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So he quickly pulled on his clothing and as he did, he saw the man he’d once been in a relationship reading over the note.
Yeah, Ethan could hide a lot, but Gene had learned how to read him.
The twitching of his cheek said it all.
When he looked up at him, it was in his eyes.
They had a problem.
“Don’t,” Gene said. “Just don’t. I can’t address what’s in it yet. I can’t deal with what my gut is now screaming,” he said, taking it from Ethan and ripping it into pieces.
Over his dead body would he allow Tommy to walk up to Ethan and stab him in the heart.
God.
Elizabeth had been so damn right.
Because he needed it gone, he walked into the bathroom and flushed it.
He also took the necklace off around his neck. On the chain were three rings. One had been Preston’s, and the other two were the rings they’d been planning on using to marry. Gene carried them in case Tommy ever wanted to elope.
“Gene.”
He didn’t look at him. Instead, he dropped the three rings into the toilet, one by one. The only ring he hesitated with was Preston’s.
Oh, Jesus.
“Don’t!” Ethan began, but it was too late.
He flushed.
Then, Gene headed out of the bathroom and grabbed the packet on the bed that Elizabeth had given him.
It was time.
When he found Elizabeth, she was sitting on the couch, her laptop open as she was doing something.
He stopped beside her.
“Tell me what I have to do,” he said.
She looked up.
“Pardon?”
“I’m in. Tommy gave me an ultimatum, and I don’t do well with those. If I have to choose my past or my present, I’m choosing my past. I’m in. I’ll take the job offer. I want out of here.”
Yeah, and to never think about Thomas Bernard or NOLA again.
That was for damn sure.
It sucked that he had to let Preston go, too, but this city…it had been his destruction. Leaving DC and trying to do something good had been a path of pain, anger, and his annihilation.
On top of that, he wasn’t letting Ethan die like Preston had. He may not be his, but he had been. Ethan had been his whole world, and he wouldn’t let him die because of a man’s lack of trust.
Fuck that.
His past was all he had left. All he could hope was Ethan NEVER told his wife what was in that letter.
