from his throat.
"He died on impact. I pulled him out of the driver's seat, put myself there instead.
Made it look like he was driving. No one ever knew. No one."
Wait.
Wait.
The words penetrate slowly, like ice water seeping through my veins.
"You were driving?" My voice comes out strangled, barely audible.
He looks up at me, tears streaming down his face. "Eve—"
"You were driving." I stand abruptly, the album falling from my lap to the floor. "You—not Alex. You were the one behind the wheel."
"Yes," he whispers.
"No." I'm backing away from him, my hands shaking violently. "No. The police said—the report said Alex was driving drunk. That he—that he—"
The room tilts sickeningly. All these years. All these years, I thought it was Alex's fault. That my brother's recklessness killed him. That he made the choice to drive drunk and paid the ultimate price.
But it wasn't him. It was Nathan.
Nathan killed my brother. And then he lied about it.
"You lied to me," I whisper, then louder, "You lied to everyone!"
"I was terrified—" He stands, reaching for me.
"Don't touch me!" I slap his hands away, rage flooding through me so intensely I can barely breathe. "Don't you dare touch me! You let me think—for sixteen years, I thought it was Alex's fault. I thought he was reckless and stupid and—"
A sob tears from my throat. "And he wasn't. He tried to stop you. He tried to save both of you, and you killed him, and then you made everyone think it was his fault!"
"I know," Nathan says, his voice breaking. "I know, Eve, I'm so sorry—"
"Sorry?" I laugh, the sound hysterical. "You're sorry? You killed my brother, framed him for his own death, and then you stalked me for years, destroyed my life, manipulated everything, and you think sorry covers it?"
I grab the nearest object—a heavy crystal paperweight—and hurl it at him. He dodges, and it shatters against the bookshelf behind him.
"You monster!" I'm screaming now, tears streaming down my face. "You fucking monster! Everything—everything I built, everything I became, it was all because of you! Because you were too drunk and too stupid and too arrogant to call a fucking cab!"
"I know—"
"My parents blamed Alex!" The realization hits me like a train. "They died thinking their son was the drunk driver who killed himself! They never forgave him, and it wasn't even him!"