It was the end of July when anger had forced me to react and show my uncle who he was fucking with. No longer a child, I had proved to Lars that I was Miles Evans’s son.
Lars and I had been extremely busy at work with a new acquisition of a small local bank in Grand Rapids. I was working such long hours that I hadn’t been paying attention to the surveillance footage at my uncle’s place. I used to watch a quick run through of the recording from the night before after I got home from work. But nothing had shown up on the videos so I let a few days go. Days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months.
About a month and a half after Riley’s high school graduation, I decided to catch up on the videos once work slowed down. My blood pressure shot through the roof as anger spread, warming me. Barely believing anything I had seen on the surveillance cameras at my uncle’s house, I shook my head and backed up the video. Praying that I wouldn’t see a repeat of Lars face fucking Riley, I slammed my fist down on the kitchen table.
Angered instantly, I didn’t even know if I was angrier about what he was doing with Riley or the fact that he was playing me. Each time I began to think about all the occasions that Lars promised he’d remain faithful and exclusive to me, the situation with Riley came creeping back in.
While I waited for Riley to leave the house for his summer job, I thought of all the things I planned to say to Lars. I couldn’t help but feel like a fool. As I loaded my handgun, I reminded myself that I had to think about my future and the future of Evans Financial. I saw Riley leave the house, so I shut off the surveillance cameras. I certainly didn’t need this captured on video. I took a deep breath and made my way to my uncle’s house. Even though our properties were close and separated by a large lake and the woods, our houses were actually quite a distance apart, so I drove over.
I knocked on the front door a few times and then entered the home, as I always did.
“Hello?” I called out in my usual fashion.
“I’m in the study, Griffin,” Lars hollered.
I reminded myself to keep as calm as possible while I walked down the hall. I stepped into the study and found Lars sitting behind his desk writing in the family journal. He looked up at me briefly and smiled before his focus returned to the pages in front of him. Casually, I walked to the antique table beside the window and looked out. Absentmindedly, I ran my fingertip along the polished edge.
“I’m adding Elizabeth Mason to the book, Griffin.”
“Oh?” I asked, though at the moment I really didn’t give a fuck.
“I spotted her at a bar last night with a man who wasn’t her husband.”
“Maybe he was a friend,” I suggested.
“Doubtful. They were pretty close with their mouths,” he murmured while he wrote.
“Maybe they were family.”
Lars huffed out a laugh.
“Did you hear me say they had their mouths on one another, Griffin?”
“I heard it just fine.” I turned to look at him. “You’ve had your mouth on mine,” I reminded him. When his eyes met mine, I added, “And on Riley’s.”
All the color drained from his face as he sat back in the chair, resting his forearms on the wooden armrests, his hands dangling. After a few moments of silence, he turned his wrists over, resigned to the fact that he had been caught. For some reason, this stung. And I had no idea why his silent admission bothered me so much.
“Griffin,” he began.
“How long?”
“Griffin—”
“How fucking long, Lars?” I yelled. He raised his hands slightly with his palms open and fingers spread wide, willing me to calm down. Even I was surprised by my level of anger.
“I don’t know, Griffin.”
“You don’t know?” I was more irate than I had ever been. As I paced the length of the study, I could feel the harsh metal of the gun in the back of my waistband. “How do you not fucking know?” I yelled.
“It’s been years.”
“You fucking swore to me that it would just be us!”
“Have you kept your end of that promise, Griffin? I’m an old man, but I’m not an idiot.”
“You’ve had me help you catch these women! Besides, don’t try to turn this into tit-for-tat shit. This is different. This is Riley.”
“Riley. There’s nothing for you to be jealous over, Griffin.”
