I TURNED TO see who the familiar voice belonged to, assuming it might’ve been one of the bodyguards sent from Charlie disguised as a mover. When his brown eyes gazed into mine, my entire body seized up. It was Dom.
I happened upon the impression that perhaps Charlie lied to me about keeping Eric alive.
“Eric, tell me why you’re really doing this?” I questioned.
Dom gave me a look of incredulity. “You’ve given up and moved on, haven’t you? What the fuck does his answer matter?”
“Excuse me?” I asked, snapping at him to mind his own business.
“You don’t get it. Yeah, the man is fucked up, but who isn’t? I’ve never seen a man more thrown than he was after he met you. He’s so tied up with you he can barely see straight. He’s on a suicide mission to protect your ungrateful ass.”
I shot a gaze between he and Eric as my biggest fear came to fruition.
Eric shot a look to chastise Dom. “Speak to her like that again. I fucking dare you,” Eric warned, balling his fists.
“The fuck man,” Dom countered. “I don’t want you to die. Fuck Charlie, man. This shit is not okay. You should be able to be a father to your kid.”
My head began to ache. I had false misconceptions. Charlie wasn’t working through me. It seemed he recruited nearly everyone who surrounded Eric, making sure he survived to do one thing. His life was worth so much more. I no longer cared about my mother’s wishes. She didn’t know me as well as she thought she did, and she didn’t know Eric.
“Eric, change your plans.” I shook my head with vehemence. “Don’t do this. Forget it all and think about what really matters; our baby.”
“Nikki,” he said softly. “Vic isn’t the kind of guy you can evade and ignore. He has to be dealt with…for more than one reason. And once he’s gone, I’ll provide you the life you deserve.”
I looked down at the box as my eyes began to water. I crouched down, spreading my legs to accommodate my belly and popped off the lid to be faced with dozens of envelopes. Handwritten and addressed to me. Most of the dates coincided with my time at Parkland. Many more coincided with the time I was pregnant with our first child.
They were Eric’s confessions. Eric had removed his barricade and allowed me inside the dark recesses of his mind, disclosing everything he couldn’t convey verbally.
Uncertainty took a firm hold and threatened to bring me back under the dark, dense water.
Everything fell into place like my mother had wanted. It was clear Eric now knew the truth about Victor, and now he was going to do something that would kill the man I wanted him to be—Ethan. It took a moment to realize that Eric had told me the truth; he was never with me because of some mission from Victor to make me lose what little hold I had on my mental faculties. My mother was wrong. For the first time in her life—post-mortem—she was wrong. “Eric…” I said quietly while standing and needing his help to do so.
Silence. He looked beyond me as his eyes watered.
“Eric? Answer me.”
“Nikki, not right fucking now.”
I cupped his face, forcing him to look at me. “Listen to me: I know you’re going to Victor’s place—”
He covered my hands with his, drawing them down from his face. “I can’t talk about that,” he erupted, sending a pointed glare to Dom. “As far as I’m concerned, I’m going home to fuck someone named Candy. She looks a little like you.”
“Don’t do that,” I retorted, only a touch away from breaking down. Taking a moment, I caught my breath as it escaped me.
“For real, we have to go, man,” Dom charged at Eric.
Eric tore away from me and started to walk backward to the door.
“Eric, please don’t go. You don’t know what you’ll do to our baby’s future.”
“Goddamn it, Nikki.” He stopped at the door and rubbed his palms down his face. “Don’t you understand? I have to do this to make sure our kid has a future.”
“You won’t come back if you do this. Even if you lived…you won’t be any semblance of the man I need you to be anymore. You’ll kill Ethan.”
“Ethan doesn’t exist anymore, Nik. He never really did.” He turned his back on me, walking swiftly out the door.
“Ethan,” I collapsed on the floor. The ice fell away, making me remember what I tried to pretend didn’t exist. The emotion flooded me, consuming me, hollowing me out and leaving me open and emotionally bleeding. I closed my eyes for much too long of a time. Because when I opened them, Ethan was long gone, and so was the hope that I wouldn’t have to continue with a plan only Janet had knowledge of.
I quickly picked up my phone and sent a text to Janet:
It’s time. Come quickly.
After I hit send, I picked up my phone and called Charlie Sanderson.