by Emelia Blair
“Eve!”
I am so cold inside.
Almost flying, I rush towards the bedroom, and for a brief heartbeat, I stand in the doorway, unable to do anything but observe.
A round man in a familiar guard’s uniform lays face down on the ground.
Eve stands, trembling, next to Henrietta, wielding the katana. Henrietta is tucking a gun into a basket that is on the bed.
I step over Frank Donavon and with two long strides, I cover the distance between Eve and me. Twisting the sword out of her hands, I throw it aside and cover her mouth with mine, a fierce melding of tongues as I take and take till she has nothing left to give.
She gasps against me, pounding on my chest, needing air.
When I release her, she takes in a much-needed breath.
She lets me hold on to her, somehow knowing I need to feel her.
“Is he dead?” she asks, shakily.
“No,” Elijah said, as he leans down to check for a pulse. He glances at Henrietta, who gives him a look.
“He was the guard who checked me before I got in. He removed the bullets from the gun. I couldn’t fire. Mark was ten minutes away.” She casts an admiring look Eve’s way. “Eve kept him talking.”
I see the way she favors her left side. “Henrietta, you—”
Her eyes are on my father. “Just a flesh wound. Nothing a little bandaging won’t fix.”
My father clenches his jaw, and I see the strain in him on not having the ability to approach Henrietta in the open.
“Come on,” he says, quietly. “I’ll take you to the hospital.”
She doesn’t move. “Maybe you should first—”
“Henrietta.”
Her name is spoken harshly, and she rolls her eyes, muttering, “Yes, boss,” before moving towards him.
“I trust you can handle this?” My father looks at me.
I nod.
Then, still clutching onto Eve, I call out, “Hey, Henrietta?”
She glances over her shoulder.
“Thank you.”
She gives me a warm smile and then moves, the side of her shoulder stained with blood.
Eve looked at me, shaking, and asks, “Are they…?”
When I nod, her eyes widen. “Wow.”
“Yeah.”
Her eyes move to the still man on the ground before she looks at Mark. “You okay?”
Mark winces. “Just a graze.”
“How did he get in?” I ask Eve.
She is too pale, and I let her sit down on the edge of the bed. “He said that he knew the security team ordered food on Thursday afternoons. He waited for the delivery guy on the edge of the road, and he ran him over.”
Her voice chokes on that. “He killed a young boy, and he wasn’t bothered in the least.”
“The boy’s alive,” Mark tells her. “He was sitting up when I drove by.”
The huge breath that Eve releases is one of gratitude, and she continues. “He put sedatives in the food and then locked up the unconscious guards behind the house. He said that they might not even wake up because the dosage he gave them was too strong.”
I see Mark on the phone, and I ignore him.
“He wasn’t expecting Henrietta, and he had the house keys from the guards, and then Henrietta pulled out a gun when he showed up. But the gun was empty, and I tried to distract him. He said you insulted him way back and cost him his job. And that you’re the reason he was discredited so openly this time around.”
Eve’s mouth trembles before she firms it and she gives me a stark look. “His eyes were dead, Zayn. I’ve never seen such cold eyes. He asked me where Mila was, and I said she was with you. I thought—I thought that once he killed me, he would go after her, and I couldn’t—I couldn’t bear the thought!”
I can’t bear the thought that she had accepted her death as so inevitable.
I crouch on the ground. “Mila is okay. You’re okay. You’re okay.”
I kiss her hands. “You’re fine.”
Eve purses her lips to stop the trembling before continuing. “He hired prostitutes that looked like an ex-girlfriend of yours. He was after her too. He was going to hang this on her neck.”
Stupid man, I think, glancing at the unconscious form on the ground.
He should have done his research.
He had no clue that Sheila was traveling.
“Zayn?”
“Yes. I’m here.” I reach out to stroke her hair away from her face.
“That’s how he got the pictures. He killed those women, Zayn. The ones he hired. He didn’t want loose ends. He sent the social worker after us. He bribed her to record the conversation, promised to make her rich. He killed her, too.”
Eve is shaking now.
Despite how strong she is, this much blood and murder could get to anyone.
“He wanted to be famous. That’s all. He didn’t care how. And he wanted revenge on you. He said he was one of the top photographers in the game before you took him down and your manager blacklisted him. He was going to kill me and then take photographs and be the first to publish the news after the police came on the scene. He killed people just to be famous. Who does that?”
“He was insane,” I murmur, trying to calm her. Insane and desperate.
“The police are on their way,” Mark says from the hall.
“How is he still unconscious?” I ask, staring down at Frank, suppressing the urge to pick up the sword and plunge it through his dark heart.
“I shot him, and he hit his head on the bedpost.” Mark sounds disgusted. “What a fucking idiot.”
Eve looks at Mark, who stares back at her, and she seems to grasp some semblance of normalcy. “Ron’s not going to be happy with you, you know.”
“You wouldn’t tell him,” Mark scowls.
“Tell him yourself. Or I will,” Eve says simply.
He shakes his head. “You’ve just been through a traumatizing event, and you can still threaten me. Nerves of fucking steel.”
It is a front, I can see. My Eve is trying to be brave.
“All right, Eve. Let’s go downstairs. I have an entire security team to fire.”
“Don’t do that,” she gives me a reproachful look as she lets me help her walk downstairs. “It’s not their fault.”
I grip her arm a little tighter. “If Mark hadn’t shown up, you would be gone.”
The fierce intensity in my voice has Eve stilling. “Zayn.”
“No,” I snarl, forcing her to face me. “For these past few months, I’ve lived with the constant fear of either losing you or having you walk out on me because this life is too much for you. I can’t live like that anymore.”
Eve takes a step back, her eyes wide, fear in them. “Are you… breaking up with me?”
“What?” I narrow my eyes. “No! Jesus, no!”
“Then why would you…?” Her eyes now light up with anger. “Why would you say something like that?”
“Because I want to marry you, you idiot!”
“Oh.” She blinks, the anger fading. And then her eyes fill. “Oh.”
“No, stop crying. Because I’m not asking you.”
She frowns at me through her tears. “What? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I want you to do it,” I tell her.
“Excuse me?” She looks baffled now. “You want me to ask you to marry me?”
I take a step closer to her, breathing hard. “I want you to demand it like it’s your goddamn right. Like you’re not scared of me walking away just because you want something from this relationship.”
She freezes. “You heard me that day, in the hospital.”
“Ask me, Eve. Tell me what you want,” I say, softly.
She hesitates.
“Tell me what you want from me, and I’ll lay it at your feet: my money, myself, my last name. Whatever you want, it’s yours. But you have to demand it.”
I see her swallow. “I want you.”
“I don’t hear
you,” I lied.
Through the shimmer in her eyes, she glares at me, grabbing me by my shirt. “I want you, you idiot! I just want you. Marry me!”
I smile. “Was that so hard?”
She reaches out and kisses me, biting my lower lip..
I let her.
When she pulls away, I ask, “Satisfied?”
She nods. “I don’t want a normal wedding.”
“What do you want then?”
The slow smile on her lips makes me sigh.
Oh, she is going to get in trouble.
Epilogue
Zayn
Two years later...
“Don’t talk to me,” Agatha snarls, as she fixes her wedding dress for the sixth time.
“Oh, come on, Agatha. I told you how sudden it was,” I try to reason with her.
She whirls around to face me, a furious look on her face. “You fucking eloped!”
“You know I can’t say no to Eve.” I feel weak in the face of my friend’s fury.
“Oh, I’ll have a talk with Eve, all right,” Agatha says, darkly. “A long talk.” She stalks over to the dressing table. “I bet this was because I chose that horrid bridesmaid dress. This is her way of getting even with me.”
Yes.
She suddenly whirls around, pointing her mascara stick at me. “Is this because I insisted on planning your wedding?”
That also might have something to do with it!
“Of course not,” I lie. “Don’t be ridiculous. Eve’s not that petty.”
Oh, she definitely is.
And she is enjoying that I have to suffer for it.
“But you’re having a second ceremony?” Agatha asks suspiciously.
I tuck my hands in my pockets. “Well, her parents insist on it. So does Henrietta.”
The smirk that covers Agatha’s mouth as she replies has me narrowing my eyes. “Of course they did.”
“Do you have something to do with this?” I ask, frowning.
She blinks innocently, batting her eyelashes. “Of course not.”
“Both of you are insane,” I muttered. “God, I hope Mila takes after me.”
A knock on the door and Charlotte peeks in. “Is the fight over? Can we come in?”
“I won,” Agatha tells her cheerfully and Charlotte rolls her eyes.
“The ceremony’s starting in half hour. Stop picking fights with people. Zayn, get out. Your wife is looking for you. And get Sarah something to eat. She looks ready to bite Fergus’s head off.”
Escaping the hell hole, I wander towards the caterers and pocket a few appetizers to give to Fergus’s very pregnant wife.
“So, did she yell at you?”
The familiar voice makes me sigh and grin at the same time as I watch my wife sidle up to me. “You just did this to piss her off. You were going to have a proper ceremony anyway.”
Eve smirks, her dark hair put up in an artistic bun, a few tendrils escaping.
“Where’s Mila?” I ask, glancing around.
“Trying to convince Jake to put one of the frogs from the garden pond into his pants.”
I choke at that. “Is he going to do it?”
Eve laughs. “He worships her. She’s his little queen.”
A shout from the other end of the garden, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Ian’s, had Eve wincing. “I guess he did do it.”
“Do we have to ground her now?” I muse.
“Yeah. Let’s get it over with.”
However, we don’t have to do it because Mark already grounded her and now she is sulking while Ron tries to explain to her that what she did, while funny, was wrong.
Mark doesn’t look amused at his fiance’s attempts to explain away his punishment.
“She knows what she did was wrong,” he says, grimly. “Stop trying to baby her. She’s nearly six.”
When Mila glares at him, he gives her a stony look, which has her glancing away, knowing when she is beaten.
Since Mila already looks up to Ron as a temporary father figure since spent so many years co-parenting her, Mark’s staunch presence in his life makes him another parent figure to my daughter.
Oddly enough, I don’t mind it.
Mila has a lot of people looking out for her. It makes me feel secure that she is always going to be loved and cherished.
I watch her scamper off the minute she sees Elijah walk in, no doubt to complain to him about how she is being mistreated. Not that it would matter.
He will side with Mark.
Although, he will manage to do that while talking her out of her sulk.
It took Ron a month to come to terms with what Mark is, and the heartbroken enforcer had roamed around aimlessly, believing the flamboyant love of his life was leaving him.
Of course, Ron was too head over heels to leave Mark, and they drifted back together, with Mark proposing a few short months later.
Frank Donavon is currently serving a life sentence in prison.
Eve’s dance studio was relocated to another, more central city area and rebranded at her insistence. She wanted a new start. Fortunately, most of the teachers had followed her. Lorraine insisted on working as well, despite her mothers’ protests.
Eve refused to finish law school, saying she didn’t need it anymore. However, I make sure that she knows it is always an option if she ever chooses to change her mind.
Her parents—is still a rocky relationship, and while Eve is working to get some balance with them, I can tell at times that it isn’t easy for her. But she is trying.
She loves them.
Forgiveness for what they had done was just something that was going to take time.
Seeing Fergus in the distance, I raise my hand in greeting, and he makes his way over to us. “Did Agatha chew on you yet?”
He is grinning and I sour. “We’re just going to have a small private ceremony at the end of the month. Don’t get too excited.”
He laughs. “Small ceremony, my ass. She’s going to make it bigger than this. She was really pissed.”
When Eve looks too pleased, Fergus chuckles. “She’ll get you back for that one, Eve.”
Eve shrugs.
I know she likes Agatha.
They have their own weird relationship.
I don’t even bother at this point. Because the minute I would try to interfere, they would gang up on me and tell me to mind my own business.
“I’m going to go find Sarah,” Eve tells me, taking the appetizers from me.
I watch her leave, the yellow dress she wears making me want to rip it off of her.
“Did I just see Ian dive into the pool?” comes Phillip’s curious voice from behind us, distracting me from my line of thought. “If he’s having cold feet, that is not the way to go. I told him the back entrance was a better way to make an exit.” He chews on a piece of shrimp pastry. “Not that Agatha will let him have cold feet. She’ll kill him if he ruins her wedding.”
“It’s his wedding, too,” Fergus points out as a scowling Ian makes his way towards us, dragging his repentant looking brother behind him.
“No, it’s not,” Philip and I say at the same time.
Philip grins. “This is Agatha’s thing. She actually told Ian just to stand there and look pretty.”
Fergus makes an approving sound as Ian finally reaches us. “You little rebel.”
Ian just glares at him. “I need new pants.”
“I bet you do,” Fergus is laughing too hard, and when I join in, Ian glowers at me.
“As my best man, that’s your fucking job.”
“I don’t carry around spare pants, man,” I snort.
When he eyes mine, meaningfully, I narrow my eyes. “No.”
Ian just raises a brow.
When I meet up with my Eve ten minutes later, she eyes the wet pants that I am wearing.
“Don’t ask,” I mutter.
Sarah is eating the shrimp pastries and sighing in satisfaction.
“I both love an
d hate being pregnant,” she announces.
“Tell me about it,” Eve grumbles.
When my eyes widen, she snorts. “Oh, calm down. We can barely handle one child.”
I grin. “We could always—” I waggle my brows, and she narrows her eyes.
“Go be a pervert elsewhere.”
Sarah looks at Eve with a dreamy sigh. “I had really good pregnancy sex this morning. I’m constantly in a state of—”
“And I’m the pervert,” I say.
Sarah just stares at me. “If you don’t want to hear about my sex life, you’re welcome to leave.”
I shudder.
I find my way back to where Philip is trying to convince little Alex that chewing on a stone would get them both in trouble.
“Why’d you come back?” Fergus asks.
“Our wives are comparing our sex techniques.”
Fergus blinks, suddenly interested. “Oh, yeah? What’d they say?”
“No, Alexandria! You put that down, or you’re grounded,” Philip threatens.
“You do know you can’t ground a child under two years. It doesn’t work that way,” I tell him.
“Speaking of kids, where’s yours?” Fergus asks Ian.
“My mother has him,” Ian says, distractedly. “She’s somewhere with Henrietta, swapping recipes.”
“Guys, places,” Sarah’s voice comes from nearby, and I sigh remorsefully at my wet pants before following my friends to the altar.
Ian and Agatha chose to get married where they first met: on Agatha’s sprawling family estate. It is where Eve and I will be doing our second ceremony in a month’s time.
As Agatha shows up and starts walking towards Ian, it feels like life has come into a full circle. If I close my eyes, I can still see us as boys, running around, and a girl running after us.
I see the young men we became, the heartbreak we went through, the struggles that we faced.
And now, here we are, the last of us getting married—the young boy who watched the girl with adoring eyes, vowing to himself that he would one day be her husband.
Friends, family, lovers, husbands, and now fathers.
Full circle, indeed.
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