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Warwick
MyphonerangasI was finishing dinner with Sarah. She was a fantastic cook, and eating her homemade meals made me happy beyond reason. I knew my time with her was almost done. Pauly was in jail, and the call I got confirmed that things were looking more normal than they had in a while.
I excused myself from the room and took the call from Alex.
“Hey,” I said, “What’s up?”
“It looks like Pauly won’t be making bail this time.” Alex sounded upbeat. “His lawyer just told me he’s looking at fifteen years plus. No bail. No chance of parole in that time.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s great. So, what now?”
“Make us legal,” Alex said. “I want to get out while I have the chance. So does Mom.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. The last time I’d seen my mom was at the wedding, and it seemed to me like she was still standing by her man then.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. And if you don’t believe me, she’s here with me,” he said.
“I want out,” Mom’s voice chimed in. “It’s too much now. The stress. It’s been this way for years, but I can’t leave if he’s here, and he’ll come after me if I try. Now is the chance. How did you do it? Can we do it also?”
I thought quickly. I had expected this call, but so soon. “Yeah, we can. I can set Alex and you up with a company I’ve been watching and intend to buy.”
“How will we afford to build it, though?” asked Alex.
I laughed. “That part is easy. I invested in both your names years ago, figuring Pauly would die at some point.”
“You what?” I heard my mom’s high pitch.
“I knew eventually you’d need it. They’re investments with two signatures, yours and mine, so you can’t have it without me, and I can’t have it without you. Seemed like the best choice when I was younger. I didn’t know as much about investing then.”
“Wow,” said Alex. “I can’t believe you’d do that for us.”
“Why not? It’s Pauly I dislike,’ I said. “You’re still my mom and brother. By the way, if you get out, Alex, does this mean the war with Sarah’s family is done?”
“Yeah,” Alex said without hesitation. “I never wanted to marry her anyway. I mean she seems like a nice person, but who wants an arranged marriage? Pauly’s answer to that was to just go do whatever I wanted with other women, but that’s not what I want for my life.”
“Oh, okay great,” I tried not to let my relief be too obvious. On the one hand, this was great news. On the other, it meant Sarah was safe to go home.
“Yeah, don’t worry, brother, you can have her,” Alex chuckled.
“What?” I asked.Did Alex know Sarah was with me?
“You don’t really believe I don’t know, do you?” Alex asked and laughed again.
“How?” I suddenly felt vulnerable.
“Dude! There’s camera footage of the gate. And of her getting on your bike!” Alex said.
“I wondered about that, but when Pauly never said anything…” My mind flashed back to how vulnerable Sarah and I actually were for the last few weeks.
“Pauly doesn’t know. We’d been having issues with that camera anyway, so I erased the footage and left it blank. I told him the camera was still cutting out. I cut a bunch of other bits to make it look like the camera was failing. He’s replaced it twice since then. He was so damned mad the first time—I messed with the second camera just for fun. It’s been driving him nuts trying to figure out why that one camera won’t work no matter how often he gets it fixed or replaced,” Alex said and laughed.
“You covered my ass the whole time?” I felt immense gratitude and love for my younger brother.
“Yeah. I mean, I didn’t know you were still with her until I heard your voice when I said the war was over. I thought you’d hid her and then cut her loose. But then I realized no one gets that happy when a war they’re not really involved in ends. But yeah… Sarah didn’t deserve to be used as a pawn. And I wasn’t about to make it worse for her,” he said.
“We love you, you know,” my mom chimed in. “So, if Alex says it’s safe for her to go home, you can stop protecting her.”
“That’s great,” I said. It didn’t feel great. It felt like I was losing the best thing in my life.
