"W-Wait- What do you mean you knew everything? Wha- Dom- D-Daddy?"
I couldn't wrap my head around it.
After the arrest of Nathaniel last night, I was forced to follow with the officers to say a few words in their required interview and detail the events that occurred in the bedroom - even though the video evidence as well as the audio was handed over by Hamish. And apparently, from what I gathered after a whole night being locked up inside that bloody conference room with Hamish, Erika, Dominic, my Father and Julia, it seemed like everyone but me and Hamish had a solid plan. I didn't want to talk to them either, not even the oblivious seventh member of the group, and as we all sat on our chairs, we kept to ourselves, well, not really, I kept to myself while everyone else wanted me to talk to them. And, oh, I guess they forgot that the feeling of betrayal and dishonesty within this supposed 'tight knit' group made me furious that no word wanted to come out of me, not even a simple adjective to describe to them about how I truly felt about them.
Although I applauded Dominic's attempts to explain himself and Erika's whimpering apology, they certainly didn't cut it for me. The only time that I finally had the confidence to speak to them was the moment we got back to our own suite, all of us marching in one by one like ant soldiers. Dominic forced me to take a seat as Julia came out behind them, her hand rubbed at her protruding belly before she reached below her dress and pulled out a fake baby bump cushion that - literally - made my jaws drop. The first few words I could confidently muster up from the sight was -
"What. The. Fuck."
Julia tossed the cushion to the floor space in front of me as she asked, "Surprised, aren't you?"
My eye twitched, I felt it stagger for a moment before I slapped my palms to my thighs and sarcastically responded, "No shit."
"There really is no need for that type of tone, Marianne," My Father scolded me.
"Forgive me for my tone, but I feel that there is only so much a person can take."
I admit that I was being a bit of a child throwing a tantrum as I was overreacting about all this, but as I said, there is only so much one person can take. In that case, being told that everyone in that room knew what was happening way before I did made my mind blow. What actually surprised me was Dominic and Julia's involvement, and the way they fooled me surely made me believe that they could actually take up acting if they ever wanted to. And for Julia to throw the cushion that faked her growing baby bump made everything so... Ugh!
"How did you go through the scans?" I asked, prolonging the real conversation that's to follow. I reached down and squeezed the cushion in my grasp, my nails dug into the material that covered whatever foam was inside.
"It's not so hard to grab a fake one," She replied like the wise ass she always was.
"Annie, listen to us, we really couldn't tell you-" Dominic tried to explain himself, but I raised a finger and silenced him, throwing the cushion at him as my eyes continued to burn imaginary holes at the woman standing opposite me. I shook my head to signal for Dominic not to speak before I asked, "Will you be the one to explain all this to me?"
Julia nodded.
"Then start," I demanded and lowered my hand, my body stiff as I waited for her to begin.
And with that, she did.
"As you may know, I am a District Attorney. A case I worked on before all this was of a man charged with the murder of a cold case, which was so many years old. Prior to meeting that said client, the FBI approached me out of the blue about an undercover job. They told me to drop the charges and they instructed me to lure and seduce Nathaniel Walsh, which they said was connected and suspected of the cold case. According to them, he was an original suspect and ties to the victim, however, in the very last month prior to a court trial, he managed to wipe himself clean from everything."
I took a glimpse at my Father, who merely closed his eyes and nodded. He seemed less enthused or even a bit happy that his secret spying of his co-founder and best friend proved useful for the murder of Janina Miller, and for him to be less eager to celebrate the arrest meant that he wasn't pleased about something else.
There must have been a catch.
"And since then, Adrian was the one who has been secretly watching and monitoring Nathaniel's activities and placed them in a folder until he had enough evidence to prove it, having Fiona hold onto it for safe keeping as she was the least likely person someone would think would be involved in all of this."
There it was. My Father just so happened to be involved, huh?
"I know it sounds rather absurd right now, Annie, but you have to understand that everything we did and had to lie to you about was part of the plan."
"So, what you're saying is that you intended for me to be planning my own plan with the people in the room, and well, making me look like a fucking idiot?" I questioned them with a rather unimpressed conclusion of my own. I rubbed at both sides of my forehead and let out another excruciating groan as I muttered, "You've all made me feel like a complete idiot!"
"No," Dominic replied. "Julia and your Father planned this, Erika and I were asked a month after I was promoted to a be a partner for Lawler & Walsh. They had plans of having you signed into the firm since then. And Hamish, he was only a recent addition."
"So only I was left out of the dark?"
"I only took part so you wouldn't be involved. You had no part of this at all. Think about it. You didn't work for Lawler & Walsh before all of this. It was only set out to be just us."
"Then how did I get involved?"
"Didn't you listen to that tape recording from his office?"
"No, I think I've missed that amongst a lot of things I probably missed out too."
Dominic walked to the side, snatching something from the top of a drawer and revealed the recorder, it was attached to the speaker. "Then listen to this-"
"My nephew is so ungrateful, he doesn't know a thing about women and only bothers to stick it only to one. I want to teach him a lesson and fuck little Lawler one night before I get tied down. If I could do that, I'd also be able to put Adrian in his place, that good for nothing thinks he's the top of the chain these days-" The recorder played. "-I have always wanted Marianne, admiring her. If she hadn't met Dominic first at that day, it would have been different. I wouldn't be married for the third time."
"He wanted you." My Father spoke up. "It made everything a lot more easier for us if you were placed in the firm to create a discomforting environment for Nathaniel, even if he was the one needed to be manipulated to think he thought of the idea of recruiting you. A lot easier when you came on board."
"Why me?"
"I told you, because he wanted you."
"Because I have you," Dominic added. He came closer to me once more, the closest we have been since last night, his hands cupping the sides of my face as he whispered, "And it gave me such a hard time to allow you to do that with my Uncle. Why did you think I became cold and distant with you? But I couldn't be away from you. You were always so stubborn."
Slowly my eyes watered and tears began to drizzle at the sides of my face, not further down my cheeks as the droplets made contact with his fingers. I cupped his hands with mine as I whimpered, "I feel betrayed and used, like some kind of pawn in this fucking game."
"I'm sorry that I betrayed you," He whispered. "But please don't cry."
"I-" I sobbed. "I don't understand anymore."
"This was planned two years ago, Annie, possibly more, but what my Uncle did was unforgivable, and for him to be able to be free after what he did, I wanted him out," He explained with a sigh. "My Uncle is a murderer and he lied to me for most of my life."
"How could you not have seen all that he's done?"
"Because I grew up thinking he was a sane human being," He sounded upset. We stared into each other's eyes before he grabbed me by the hand and led me out of that room.
"Where are you going?" Julia yelled.
Dominic brushed the others away, and it surprised me that he managed to think about anything else right now. He led me to the other end of the suite, away from the room where the others were and into the extra bathroom, and he swiped something along the way on the side table. He whisked me in and let me go for him to slam the door shut. I could only watch him through the reflection, watching him fiddle with the folder in his grasp before he turned me around and shoved whatever was in his hands into my grasp.
It was the folder that had all the evidence and other things that linked Nathaniel Walsh to the murder of Janina Miller.
"Have a good look at that, Annie, and explain to me what made you want to lock my Uncle away," He ordered me in a stern tone. "What reason that comes into your head that made you want to lock away my Uncle, whatever it is, it is the same reason why I did it. Every bit of it."
My eyes skimmed through every word, drawn image, photographs, zip-locked bags of evidence and what not. There were labels around everything, mixed with scribbles of black pen that belonged to my Father. Some of the notes were about how to present the evidence, there were some quotes from the voice recording that looked just as familiar on paper than it was from when it went through my ears. But on the next page was a full page testimony from Dominic, possibly the one person that Nathaniel probably wouldn't suspect to know about his mischief and be the one to open his mouth at all, and it looked new too. It presented information that even I didn't know about.
Dominic began his full page by talking of his relationship with his Uncle, starting from a young age of six, when Nathaniel suddenly spent time with him and taking him around the firm to teach him about everything to do with law, which obviously, didn't get into his head. The relationship formed their bond and felt more like a Father-Son bond than an Uncle-Nephew relationship, and since then, the two Walsh were inseparable. It seemed like he vouched for his Uncle more than he wanted him to go into jail, which made me frown. Before I could start being a snappy woman, I forced myself to continue reading to the next paragraph, and it eased my frown as the paragraph went on to describe how their professional relationship changed when he first met me.
He wrote about me.
He described the interactions between Nathaniel and I, where he described the first time Nathaniel inappropriately touched me on the lap during a lunch the three of us had about two months into the relationship with Dominic, then continued on about all those times his Uncle touched me or said things to me that I thought he wasn't aware of, and he specifically commented about his disgust when he saw his Uncle strip me down to my underwear at our shared apartment to congratulate me - I did not know he knew about that. How did he know about that? Was he-
"D-Dominic-"
"Keep reading," He insisted.
I lowered my eyes back down, reading further down where Dominic continued to write about his reason to step in because of me.
My jaws dropped.
The folders dropped.
I covered my mouth as my eyes shifted back up to my fiancé, his lips were pressed together but curved upwards to a subtle smile.
"I-I didn't know you saw all that," I mumbled against my palm.
"I agreed to take down my Uncle because that day when we went to that restaurant to celebrate my win over that pharmaceutical company that paid for our holiday in Japan, happened to be the same day your Father and Julia approached me, and I really didn't want to do it," He explained. "And then I saw him touch you on the inner thigh while you were wearing a dress that was up to your thighs, he shifted it upwards and leaned towards you with his lips just an inch away from the corner of your lip as you looked at him in disgust. That expression painted in my mind and I was determined to do what it takes to get rid of him. What's worst was when all those times he thought I wasn't looking, I saw everything."
I was speechless.
"Do you remember when we went to the Japanese restaurant and you forced it on me for you to go home?"
I nodded.
"Well, I saw what he did and I pretended I didn't, but I wanted to hurt him," He confessed with a frown. "What made it worst was when we both sat back down and told me that you were acting more dysfunctional, and I left without saying a word."
"Dom, I didn't know you did it for me."
"I would do anything for you, Annie."
"I made myself do all this for you and the people in that firm I saw him mock and emotionally ruined for the rest of their lives."
"I said it before and I'll say it again - whatever reason that comes into your head that made you want to lock away my Uncle, whatever it is, it is the same reason why I did it. Every bit of it," Dominic repeated with a shy chuckle. "Especially the part about you."
The build up in my eyes swelled up and overflowed down my cheeks again, and he came closer and wiped them - again. He continued to chuckle as he whispered, "I told you not to cry."
"I- I can't help it," I sniffed. "The-These aren't sad te-tears," I continued, slightly stammering at my own words.
"What are they?"
"Tears of relief and, well, maybe tears of joy?"
"Why?" He looked panicked as he held my hands and pressed his forehead against mine, our eyes remained locked onto each other. "Annie-"
"-Because you're not an idiot," I began to giggle amidst all that.
"Definitely not."
We both let out an uneasy giggle before I felt his lips cover mine, my eyes closed in reflex as we began to move our mouths in sync. Dominic led me backwards, until my back pressed up against the sink and he lifted me up for me to sit onto the cold marble while he stood between my legs. I tossed my arms around his neck, he held onto the back of my neck while the other began to fiddle about in between our bodies.
I really couldn't believe it.
Amongst all this, we ended up having sex in the bathroom.
Like nothing happened.
But as Dominic and I rubbed bodies, I was filled with a sudden rush of emotions - possibly his and mine merged into one. I really couldn't believe it though, he did it all for me.
For me.
◎◎◎
Somewhere in Chicago. 1999.
"Are you joking, Nathaniel? You are not seriously telling me that our son- Our own child is in the hands of a couple that you don't know about!"
Screaming and yelling echoed through those hotel hallways, in the suite stood a much younger Nathaniel that was still at his prime - single and not yet married at all. And opposite him stood a shorter woman, dark brown locks tucked away into a bun at the back of her head, her brows furrowed in displeasure as she waved and flailed her arms about in complete frustration.
"Who are you to tell me these things? You have no right to suddenly come barging into my suite and tell me what to do, you are-" Nathaniel paused, slightly gasping air as he pursed his lips together. His nostrils flared as he slowly bent his elbows and crossed his arms over his chest, a grunt followed by a deceiving smirk followed as he said, "You are nothing to me."
"And you are nothing to me, but that does not mean I don't care for-"
"-Janina, enough!" He scolded. "You left me with a child amidst my building of this law firm. I could not care for a child! So don't come barging in here and telling me that I made a mistake of giving that boy away."
"That boy? That boy!" She hissed, repeating his words as though she heard a curse word or two. "Nathaniel fucking Walsh, that boy is your son!"
"Why are you suddenly interested in him? Why have you decided to come out and be the Mother of the year?"
"Because I'm ready." She frowned. "Don't mock me, Nathaniel! Do not forget that I know as much as you do and I am not afraid to expose the truth!" She added before she gave up, her feet marched towards the door and she left.
But that only angered Nathaniel and he followed, his pride particularly hurt the most throughout the argument as he followed the woman without saying another word. There wasn't much to say to her, he had a feeling that things were better left solved as soon as possible, before something she said she will do will be something she will regret. Nathaniel was afraid that once the truth came out, everything he's worked hard to do and the firm he built from the ground up would be broken to pieces.
The further they wandered from the hotel, the more eager he was to continue their argument, but out of the blue, the woman turned around and told him to leave her alone. Nathaniel snorted at her poor attempts and grabbed her by the arm, the sound of cars blocked out their words as they were aggressively exchanged, neither of them backed down. They insulted each other, berated and belittled everything from the physical appearance to their careers, and of course, the crack at breaking down the walls built around their egos.
Janina pushed and shoved Nathaniel, despite having not enough strength for him to let her go. The tears poured down her eyes as she said, "You are - and always will be - a heartless son of a bitch! I regret falling in love with you. I regret giving you a son that you gave away like he was nothing-"
"-You know nothing of my plans, you are only embarrassing yourself."
"I am not afraid of you. I can ruin you."
Those were her last words.
The next flash of the headlights of cars driving pass had shown Nathaniel holding onto a large object, blood drenched at the side as two shadows covered the floor.
To this day, it is unknown who took the photo of the aftermath.
Only two of them know.