The days that followed after I’d caught them together were awful. I’d imagined all sorts of things. What they must have talked about, what they must have done. All that they did.
There was a day in between when Eloise had said she was going shopping and was away for much longer than her usual time. When she got home that night, I saw the few things she’d bought and immediately suspected that she’d been with Tag. I’d kept quiet right up to the big day when shit went down.
“You’re right, and I was a fool. A fool to believe that things like loyalty and trust meant anything. A fool to trust a wife I’d always been faithful to and believed she was faithful to me too. A fool to trust a friend or take a man like you for a friend when you would easily turn around and take the thing I loved the most. I was a fool to believe Millicent couldn’t be turned against me. Yes, Tag. I know I did so much wrong, so much wrong in this whole thing, and the things that I’m sorry for are that you lost your boys and Eloise died. But, fuck, I still want you dead. I still have the same vendetta against you. So, I’m not sorry for setting you up. I’m not sorry for your pain. I’m not sorry for anything I did to you. I’m sorry for the results.”
It was the end for me. It was the end of my road, the end of my journey, and it wouldn’t matter what happened to me. I’d say whatever the hell I liked. Right now, I could because I still had something he wanted.
The diamonds.
I still had them, and he wanted them. So, fuck him. He’d hear the truth, alright, and I wasn’t sorry for him. The only difference between years ago and now was that I wanted him dead more than ever. Back then, my goal had been prison for a long time. Long enough to get him out of the picture.
I was a fool to think that with him gone I could save my marriage. Even after seeing Eloise with him, I’d been willing to forgive her.
He was silent for a minute or so, and I grew more eager because we had to go. My question, however, hadn’t been answered.
I knew he hadn’t hung up because I could hear him breathing. He was probably seething from my words, but I didn’t give a flying fuck.
“So,old friend.” I emphasized the words. “How about we pick up where you left off in your explanation. You got to the part about Millicent.”
“I came back to Chicago after spending years in Italy, hiding. Remember, you arranged for me to get gone.”
I’d arranged that because the feds were after him and he was after Agent Peterson. If Tag had gotten to him, I knew Agent Peterson would have talked and Tag would have known everything. Without his boys and the state Tag was in that night, he was useless to himself. He’d called me straight after the whole craziness went down. He’d called me in tears over the lives that were lost. He was how I’d found out Eloise had been killed.
“I remember.” His call had been followed by Agent Peterson’s. I didn’t know which call was worse. Tag giving me the initial blow or Agent Peterson telling me he’d accidentally shot my wife. She’d run right into his line of fire and got hit. It was an accident, but I didn’t care. “Don’t pussyfoot around the situation. Talk.”
He laughed. “I wanted to come home. Italy isn’t Chicago. I think though that most of all I wanted to see you. I should have found it weird that through all those years, we never stayed in touch. I left, couldn’t even bury my boys properly and say goodbye to Eloise, and you never stayed in touch. It should have been a giveaway, but I foolishly thought it was for my protection. Calls can be traced.”
“You’re pussyfooting again.” I didn’t want to hear all the fluff about how he felt or what he thought. Much as it was a part of the story.
“I went to your house and saw Millicent. You were away. She was shocked to see me, and it was what she said then that revealed all.”
My heart gripped as suspense truly took me. This was it. The moment of reckoning.
“What did she say?”
“First, she looked confused to see me, and disgusted. I wondered why she looked like that.” He chuckled. Millicent looked disgusted because the night I’d seen Eloise and Tag together, she’d been the one and only person I’d told. I was a grief-stricken man with a broken heart who needed to confide in someone. She was at home tucking Amelia into bed by the time I’d returned. “I thought she must not have recognized me. I stupidly reminded her who I was, but she knew me and said that she was surprised I would dare come here. The woman was defending you. You know, Raphael, she truly was a friend because that little woman didn’t care who I was when she started her tirade. What she didn’t know was that I never knew you knew about the affair.”
Fuck, that was how it started. Wow. It was amazing.
“So, you figured it out from what she said?”
“Not exactly. It was what Eloise said right before your agent’s bullet got her. I saw her running across the docks. When she saw me, she screamed ‘He knows. Get out.’” He paused for a minute. “She said that, and I thought she meant someone else. I thought she was talking about the agent.He knows.I never put two and two together thathewas you. She was trying to tell me that you knew about us and I was in the middle of a trap. Bullets were already being fired, and it got her just then. It wasn’t until Millicent said she was amazed that you and I were still friends after what I did to your marriage that it came together in my mind. Then she all but confirmed it all in disgust when she said it was unforgiveable to betray you the way I did by having an affair with your wife.”
I held my breath and released it slowly. “So, that’s it.”
“That’s it. It took a few days to sink in. A few days to do a little more digging and realize that the feds didn’t get the diamonds in the shipment, so you must have got to them first, and a few days to come up with my grand plan for you. Blood for blood. Your daughter for my sons and Eloise.”
“You know that same daughter is hers too.”
“She’s yours, and Eloise is gone. It’s enough. When I found out she’d left home, and damn, you took great lengths to cover her identity, that just encouraged me more.”
“How did you then get Millicent to betray me?” Last question, and then I was done.
“The same way I do everything else. Everyone has a price. Everyone has something they can be made to do if you threaten them enough. For her it was her husband. When I put it all together, I threatened to kill her husband if she didn’t cooperate.”
So, that was it.
Yes, that would indeed be Millicent’s price. She loved her husband the way I’d wanted my wife to love me. She would have done anything to save him, even if it meant betraying me.
