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“Where were you?” She pulled back, brow furrowing and she slapped his arm. “I called you. I texted you all day.”
“I know.” He held his out, a gesture of surrender and a plea for forgiveness. “I was handling some business, cleaning up some loose ends so I could prove to you I would never hurt you. I cut all my financial ties with Dylan and then I went to the police station to try and convince them he was probably involved in Kim’s death.”
“So you couldn’t answer your phone?” She was touched by what he’d done, but still not quite over how a simple returned text message might have kept her from ending up almost dead.
“I was trying to give you some space. Figured it would be better to talk things out in person. Then I spent all afternoon at the police station waiting to talk to a detective. Phone service there is basically nonexistent. I didn’t get any of the messages about the bar until you were already here. I raised hell and we came as quickly as I could get them here.”
“So, you talked to Detective Chen? She knows about Dylan and Kim?” Eloise felt like her brain was running slow, trying to absorb too much information at once and unable to grasp the important bits. “You said … You said he was going to try to take you all down … But then, you talked to her, too? What did you tell her?”
Eloise was shaking as his meaning ripped into her brain. Dylan would go down for the murder, but he would take the rest of them down for embezzlement and who knew what else. She had no idea what sort of crimes Ethan had been involved in, but the heartbreak in his voice told her he was looking at serious time. He’d told Detective Chen that Dylan was dangerous, and she’d believed him, so he must have admitted to something. He’d done that for her, to save her life.
“Nobody says a word to the cops,” she said, pinning Ethan, Myles, Chloe, and Sarah with stern looks by turn. She wasn’t going to let Dylan take them from her. “Not one word until everyone has a decent lawyer.”
“Where are we going to get a decent lawyer?” Sarah was holding Chloe as she sobbed against her shoulder, and her gaze was weary. “If we end up depending on some public defender, we’re screwed and we can’t afford anything better without the money that we …” She looked quickly over her shoulder at all the officers milling around. “You know?”
“Let me handle that.” Eloise was already reaching for her phone and it only rang twice before Deborah picked up.
“Hello? Eloise?” She was clearly surprised by the unscheduled call but her tone was concerned instead of irritated.
“Hello, Mother.” Eloise smiled tightly at Ethan when his eyebrows rose. “Sorry to bother you at this hour but … I need your help. It’s a lot to explain and I promise I will, but I need to borrow some money. A lot of money, actually.”
“What, are your parents loaded?” Ethan was clearly baffled at how he hadn’t known, but she could only nod helplessly. They had never really discussed her parents beyond her tense relationship with them.
“Very loaded,” she mouthed, half listening to the reaction of Ethan and her friends and half trying to answer Deborah’s barrage of questions. “Everything is going to be okay.”
Epilogue
Eight Months Later
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”
“What?” Ethan sighed dramatically. “Did you want to keep working in finance?”
“There are other options,” Eloise reminded him. “But no, that’s not what I meant.”
Eloise had her hands on her hips as she stood in the middle of the parking lot with Ethan and Myles, evaluating the new sign above the bar entrance. The old ‘Tough Break’ name and logo had been taken down and, in its place, ‘Second Chance Bar and Grill’ was spelled out in fresh, white letters. The new logo, a red phoenix rising on a black background, had also been designed by Ethan but this time, it wasn’t for someone else.
He’d sold his grandfather’s house—and all the bad memories with it— to invest in the bar with Myles. He already had the experience and the sale of the house gave him enough money for the two of them to finally turn the place into a legitimate business.
Dylan had been furious about signing over his portion of his inheritance, but after Eloise’s mom had found them all lawyers and then flown in from Chicago to start pulling strings with every friend and acquaintance she had in the entire state—a large number that was surprising even for Eloise— he’d realized he was going to prison, alone, and he’d become open to bargaining. Myles had agreed to provide him a payment each month to spend at the commissary and in exchange he’d handed over his rights to the bar.
Myles and Ethan had taken his arrest as well as Eloise thought possible. They were angry at what he’d done, but also hurt by the loss of him. Myles had gone alone at first to visit him—to handle the necessary conversations about the future of the bar and the legalities—but he’d come back so shaken that Ethan had started going along for emotional support. Now, they both went to visit him once a month as Myles tried to work out his conflicted feelings toward the brother that had done him so much harm.
Eloise hated that Ethan went, but she wouldn’t ask him not to. As difficult as it was, she understood the complex loyalty of family. He had chosen her to be his new family when he’d betrayed Dylan and gone to the police, but she knew how he felt about Myles. As long as he needed to go, Ethan would go with him.
Ethan said he considered himself lucky as he looked back on all they’d been through and how the system had failed them. Dylan had caught the worst of the abuse, the neglect, and the pain. He had become a dangerous man because of it but all Ethan saw was a path he could easily have gone down himself. He was facing a death sentence if he was found guilty, but Eloise knew Ethan was hoping he’d get life in prison instead. That maybe, somehow, he’d find peace and purpose at the end of all the mess he’d created.
Eloise didn’t harbor much hope, but she had listened to plenty of Myles’s stories over the past few months and she had grown to feel sorry for the child Dylan had once been, even if she couldn’t shake her hatred over what the man had done. She didn’t know how she felt about his eventual sentencing, death for death wouldn’t bring Kim back, but it was out of her hands.
“Don’t forget we need to take pictures to send to your mom.” Ethan tugged on Eloise’s hand until she got close enough he could snap a selfie of both of them with the bar in the background. Deborah had been completely charmed by Ethan during her brief visit. He’d turned his honeyed southern accent all the way up and called her ma’am until she’d blushed and actually smiled at him. Not much of one, but a smile, nonetheless.
The two of them had been a seamless team of support for Eloise ever since. Ethan had been by her side nearly every moment in the early days, comforting her through her nightmares and holding her hand when she had to speak to the police about what had happened that night in the bar. Deborah had been a whirlwind. Charming, scheming, and promising favors until eventually she’d managed to convince the state’s lawyers to let the rest of them trade their testimony against Dylan for leniency.
Eloise and Deborah had been on the same side for once and it had helped to smooth out some of the cracks in their relationship. It was like they were truly seeing each other as people for the first time.
“You think she’ll like it?” Ethan turned the phone around so Eloise could see the picture, his face alight with pride.
“No, but I think she’ll pretend to and that’s almost as good.”
