Page 126 of The Echo of Forever

Do you know what I’m capable of?

Answer me now or I’ll tell everybody willing to listen and ruin all of your plans.

Whatever happened from there until a few weeks back hadn’t been talked about over text, but I could still fill in the blanks. She’d told me she wanted revenge for what Jeremiah did to her, and what mattered to me at the time was getting close to Forever and sponsoring Violet’s stay in Everwood.

It made even more sense now.

Millicent’s questions about how close my baby and I really were, and the disappointment she expressed during our talk the other day at her bar, made more sense now.

Jayden dropped her after she did him a solid, whatever that entailed, and used funding his brother’s murder to placate. But from the most recent messages, the first was less than twenty-four hours after my encounter with Jayden, and they were involved again.

Afterhe talked crazy to her on the phone that day.

I tsked.

Where was the self-respect?

“As you can see,” Gaia started when I set the phone down and leaned back. “There seems to be way more going on behind the scenes with those two. It’s the perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.”

I nodded, agreeing with her point of view on the matter, and as if God was lining it all up in my favor, a text came through from Jayden.

Meet at fight night?

Her reply solidified my plans for the night.

Use my private entrance around ten. It’ll be easier to slip out at the start of the first fight.

This was exactly what we needed, irrefutable proof to scare Jayden into thinking he violated the engagement contract with Forever. Society rules were clear about fidelity during formal engagement periods, especially for arranged marriages between prominent families.

Making him cancel the agreement and then revealing Forever as my wife would satisfy me to no end.

“Oliver, do me a favor and ask my wife’s assistant what they got up for the night.”

She’d left without giving a nigga a kiss and then turned her phone off or locked it in the glove compartment, like in the past when she needed to focus.

“Fight night,” he said, still focused on his phone as he relocated to a chair in front of my desk. “We going? Carmen wants to know.”

I waited for him to give me his undivided attention, and my silence forced him to oblige.

“You got something more important to be doing?”

He smiled.

“Yeah, I could be fuc—”

“And on that cue, I’m out,” Damon blurted, packing up his shit. “Catch y’all later.”

Gaia followed him out with a smirk, but not before announcing she and Violet wanted in on fight night.

“I already know what you’re thinking,” Oliver said once we were alone. “No need to be my big brother right now, I’m a grown ass man and can pick the love of my life without your help.”

I hummed to keep from smiling; he wouldn’t appreciate that either.

“As long as it’s what you want, I don’t got shit to say about it.”

Who the fuck was I to judge, especially when my wife was somebody important to the Collective.

“That mean I can bring her to the compound? Might as well break everybody in while Forever’s reveal is still the topic of discussion.”