Chapter 26
Evan
Evan gazed into his closet mirror, adjusted his silk necktie, and smiled.
Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, I am free at last, he thought.
He had gotten word from his lawyer yesterday that the commonwealth attorney had filed the paperwork and officially dropped all charges against him. And tonight, he and Leila were celebrating his freedom with a romantic dinner in Chesterton. Evan had already shared the good news with Terrence and Paulette. Terrence had, in turn, shared some good news of his own.
“She took me back,” he had told Evan by phone. “C. J. forgave me, Ev. She still wants to get married despite all the shit I’ve put her through, and I’m . . . I’m amazed, man. I’m so lucky to have her back in my life!”
Evan concurred. They were all extremely lucky that their lives were turning out for the better. Terrence would walk down the aisle with the love of his life, and Evan wouldn’t have to worry anymore about being taken away from his wife or his family. He could remain CEO of Murdoch Conglomerated rather than release control of their father’s legacy to a stranger. Now that the family and the family business was no longer on the brink of catastrophe, Aunt Ida had announced that she and Michael would be leaving Murdoch Mansion and returning to her apartment on L’Avenue de Ségur in Paris.
“I know you all will be so sad to see me go,” she had joked.
The dust was finally starting to settle, and life was returning to normal.
“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Evan muttered aloud before giving his reflection one last examination. He then turned to the closet doorway.
“Lee?” Evan called as he adjusted the lapels of his suit jacket. “Lee, are you almost ready, baby?”
He walked into their bedroom and found her standing next to their bed with the zipper at the back of her dress half open and her shawl tossed on the footstool. Her back was facing him, but he could see that she was staring down at something in her hand.
“Baby, what are you doing? I thought you were getting dressed!” He walked toward her and wrapped his arm around her waist. He lightly kissed her neck, inhaling the scent of jasmine and vanilla, before peering over her shoulder. “We better get going if we’re going to make our reserva—”
His words faded when he saw what she was staring at—his cell phone screen.
“Don’t mention it, Ev. I was happy to do it for you,” Leila read aloud in a theatrical breathy voice. “To the world, I may not be Mrs. Murdoch anymore, but I . . .” Leila’s voice faltered. She audibly swallowed. “I will always be in my heart.”
He dropped his arm from around Leila as she turned to face him and brandished his cell phone, showing him the text message from Charisse.
He had sent her a text earlier today to thank her for all that she had done for him. He guessed she had finally responded to his message. Unfortunately, it looked like Leila had seen the text before he had.
His brow knitted together. He snatched his cell out of her hand. “Since when did you start checking my phone messages?”
“Since you started lying to me,” she spat, crossing her arms over her chest. “You told me you weren’t ever going to talk to her anymore!”
“I never said that, Lee.”
“You told me that you guys were done!”
“We are done!”
“Then why is she still texting you? What the hell kind of message was that?”
He fell silent, forcing himself to remain calm. He could feed into her fury with his own anger, but it would accomplish nothing.
“Baby, please . . . please don’t do this.”
“Don’t do this? Don’t do this?” she yelled.
“We’re in a good place. Things are finally getting better. Look, let’s just forget about this. Table it for now. Let’s go out and—”
“I found out that you’re sending texts back and forth with your ex-wife and you expect me to ‘table it’? You want me to shrug it off and just go out to dinner with you? Are you fucking out of your mind?”
“But it’s not what it looks like! It’s—”
“I love you, Evan, and I’ve put up with a lot because of it. Your wife has spread rumors about me around town. She had kids bullying Izzy at school because of it! I wanted to march to her house and beat the shit out of her, but did I do it? No! I held back. Because I thought it was the right thing to do. You kissed her, for God’s sake, and I forgave you!”
He grimaced and lowered his eyes to the carpeted floor.
“I forgave you because I wanted to try to make it work. I’ve accepted all your excuses and your explanations, but not anymore. I’ve been pushed as far as I’m gonna go with this bitch! She isn’t even your wife anymore, Ev! I am,” she said, pointing to her chest. “You don’t have children together! You’re not in business together! I don’t want anything to do with her. I don’t want you to have anything to with her, either!”
He shook his head again. “It wasn’t like that, Lee. I sent her a text message thanking her for something she did . . . something big. She sent a message back! That doesn’t mean I want her and me to get back together! I love you. I want you! I made one mistake and I admitted it. Are you always going to question me?”
“No more phone calls. No more texts,” she continued, like she hadn’t heard him. “I don’t want her to even send a fucking birthday card to this house! I want her out of our lives! Do you hear me?”
“She’s my ex-wife, Lee, but we live in the same town! I can’t completely avoid her. That’s not realistic!”
He watched as she lowered the zipper of her dress down her back. He guessed they wouldn’t be going out to dinner tonight after all.
“No, Ev, what’s not realistic is that you’re still friendly with a woman who cheated on you, who tried to destroy me and turn everyone in town against me! I’ve been a good fucking wife to you, Evan Murdoch! I deserve your allegiance. Not that bitch!”
“Lee, she saved my ass!” he argued, making her suck her teeth. “Believe it or not, I’m standing here with you right now because of what Charisse did! I could be sitting in a courtroom on trial for attempted murder or in jail if she hadn’t seduced Dante and duped him into spilling his guts. She was the one who told the prosecutor the truth about what happened! All right? She recorded their conversations and got the case thrown out. She didn’t have to do that!”
“So she seduces Dante and earns your undying loyalty?” Leila let out a caustic laugh. “Well, if that’s the case, then maybe I should’ve fucked him, too, when I had the chance! Stupid me . . . All I did was jerk him off! But I guess I didn’t count on you being so appreciative,” she snarled.
Evan blinked. All the blood drained from his head. The overhead lights in their bedroom seemed to dim then flare up again. He stared at her for several seconds, struck dumb. He watched as Leila turned away from him.
“W-wh-what . . . what did you say?” he finally stuttered.
“You heard me!” she snapped as she pushed her dress off her shoulders and down her torso. She removed the diamond teardrop earrings that he had given her on their wedding day. She walked toward her dresser and hurled the earrings onto the mahogany dresser top with contempt.
“So it . . . it was true. What . . . what Dante said you did . . . all that shit he was talking? You really did it? You lied to me, Lee!”
She turned back around to face him. Her expression was cold and remote, almost smug. The look conveyed that she didn’t give a damn how much she was hurting him, how her words were ripping him apart limb from limb.
This wasn’t the Leila that he had adored and loved since childhood. She had morphed into someone else—a person he didn’t recognize.
She shrugged. “So what if I did lie, Evan? I wouldn’t be the first person in this family to lie, now would I?”
She then turned back around and continued to remove her jewelry.
After she said that, everything seemed to speed up and slow down simultaneously. Evan didn’t have any cohesive thoughts as he marched around the footstool and grabbed her arm, making her shout out in alarm.
“Let go of me!” she yelled.
But he didn’t let go. Instead, he grabbed her other arm and shook her like a rag doll.
“What the fuck do you mean you lied? I trusted you, Lee, and you lied to me? You let that motherfucka touch you!” he bellowed, curling his lips in disgust. “How could you do that shit to me? I loved you! I trusted you!”
The wrath had come over him so quickly, like a bomb had been set off inside him and his actions were the resulting explosion.
She tried to shove away from him and instead fell back onto the bed. He pounced on her, even as she tried to crawl away. He grabbed her dress and pulled, ripping the seam, shredding the hem. He grabbed her ankle and dragged her back across the bedsheets, making her scream.
“Why him, huh? Why him, Lee?”
She slapped and kicked to get him off of her, but he was the stronger of the two. He pinned her down to the mattress, pressing his full weight on top of her as she pled for him to stop, to let her go.
“You wanted to get back at me for that shit with Charisse? Is that it?” he hissed. His vision had gone completely red. “Why the fuck would you do this to me?”
What else had she lied about? What else had Leila done while he was stuck in a prison cell dreaming of her every night? Suddenly, Evan was flooded with lurid visions of his wife with Dante, with all the things they’d done in that hotel room.
Unable to get away from Evan, Leila turned her head instead, squeezing her eyes shut as she whimpered and cried. He knew at that moment he seemed utterly terrifying. He was certainly scaring himself. But he wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. He would make her pay for this betrayal. Tears wouldn’t work. Screams wouldn’t, either. There was no way she would escape this.
“You’re going to fucking answer me,” he said, even as she continued to sob and babble incoherently. “And you’re going to look at me. If you’re going to stab me in the chest, at least have the fucking balls to look at me while you’re doing it! You hear me?”
He squeezed her chin and wrenched her head around so that she faced him, making her shout out in pain. “Look at me, Lee! You fuckin’ open your eyes and look at me!”
Ever so slowly, she did as he ordered. Her eyes were bright red and pooling with tears. Her mascara streamed down her cheeks and chin. Snot ran from her nose as she gulped for air.
“Why did you do it? Why did you do it, dammit? Just tell me! To get even with me? To hurt me?”
“No! No, I did it to help you!” she screamed up at him, choking on her own sobs, making Evan go still. “Just like she did . . . I did it to help you! He said that’s what I had to do to get you out . . . out of jail! I-I-I didn’t wanna do it, but I had no other choice!”
He loosened his grip around her arms and let go of her face.
“I didn’t wanna do it! I didn’t wanna do it!” she kept repeating while furiously shaking her head.
And just like that, the fury disappeared. The red veil of rage had been lifted, and he could see it all so clearly now.
She had morphed back into the Leila he knew—the Leila who had sacrificed for him, who would do almost anything to put a smile on his face. Except she wasn’t smiling now. She was sniveling and trembling with fear, and he had been the one who made her this way. He had done this to her. This time, she was looking at him as if she didn’t recognize him.
Oh, God, he thought as he sat back on his shins. Evan stared down at his wife, at the mother of his child, at the woman he loved more than anything. He had attacked her—something he would never have imagined himself doing in a million years.
All because of Dante.
He could practically hear that son of a bitch cackling in his head. Dante knew how to hit him where it hurt. He knew how to sully what was most sacred to Evan. He had tried to take away his freedom and livelihood—and failed. But now he had ruined the one thing that Evan had treasured the most: the bond he and Leila shared. Their relationship wouldn’t be the same after this; they could never go back again.
“I’m gonna kill him,” Evan whispered with a shaky breath and unshed tears in his eyes.
He climbed off of Leila, who was still hiccupping and crying. She turned to the side and buried her face in their duvet.
“I’m gonna kill him,” Evan said again as he strode across their bedroom, swung open the door, and slammed it closed behind him.
He strode down the corridor of the west wing and the staircase to the first floor, lost in a daze. He passed Diane and his housekeeper as he went. Both women shrank back from him like he was some monster stalking through the mansion hallways.
And he was a monster. He could feel it happening all along, during all these months, and now he had finally turned into his father: flying into a rage, yelling and abusing his wife. And Evan was about to do what his father had done: kill his brother. The Murdoch family legacy was coming full circle. History was about to repeat itself.
He threw open the French doors and jogged down the stone steps to the Lincoln Town Car where his driver, Bill, was waiting with a ready smile. He held open the door for Evan.
“Mrs. Murdoch is running a little late, I guess?” Bill asked. “Still beautifying?”
“She isn’t coming,” Evan answered succinctly before climbing inside the car.
Bill looked at him quizzically as he shut the door behind him but didn’t comment.
Evan sat in the backseat, his muscles rigid and his pulse racing. Perspiration was on his brow and pooling under his armpits. He was breathing like he had just finished a five-mile jog.
“Did you still want to head to the restaurant?” Bill asked, shifting the car into drive.
“No.” Evan slowly shook his head as the Town Car glided out of the mansion’s circular driveway. “I want to go to seven-oh-eight Mason Avenue in Reston.”
“That far? That’s quite a drive, sir!” Bill leaned over to stare at Evan in the rearview mirror. “What in the world is out there at this late hour?”
“The son of a bitch who I’m going to kill tonight.”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“I’ve had enough of it, Bill,” Evan continued, feeling the words flood out of his mouth like a broken dam. “I’ve had enough of all his shit.”
He probably shouldn’t be confessing this to his driver, but he didn’t care. He would be arrested soon after he did what he had to do tonight anyway.
“He’s ruined my life. He ruined us. Lee will probably never forgive me for what I did tonight, and she has every right not to. But I’ll be damned if he gets away with this shit yet again! I didn’t try to kill him last time, but I will this time. That motherfucka’s nine lives are up.”
Bill squinted as he pulled onto a roadway. “You aren’t talking about that Turner fella, are you, sir? Your half brother?”
“Yes,” Evan answered, glaring out the passenger window.
“Well, now . . . I can’t let you do that, Mr. Murdoch.”
“If you won’t take me to his place, then take me back to the house. I’ll drive there my goddamn self.”
“No, sir,” Bill said, shaking his gray head as he turned the wheel onto another street. “I’ll keep driving until you really have a chance to think about this . . . to think about what you’re doin’. Your wife may be mad at you now but she depends on you. Those children depend on you. You can’t afford to go back to jail. You know that.”
Evan turned away from window and stared down at his lap.
“You’ve done right by me, Mr. Murdoch. You’ve done right by my wife and my kids. I’m able to pay for my oldest to go through college because of you. She’s studying to be a teacher. I’m grateful for what you’ve done, and I wouldn’t be showing how grateful I was if I just sat back and let you send yourself down the river again.” He paused. “I served time when I was a young man. You remember that, don’t you?”
Yes, he knew that Bill had been to prison. He had seen Bill’s prison record when he applied for the job as family driver several years ago. He had been shocked that the polite, gregarious older man had served more than a decade behind bars for robbery and theft. It had given Evan pause until he realized Bill had been charged when he was only nineteen years old. Though he’d worried he was making a huge mistake, Evan had decided to hire Bill anyway based on the man’s glowing recommendations. Now he was glad he had; Bill had been an exemplary driver who had served him well.
“I remember what it’s like in there. You and I both know, you don’t wanna go back, sir,” Bill insisted.
Evan closed his eyes and took a shuddering breath. “I don’t . . . but at this point, they all may be better off without me.”
“Don’t say that,” Bill ordered with an icy firmness, surprising Evan with his tone. “Don’t you dare say that, because you know it isn’t true!” Bill braked at a light and gazed at Evan in his rearview mirror. “I spent seven years in prison. I missed birthdays, graduations . . . I even missed my grandmother’s funeral. I spent seven years feeling sorry for myself until I realized when I finally got out that my wife, my daughter—they had missed me, too. Can you believe it?”
Evan didn’t respond.
“Me—a man who had disappointed them and embarrassed them by getting locked up in the first place! I was a drunk. I was a junkie. I robbed houses and stole cars to pay for my habit—and they still missed me. They still wanted me back. After I realized that, I made it my mission to prove to them I was a man worth waiting seven years for.”
Evan pursed his lips. He finally unclenched his hands.
“So no, I’m not taking you to Reston tonight,” Bill said. “We’ll just keep driving around until we figure this out. We’ll drive until dawn if we have to. If you change your mind . . . good. I think you’re making the right decision. You’re doing right by yourself and your family. If you don’t change your mind and you decide you still want him dead, you’re a grown man. I won’t drive you there, but I know in the end I can’t stop you if you want to do it badly enough. I just want you to make sure this is really what you want. I want you to understand what’s really at stake. All right?”
Evan gradually nodded. “All right.”