Eight Long Years (Heart of Hope 5)

He stalked off. For a moment, I’d felt triumphant, but then, as always happened when sparring with August, he’d given me a fatal blow.

21

Jude

I wasn’t sure what I expected from April following our reconciliation, but it wasn’t her avoiding me. After her brunch with August, she returned, and spent the day with me and Maya, but there was a distance in the way she interacted with me. I could only imagine that August had said something. The problem was, I couldn't talk to her about it with Maya there.

That evening, I invited her to stay with me. The truth was, I was hoping she’d move in and we’d be a family. Granted, I’d need a bigger place, but I was already scouting that out. But she declined, saying Maya needed to have her regular routine going into the week. I thought she was feeding me bullshit since she was staying at Petal’s but until I could get her alone, I couldn’t confront her about it.

When I showed up at work, she was busy on the phone, which was a good sign. Business was starting to take off. So, I went to my office, and began to work through the surveillance footage April had gone through. She’d flagged a few items for us to review.

A few hours later, I took a break. April wasn’t at her desk. I went into the breakroom. She wasn’t there either.

“If you’re looking for April, she went to lunch,” Cyrus said, eating a sandwich as he looked over a folder.

I grabbed a cup of coffee. “I’ve been looking at the tapes she flagged. She noticed a few patterns.”

Cyrus looked up intrigued. “Do they mean anything?”

I nodded. “It's a team effort, like we thought. Several in lower management are stealing from the retail stores. Not one inside man, but at least half a dozen of them. And they’re good. They’re using folks from other stores that employees wouldn’t recognize.”

“Clever. Are we ready to talk to Mr. Lassen?”

“I have a few more tapes to review, and I want to check some of the conspirators’ records, but I think we can let him know we’ll have something shortly.”

Cyrus finished his lunch and stood. “I’ll give him a call with an update and to expect a full report shortly.”

I followed him to his office, grabbing my notes on the way and handing them to him. As he dialed, I heard the front door open. Either April was returning or we had a visitor. Either way, I wanted to check.

I walked to the front entry and stopped short.

“August.” I fisted my hands, and it was all I could do to keep myself from pummeling him. The only thing stopping me was that going to jail could hurt my chances with April, and in being Maya’s father.

“I always knew you were low class, and you proved it by putting your hands on my sister again.”

In the military, I learned to control my emotions. To stay focused on not let things like hate or fear cloud my judgement. I tapped into that ability as August spoke.

“To come back here and walk into her life like nothing happened and go back to defiling my sister is worse than low class. You’re trash,” he finished.

I took a breath, reining in rage that seeped out from my pores. “It wasn’t eight years of nothing, August, and you know it. It was eight years of living a lie. A lie you perpetrated.”

“You can tell yourself that, but if you really cared for her, you wouldn’t have left in the first place.”

The rage ratcheted up. “You have some fucking nerve, August.”

“Do you use that mouth around my sister? My niece.”

“You’re the one that said I needed to prove myself. To make something of myself. I left to do that. You know I did. She knows I did. But that wasn’t enough, was it? You had to make sure she and I were apart. Tell me, August, did you decide to betray your sister before or after you learned she was pregnant? Were you afraid she’d leave you alone, and since you’re such a snivelling, uninteresting, piece of shit, you knew no one would be your friend? Have you even gotten laid since high school?”

Yes, it was petty and immature, but at least I wasn’t hitting him.

“I was protecting my sister from you. She deserves better.”

He probably wasn’t wrong about that. But there were worse than me. “Like Matt London? The guy who screws anything with tits? That’s what you want for April. Or is it money? You don’t care who he bangs, as long as he has money?”

August eyes narrowed. “And how is it that you're better?

“I’d never betray her, unlike you. You’re a lying conniving bastard. Your parents would be so disappointed in you.”