Assigned to You (Completed)

Chapter Nineteen: Evangeline

I’ve been attached to Everett’s side since his grandfather’s death and I never left him since. But the sad thing about it all, even when I was by his side, he’s been distant and I’ve never wanted to reach to him more than ever. There’s something broken inside of him again and I wanted to comfort him as much as I can but he shies away whenever I try to.

Every time I wake up, naked in my sheets, he’s not beside me. It’s been two nights of me wrapping myself in my blanket and finding him, only to see him at the kitchen nursing a bottle of beer and staring blankly into space. That was before we buried his grandfather.

But right after the funeral…

I didn’t ask him about the brothel even if I was there at the will-reading and even when it was mentioned by Howards. I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to stress him out. Everett had too much on his plate at the moment and I didn’t want to add to his list of worries.

But that didn’t mean I didn’t worry about him.

And then there was the whole shady Nimri business. On top of having to comfort Everett as much as he allowed me to, Henry’s been contacting me and feeding me enough information about Nimri. He has gathered enough information that this wasn’t an FBI case but simply just Nimri using his power for his own personal gain.

But as much information as we had, we didn’t have enough proof to out him.

I needed Justin’s help but with Everett always around, I couldn’t think of an excuse to have him over. But today, Everett decided to go to work. He’d been given time off from work to grieve and he could come back to work anytime. But his boss contacted him and told him that he was needed for a meeting regarding his game and I haven’t seen Everett that excited and happy since he left for New York.

“Hey,” I said, calling his attention. He was trying to sift through the laundry I did yesterday for a shirt to wear. He rarely stayed at his apartment anymore and most of his clothes were already in mine to the point that he had his own space in the closet for his things.

Everett looked up at me with his eyebrows raised. “Yea?”

“I’m really happy to see you smiling again.”

He placed the shirt he was holding in bed and walked over to where I stood. His arms circled my waist and my hands rested on his bare shoulders. “I’m sorry for being distant. I just have a lot of thoughts to sift through and I’m scared that I might scare you away if I say the wrong thing.”

I ran my hands over his shoulders and let them stop on his forearms. “Baby, no matter what you’ll say or do, you’re stuck with me.”

He chuckled and kissed me on the lips with as much passion as he did last night that led us to four hours of lovemaking. He pulled away before I could drag him to bed. “As much as I love you, I don’t want to be late.”

I froze.

Everett realized what he just said and he turned away but didn’t explain himself. He let the three words hang in the air and I honestly didn’t know if I was supposed to say it back. I wanted to say it back. I just didn’t have the courage to do so.

Funny, I could kill thousands of people without hesitation but I couldn’t tell the boy I loved what I felt about him.

“I’ll call you once the meeting is done,” Everett said and I didn’t even realize that he was already ready. He took a step closer to me and touched my face gently with his hand and then kissed my forehead tenderly. His blue eyes bore into mine, shining with the intensity of his feelings for me, “I love you, Evangeline.”

He left before I could even process everything that just happened.

I wanted to account it to the fact that Everett was a mess right now. He was back to the broken boy I met at the pier, unsure if he should grieve a loved one who hurt him. But there was so much sincerity in his eyes that I couldn’t just make myself believe that he said it without much thought. Because I saw it in the way he looked at me and heard it in his voice.

He loved me.

The vibration of my phone broke me out of my terrain of thoughts. It was Henry. He was telling me that he was with Justin and that I needed to get my ass to a diner at South Avenue because Justin was losing his s**t with everything that Henry was trying to tell him. As good as my relationship was with Justin, he wasn’t the biggest fan of my uncle because he knew that my uncle still did some dirty work during his time as FBI’s hitman.

I operated on auto-pilot since I couldn’t grasp which thought I should focus on at the moment. I tried to think about Nimri and all the information that he’s fed me and tried to pick one out that I could use against him and use as leverage or maybe proof to Justin that Nimri’s operating on his own and not with the FBI.

I’m not sure when I arrived at the diner where Justin and Henry were at but I spotted the two of them with their heads bowed down and in a heated discussion. I cleared my throat and both their attention snapped to me. Justin looked at me with angry eyes.

“Lin, your uncle is on crack.”

I glanced at Henry and he looked like he was done dealing with Justin. I slid into the booth where Justin sat and said, “He might be on to something.”

Justin stared at me in disbelief and shook his head. “Oh my god, Lin, you’re seriously believing him? Look, Nimri might be an ass but I don’t think he’ll ever do something illegal.”

“Justin, were you ever given orders from someone other than Nimri?”

It took him a moment before answering and then he shook his head. “Nimri’s my boss.”

“But someone else from a higher position or with the same position as him always gave you orders at some point,” I said, trying to reason with him, “I know what we’ve got isn’t concrete proof but the visits that he gave me at the apartment, telling me that he has another insider in on the mission aside from me, the fact that none of you heard about him telling me that tells me that there’s something not quite right about this mission.”

Justin’s jaw clenched and I could see the doubt in his eyes. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because we need your help,” Henry said, butting in on the conversation.

“And what exactly do you expect me to do?” Justin asked, disbelief evident in his tone, “I can’t just march up to Nimri and ask questions. It’ll put my job and head on the line.”

“Then don’t go to Nimri,” I told Justin, making him look at me. There was still hesitation in his eyes but I knew that he would’ve left if he truly thought we were out of our minds, questioning his superior and his intentions, “Ask someone in a higher position. I don’t have the liberty to do that, Justin, I’m only a hitman.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Justin muttered, shaking his head but I knew that there was a part of him that believed us. I knew that he remembered that time when I told him that Nimri knew that Everett was already part of the business, that time when both of us quietly questioned why Nimri didn’t tell his team what was going on.

I reached out and touched Justin’s hand. There was another card I could play to make him agree. “Justin, what if Everett and his family are truly innocent? The brothel is located at Nevada and Henry and I did our research, it’s perfectly legal to set it up there. What if the Saunders were never on the FBI’s list but just on Nimri’s?”

“Then why do you think Nimri would be after them?”

“Maybe not Nimri,” I said, my mind flashing back to Adam Brolen. My instincts told me that there was something about him that I couldn’t trust, that he was just as shady as Nimri, “But maybe one of the Saunders’ associates want more than just his shares.”

I can see the gears in Justin’s mind turning through his eyes and he nodded. I knew he must’ve heard of the conversation I had with Adam. They also must’ve lurked around the mansion, acting as someone’s driver or an employee at the real-estate. A moment later, I saw him nod his head slightly and sighed.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he finally said, looking at Henry, “But if this causes me my job, it’s your head I’m after.”

Henry cracked a smile. “I’m not entirely sure you could win against a hitman.”

Justin left the diner a moment later, leaving me and Henry to discuss what he’s found out from Claudio. I’m not entirely sure if Claudio’s information could be true but Henry assures me that Claudio could be trusted, even when he had Henry kill a dozen of people that beat him at poker.

“If this is all true,” Henry said, and I looked at him, already knowing what he was going to ask me, “When are you going to tell Everett the truth?”

That was the question that kept me up late at night when Everett was fast asleep beside me. I didn’t know how I was supposed to tell him the truth about who I was. He’s been through so much with his grandfather’s death and the weight of the brothel on his shoulders. I don’t even know how I’m going to explain to him that his grandfather was marked as my target.

Victor didn’t die by my bullet but in the mind of a grieving loved one, I’m not sure that Everett would realize that.

“Sometimes I wish I had just never gone through with this mission.”

“But you don’t wish that you’ve never met Everett,” Henry mused, looking at me with glinting eyes, “I didn’t think that you’d forget one of our rules, Lin.”

I closed my eyes, knowing what he meant. “How do you stop your heart from falling in love with someone, Henry?”

He sighed and shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure. I never found the right person to fall in love with. Maybe that’s why I came up with that rule. But your father…”

We’ve never spoken about my father’s career as an assassin. It was short-lived because he met Mom two years later and he left everything behind, turning his back on his family and setting out to create his own. They had me a year later and everything was fine and dandy until someone from his past came to haunt him and hunt us down like animals.

It’s not the kind of story I like to relive but it’s the cold bitter truth about who I was. It’s one of the many reasons why Henry became the FBI’s hitman, because he knew that they’ll protect him until his dying breath and that’s why he made sure I take on his job once he retired, so that I would be eligible of the protection they gave him.

“My Dad fell in love,” I whispered softly, remembering the man that used to walk me to school when I was young, who built me a tree-house at our backyard, who read me stories before bed. I felt the lump in my throat growing at I remembered them, just like it always did each time I let my memories of them flood me.

If I was still grieving them until now, who knows what Everett’s feeling at the moment.

“But if there’s one thing that your father taught me about love,” Henry said, snapping me out of the prison that was my memories, “It’s that love isn’t deadly. If it’s true and real, it’s the very thing that will keep you alive. It endures and is understanding, patient and forgiving.”

Right at that moment, my phone rang and I realized that it was Everett calling me. Henry just nodded at me and stood up, not offering me a hug or a wave, but I watched as my uncle exited the diner and I knew that the next time I’ll see him, if Justin gets the right information that we need, I would either be heartbroken or even more in love than I am now.

“Hey baby,” I greet Everett as soon as I answer his call.

“My meeting’s done,” he told me, “What do you say we go on a date? We haven’t gone one in ages.”

I smiled. “I’d like that. I’m at a diner in South Avenue. Do you want me to meet up with you?”

“Wait for me there. And get us some cheeseburgers while you’re at it. We’ll be taking your car,” he said and then paused for a minute, “I love you.”

He hung up before I could say anything back. I stared at the phone in my hands, unsure of why Everett was so bold with his feelings today. He always spoke what was on his mind and he always told me that he wanted me from the beginning, but with everything that’s going on in our lives at the moment, the fact that he told me he loved me thrice in a day scared me.

But maybe it’s just me overthinking.

I ordered the food that Everett asked me to and waited for him to arrive. I was still in the booth that we have occupied earlier and I jumped in surprise when someone tapped my shoulder. I almost punched Everett in the face had I not realize it sooner that it was him.

“Woah, you’re jumpy,” Everett said with a chuckle, kissing me lightly on the lips. He seemed like his usual self and I couldn’t see any hint of worry in his eyes, “Ready for our date?”

“What do you have planned?”

“Well, I wanted to take you out hiking and then maybe we could have a picnic where we stop at but I scraped off the entire idea and decided that maybe we could fill the back of your car with so many blankets and pillows and just have a lazy day at the beach, inside your car,” he said, smiling.

I couldn’t help but melt at the idea. I might be a cold-blooded killer but that doesn’t make me any less of a girl and even when I’ve never been one to a dating scene, I still feel giddy over a pretty good date set-up. The car ride to the beach was filled with comfortable silence and Everett held my hand the entire ride, randomly squeezing it from time to time.

We found a good spot in the parking lot and began to set up the back of my car. Five minutes later, I was staring at a pretty date set-up and Everett turned to me with a wide smile on his face. “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” I said, climbing inside and making myself comfortable. Everett followed suit and I snuggled closer to him, inhaling his scent. For a moment, I allowed myself to bask at this moment with Everett, letting my mind forget who I was supposed to be and what I had become. I let myself be simply just Evangeline, completely and irrevocably in love with the sweet boy beside me.

“Evangeline?” Everett whispered and I looked up at him, meeting his blue eyes, “I’m sorry.”

My eyebrows furrowed. “For what?”

“I’m sorry for being a bad boyfriend. I let myself be swallowed by grief and it wasn’t fair of me to do that.”

I shake my head and kissed him lightly on his shoulder. “Someone you loved died, it was understandable.”

He held my hand tightly in his and when he spoke, I could hear the sincerity in his voice, “I’ve always wondered if I would ever find a love like my grandparents. My Papa wasn’t the best man in the world but he was in Nana’s eyes. Growing up, I told myself that I needed to find that but I was scared of getting my heart broken.”

“And then I met you and I realized that if I didn’t man up and shake off the fear that crawled in the pits of my heart, I wouldn’t get the chance to be with you,” Everett whispered, looking at me with such intensity that I could feel him peeking into my soul, “I never thought that this is what love would feel like.”

Everett shifted so he could hold my face with both of his hands. “I love you, Evangeline, and I’ve been blessed with so many things my entire life but you surpass them all. You are, by far, the greatest blessing I’ve ever received in this lifetime and I need to figure out a way to still have you in the next one.”

I could feel my heart exploding with everything that I felt for him and I responded automatically, grabbing his face and kissing him as if my life depended on it. I heard him laugh but melted into the kiss and I was sure we were making out- at the back of my car with the back door wide open for everyone to see us- for five minutes.

But I let myself be completely submerged into Everett, forgetting the world around us and trapping myself in a world where it was just Everett and me before the truth could unfold and the drama that it brings destroy us.

I pulled away from him and allowed myself to get lost in his beautiful pools of blue. “I love you too.”