Page 65 of From Us, Forever

I had no idea that it would haunt me after all these years.

Evelyn was going to be mad, especially when I told her that Cece and I weren’t together, hell, I didn’t even remember I fucking kissed that bitch until seeing those pictures.

I had a weird recollection of memories from those times, high from snow and Xanny, I was trying hard to hold on to my sanity. Cece was the least of my concerns.How fucking wrong was I?

Dialing Silas, I crashed on the sofa, exhausted but felt like a live wire.

“J.J., I’ve been meaning to call you.” He greeted me, and for the next five minutes, I explained what transpired between Cece and me.

He sighed. “I’ll get the cops on it, but the threats possibly aren’t going to cut it. We could extort her for blackmail, but given her medical history, it won’t stand in court. But I found something interesting. It looks like Dorian White had an offshore bank account that had over twenty mil, but it was wiped clean just weeks before his death.”

“So the money is missing?”

“Not really. He took it out and paid off a Douglas Smith, who, after some digging, I found out was heading the Alacteon branch in Miami.”

“Was?”

“Yeah, he’s dead too.”

I pinched the pressure between my forehead. “I think that has something to do with Dorian’s involvement with Julian but that still doesn’t explain Cece’s demands.”

“Yep, Miss. Cece is monumentally poorer than she once was, but Daddy set her up a nice trust fund where she can be comfortable for the rest of her life, and the IRS won’t touch it.”

“So why does she need the money?”

“No clue, but I found something interesting after you told me to look into your girl’s incident six years ago.”

“What is it?” My pulse spiked.

“It looked like Pacific White was in deep trouble six years ago too, and it was only after signing you guys that they got back on track. As for the incident, Cece wasn’t in LA that night. She was partying in Paris. The only person from the label at your show was Dennis Matthews.”

“Dorian’s assistant?” I remember him from back in the day. He was always following Dorian around and watching us withbeady eyes. Even back then, something about him didn’t sit right with me, and now that I recall, wasn’t he there that day when Evy put Cece in the hospital?

“Yep, he seems to always be around, so I dug a little deeper and get this. Dennis was actually born in Seattle. No parents on the birth record for some reason, and after school, he came to work with Dorian in LA out of the fucking blue.”

“Weird. Is he family?”

“Nope. The hospital records from the incident show that Evy May was admitted, but initially her name was misspelled as Eva Marie, which the hospital flagged months later, and there weren’t any actual criminal records filed at the LA police.”

“So someone did their best to hide their tracks.”

“Yes, and they succeeded. My probable guess was Dennis and Cece were working together, and he must have seen Evelyn and wanted her out of the equation and set up the whole thing.”

“Probably. I want eyes on him. I don’t like how weird this shit is getting.”

“On it. I’ll get back to you if I find anything else.”

“Thanks.”

Rolling my head back against the cushion, I dialed the next person.

“J.J., I wasn’t expecting this on my diary.” Julian’s dry voice reached through the phone.

“Trust me, I wasn’t either.” I scrubbed a hand across my face. “But I want to know about your dealing with Dorian White.”

“You mean the man who offed himself? He was desperate to make some extra bucks and thought it was a great idea to launder some shit right under my nose with my ex-employee. Suffice it to say, it didn’t end well for either of them.”

“I heard—someone called Douglas. He’s dead now?”

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