Eric (Men of Honor 2)

“Syphoning money from your ex-wife’s account and putting it somewhere else.”

“Come again?” I thought he was kidding, but a closer look showed me that he wasn’t.

“Look at this before you say anything else.” He pushed his tablet towards me, and I came face to face with a message screen where two people were having a conversation.

“What the fuck is this?”

“Read it, dad.” He kept tapping keys as I read the conversation between Janine and someone she was trying to hire to come after Justine. She didn’t want them to kill her, just mess her up, and not only that, she was willing to pay extra if they’d go after Lora as well. “Is this a joke?”

It read like a very bad script for a movie that no one would ever pay to see. “Not to worry, she’s talking to Paul.”

“Who?” He had the nerve to laugh. I know who Paul is, at least I think I know. “You mean Paul, as in your school friend?”

“Yep!”

“What’s going on here?”

“You ever hear of the long con?” I just stared at him, waiting for him to go on.

“Sure, what does that have to do with this?”

“Dad, you lived with Janine for how many years before she split? And you didn’t learn anything about the type of person she is?”

“I’m still not understanding why your mother is trying to hire your friend to run my wife and daughter off the road.” He gave me a look at the use of the word daughter since I’ve always called Lora my stepdaughter but didn’t say anything about it.

“She doesn’t know that it’s him, of course.” He closed his laptop and gave me his full attention, probably guessing correctly that I was about to lose my shit. Of all the things I expected to walk in on, this would’ve been the last thing on my list.

“When Janine started making life difficult around the time of the wedding, you should’ve known that she wasn’t going to just give up because you told her no. Look at the shit she pulled. First, she tried using me, saying she didn’t want some other woman raising her son. Desperate. And this happened when dad? After she told you, she wanted back in, and you laughed in her face. Not the right way to handle a narcissist, dad.”

“Her next stop was me, and when I didn’t bite but instead told her to jump, she amped up the crazy. I knew then that she wasn’t going to stop no matter what, and from the shit, she said then, I could read between the lines. It was okay for her to throw us away, but heaven forbid someone else should want us. Classic narcissistic piece of ish.”

I listened in amazement as he listed off all the things about his mother I’d done my best to hide from him over the years. He did a complete character analysis in less than five minutes that had taken me years to see for myself. I was amazed, proud, and just a little bit scared of the man standing before me. He was so much more than I was at his age.

“How do you know all of this, son?” And why have you been carrying this around on your own for so long? He gave me the facetious grin I know and love, and the room felt light again.

“It’s best you don’t know that for now. Anyway, unlike you, I saw through her crazy a long time ago, so I knew she wouldn’t just tuck her tail between her legs and run. Have you ever seen her Instagram posts? The woman is delusional.”

I had no idea this kid knew anything about his mother’s life; he never mentioned a word to me. And what the hell would I be doing looking at her social media? I didn’t interrupt since it looked like he had more to say. “That walking portfolio she left you for got hit hard in the recession, she only found out in the last half a year or so and set her sights on you. That was about the time you were falling in love with Justine.”

“You need me to go on?”

“So what? You knew she would do this? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m no shrink; I can’t even begin to guess what goes on in your ex’s head. I just knew to keep an eye on her. I set Paul on her since he’s bored. We didn’t know that she would go this far, though.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“What? The hit? Tonight’s the first time she came right out and said it, but I got the feeling a few weeks ago when I listened in on a conversation she was having with the boy toy. I took a shot and set her up with Paul in a chat room she likes to cruise in.”