Assigned to You (Completed)

Chapter Twenty: Everett

The rest of the week had been hectic, which came as a surprise. When they called me in for a meeting regarding my game, I thought it wouldn’t push through since Papa was dead and no one had a hold on them. But it did. One of the board members considered it and wanted to give it a chance in the market so I’ve been busy fixing it and editing and preparing for the final presentation.

Being busy was a good thing though. It kept my mind off most things. But the bad thing was, I haven’t gone and visited Nana and since today I got to leave early, maybe I should drop by at the mansion and see what she’s been up to. I call her every day to check on her because I’m pretty sure that her kids don’t remember to do so.

Speaking of which, Curtis hasn’t given me crap about the other business lately but I’ve been meaning to talk to him. I’m sure they’re still keeping it going even when I’m supposed to be the one leading them. I’ve thought about reporting them to the police at times but realize that I’ll put Curtis in jeopardy if I do. So I’m still thinking of a way to remove that stupid brothel business from my life.

I stopped by a flower shop to buy Nana her favorite irises and had a bouquet of lilies delivered to Evangeline just because I wanted to. I couldn’t text her where I was because my phone died and I simply wrote in the note that I’ll be seeing her tonight when I come home. I could just charge my phone at Nana’s and tell her where I was. Recently, Evangeline’s wanted to know my every location but it never really bothered me.

“Hi Nana,” I greet her once she opened the front door. She smiled at me, and I couldn’t help but notice that she lost some weight. She looked so different from the lively and sweet grandmother that raised me. Her face was thinner and her eyes sunken, gone was the mischief that always glinted in her bright eyes.

“It’s so good to see you, Everett,” she said, reaching out to hug me. When I hugged her back, I had to be cautious, afraid that if I hugged her tight she might break.

“I’m sorry for not coming by. Work has been hectic,” I told her as we head inside. I smell the scent of freshly baked brownies and my mouth watered at it, “And I think I came right in time, huh?”

Nana laughed, but it was faint and distant. She pulled out the brownies from the oven and placed it on the counter. I helped her. We did our parts quietly, side by side, and it reminded me of summer days when she would have me help her bake even when I wanted to play outside the heat. I grabbed a bite of the brownies and Nana playfully swatted my hand away.

“We have a guest, Everett, it’s for him.”

My eyebrows shot up in surprise as I swallowed the brownie in my mouth. “We do? Who? Also, do you have a phone charger I could borrow?”

She found me a phone charger first before she answered my question. I plug my phone into the socket and let it charge as I wait for Nana’s answer. She sighed and tried to fix the plating of the brownies before answering. “I hired a private detective to investigate your grandfather’s murder.”

I stared at her, not knowing how to respond to that. “I thought you’d let the police handle the case.”

“Curtis and your aunts did,” Nana answered, taking the plate of brownies to the table and setting it there. She looked at me and sighed, “And you too. But there are things that the police are unaware of and enemies that are experienced enough to play the game wisely.”

I sent Evangeline a quick text letting her know where I was before I sat at the table to talk with my grandmother. “What do you mean, Nana?”

She sighed. “I guess it’s time for you to learn the truth, Everett.”

My heart raced. My family’s hidden the brothel business from me and my aunts and I am afraid of what more they were hiding. “Is it worse than the brothel?”

“The brothel’s actually legal, you know. It’s legal in the state of Nevada, your great-grandfather made sure of that.”

“Just because it’s legal there doesn’t mean that selling girls for s*x is still a good business to have,” I argued.

There’s a flash of pride in Nana’s eyes and she reached out to touch my hand with hers. “Your father had the same standpoint. But Victor, he wanted to protect his family’s legacy. It kept him up late some nights, you know, to continue running the brothel or to destroy it.”

“But an issue arose when one of the girls died. She was murdered in the brothel,” Nana said, her voice was low and I can see her remembering it, “It was after we found out about your mother’s pregnancy. Adam had pulled out his shares and with the issue that the brothel was facing, it was on the verge of closing down and Victor, he couldn’t bear it.”

My mind flashed back to the last conversation I had with my grandfather, the one that had haunted me for a while now because it didn’t leave us in good terms and I can’t fix what that conversation has broken between the two of us. It left me angry at him and now I’m angry at myself for being angry at him that time.

“I always thought that murder of that girl was staged, Everett, to get your grandfather to pay your mother to leave after she gave birth to you. You have to understand that your grandfather loved this business because his father built it with his own blood, sweat and tears, Everett. He couldn’t give up on it just like that.”

“So he rather let me grow up without a mother just so he could keep that brothel,” I said bitterly.

“Sometimes your grandfather made poor decisions, Everett, the man was never perfect,” Nana told me with another sigh, “But that’s not the problem here. The thing is, I think the person who murdered that girl is the same person who murdered your grandfather.”

My eyebrows furrowed. “And who do you suspect that is?”

It took Nana sometime before she found the voice to answer but the doorbell rang again and she stood up quickly, and I think she knew who it was. I waited in the dining room and stood up when my mother entered the room with a tall man dressed in a sports jacket and plaid shirt.

He nodded at me in greeting. “You must be Everett. I’m Will Elton, the private investigator.”

I didn’t shake his hand; I simply sat down and waited for him to sit too. Nana offered him coffee and the brownies and he didn’t decline them. I stared at him and gouged if he was reliable. “I’ve worked for your grandmother for years, Everett, if you don’t think I’m trustworthy you can think that. She’ll still hire me.”

“Don’t be skeptic, Everett, Will is your father’s closest friend,” Nana said, coming back with a tray of three cups. She handed the two of us our coffee while she sipped her afternoon tea, “But of course, you don’t have any memory of Will because you’ve never met him. But I’m sure that Edward must’ve mentioned him to you in passing but you were too young to remember.”

Will gave me a small nod, as if it was acknowledgment enough on who he was in my family’s life- or in my father’s. “Edward and I used to share an apartment in college after we were allowed to move out of the university required dorm during our second year. We’ve been friends since then.”

I’m still not reassured by this but Will doesn’t look like he cares about what I thought of him. He turned his attention to Nana and placed photographs in front of us. I glanced at them and saw that they were of Adam and as Nana scanned them one by one, there were some pictures that had Curtis in it and of a big black man that somehow looked familiar, like I’ve seen her before somewhere but I couldn’t put a finger on.

“Why is Curtis meeting him?” Nana whispered the concern in her eyes was obvious. I saw Will wince at the question, as if he was expecting it and knew that the answer he had wasn’t what Nana wanted to hear, “But I’m sure they’re just discussing about the brothel, don’t you think?”

Will looked away for a moment and I can’t help but wonder what might go on in his mind. “I’m not sure, Louisa. Curtis didn’t just meet up with him once but a bunch of times and they always seemed to be in a heated discussion.”

“Don’t tell us you suspect Curtis murdered his own father,” I said darkly, shaking my head. My uncle was all sorts of things but I was sure he wasn’t a murderer. Will stared at the photographs hard and in the corner of my eyes, I saw Nana slowly lower the photograph and bite her lip. My eyebrows furrowed in confusion, “Oh come on, Nana, you raised that man. There’s no way you believe this bullshit.”

Nana closed her eyes and when she opened them, I can see the beginning of tears shining. The photograph she was holding was shaking in her hands as she looked at Will and I saw him slowly nod as if giving her affirmation that it was alright to tell me a secret they both knew. I watched as Nana inhale and exhale slowly as if buying herself some time before she spoke again.

“Everett,” her voice was cautious and laced with pain, “There’s something that we’ve never told you about Curtis.”

I’m not sure where this conversation was heading but there’s a pain in my grandmother’s eyes that I’ve never seen before and the tear that was shining became brighter and I watched as they slowly fell and rolled down her cheek. She wiped them away and sighed, shaking her head and taking another deep breath.

“Curtis…he’s not mine and Victor’s biological son,” she said it slowly and softly as if saying it that way would soften the blow of shock on my part, “He was the son of one of the girls in the brothel. She gave him to us and we adopted him. Well, I begged your grandfather that we adopt him.”

Suddenly everything made sense. The huge age difference Curtis had with my aunts, Papa’s hostility towards him, the fact that he didn’t want his own son to be the heir of a business that was his family’s legacy. And Curtis must’ve known. Because it explained a lot of things that he did too, words that he has spoken to me over the time, the unexplained anger he always possessed, and the jealousy that he never spoke of towards my father and me.

“Does he know?” I asked, reeling from the shock of the confession, “Does he even know who his biological parents are?”

“We told him when he was eight. His mother…she was the one who was murdered in the brothel. Curtis knew about this later on, but he will never get the chance of knowing who his mother is because no one knew her the way a family member should.”

For a moment, I felt selfish for asking Curtis to ask around about my mother when he was in the same position as me. Both of us had prostitutes for mothers, both of us never had the chance to know them the way a son should. But I was lucky; I had the chance to meet my mother’s family when I came to her funeral, I had a chance to know that she did want me had the situation been different. But Curtis never had that opportunity.

“And his father?” Nana stared at the picture and Will did too and I realized, the answer to my question lay in the photographs that were presented to us, “You’re kidding.”

From what I gathered with the conversation I had earlier with my grandmother and with the pictures that Will presented, it was clear that she assumed Adam was the murderer. But if Will was right about Curtis’ involvement, then that meant he was an accomplice. He was an accomplice of his biological father to kill his adoptive one.

The shrill ring of ringtone broke the silence and tension that enveloped the three of us. In a daze, I stand up and head to the kitchen where my phone was charging. I saw that it was Evangeline calling and though it was a bad time, her voice would bring comfort in the confusion of the truth that I just found out.

“Everett,” I’m surprised at the urgency of her voice. There was no trace of tenderness that I felt she reserved for me when she talks to me, “Everett, where the hell are you? I’ve been texting you so many times and I’ve tried calling you the past two hours!”

“I’m at Nana’s,” I told her, wondering why she was so anxious all of a sudden, “My battery died so I couldn’t text you or reply to any of your messages. What’s going on?”

I heard her sigh of relief. “I need you to stay there, Everett. We’re heading there right now. Is it just you and Louisa there?”

“There’s a private investigator here too…”

“Who?” she demanded and I’m so surprised at her sudden tenacity. This wasn’t the kind of tenacity I’ve gotten used to when it came to Evangeline.

“His name is Will Elton. Supposedly, he’s a friend of my dad’s.”

“I want the three of you to stay there. Don’t let anyone in other than us, Everett. This is important. We’re coming.”

I wanted to ask her what she meant by ‘we’ but she already hung up. Confused, I went back to the table where Nana and Will were still discussing. There’s worry in my grandmother’s eyes that I haven’t seen before and I can’t help but ache for her. If what Will implied was true, if Curtis was an accomplice of Adam to murder Papa, I’m not sure if that’s a truth that Nana was willing to accept. Despite the fact that Curtis wasn’t her biological son, I’ve seen the way she loved him.

“Was that Evangeline?” Nana asked me once I sat back down again.

I nod my head slowly. “Yes. But it was a confusing call. She’s telling me that we should stay here and not let anyone in other than them. She didn’t even tell me who she was with or why she was suddenly so anxious.”

I felt Will’s gaze on me as if he knew something I didn’t but didn’t want to tell of it. Nana went to the kitchen, deciding to make something for us to eat and for Evangeline and who she was with. Will and I remained silent in our seats as I let my mind wrap around the truth that I just found out about Curtis.

“Did my father love Curtis?” I asked Will, staring at the picture of Curtis who’s talking to Adam in the picture, the black man beside him.

“Like his own flesh and blood,” Will answered, a small smile on his face, “I remembered how much he used to talk about Curtis and it was clear he adored having a little brother.”

I knew that my aunts also loved Curtis, it was always clear how much they adored him. The only person in our family who didn’t was Papa, who was always hostile and distant to his adoptive son, who didn’t give him the same amount of attention he gave me. But I’m not sure if that was enough reason for Curtis to kill the man who raised him.

We heard someone pull up outside and Will and I looked through the window. It was Evangeline but she’s with two men I didn’t recognize. The other one was older, probably around Will’s age or even older, but the one on Evangeline’s left was just about the same age as us and I didn’t like the way he stood close beside her.

I opened the door before she could even knock. She hugged me when she sees me, jumping straight into my arms and hugging me tightly. “I thought something bad happened to you.”

I hugged her back and kissed her quickly on the lips when I could. I glanced at the two men behind her but Evangeline doesn’t say anything so I bring the three of them to the kitchen. “I think you’re supposed to introduce them to me, Evangeline.”

She glances at the men behind her just as Nana emerged from the kitchen. They say their quick greetings before Evangeline began to introduce the two boys. “This is my uncle, Henry, and this is a good friend of mine who works for the FBI. Justin.”

I still didn’t like the way Justin looked at Evangeline. Henry, on the other hand, suddenly made me nervous. I didn’t imagine her only family member being that intimidating nor did I expect that we’d meet in such an unlikely situation but before I could comment anything, Henry moved forward and took one picture from the pile. He looked at me. “Why do you have a picture of Nimri?”

I’m not sure who he was talking but he was pointing at the black man beside Curtis. “I don’t know. I think he’s involved with the murder of my grandfather. How do you know him?”

“Because they work for him,” Will said slowly, his eyes moved from Henry to Justin and then finally to Evangeline.

“What do you mean they work for him?” I asked Will, confused at what the f**k was going on, “She’s a freelance writer!”

But Will was looking at Evangeline with such intensity that I felt the tension in his gaze. I turned to look at my girlfriend who had a hard expression on her face. There’s a battle going on in her eyes and the hesitation is clear. Whatever Will wanted her to say, she didn’t want me to hear it. She finally looked at me, her green eyes weary and tired suddenly.

She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, an apology shone behind her green eyes. “I’m not a freelance writer, Ev. Well, technically I am but it’s only part-time.”

“I don’t understand where this is heading.”

She exhaled slowly, and she glanced at Henry as if waiting for affirmation. He nodded his head slowly at her and she returned her attention to me again. “I’m the FBI’s hitman. I was hired by Nimri to go undercover and gather as much information I could from you while I waited for a target.”

Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t the kind of answer I expected. The room felt stuffy and tension filled the air as I tried in vain to wrap my mind at what Evangeline just confessed to me. There were too many hard truths in one day that I don’t think my brain could fully comprehend. For a moment, I saw the shock in my grandmother’s eyes at the confession that Evangeline just made and I wonder if I reflected the same.

But Evangeline wasn’t done yet. No, that was just a preparation for an even bigger blow to come. “And I was ordered to kill your grandfather.”