28. Ethan

28

Ethan

I wake up staring at the sterile walls of a hospital room. Again.

“What is happening?”

I try to sit up in the bed but the room starts to spin. Daniel is on the couch and instantly jumps up.

Where’s Elena?

“Whoa there, bro. Slow it down.”

“What’s happening? Why am I here? Where’s Elena?”

“I don’t have a lot of answers for you.”

“Where’s Elena?”

“She’s getting checked out for smoke inhalation and… other things.”

“Smoke inhalation?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No. The last thing I remember is my assistant bringing me lunch, Elena sending me a text breaking up with me, and then not feeling right.”

“What do you mean?”

“I felt really dizzy. Like I was moving through mud.”

“What did Elena’s text say?”

“That she found someone else and that it was over between us. I think that I got in my car to go to the store but I don’t remember anything else. Is Elena okay?”

“She’ll be fine.”

“Why am I here and why do I feel like I’ve been on a seven day bender?”

“They ran a broad panel of toxicology tests when you got there presenting unexplained cognitive impairment and other symptoms suggestive of drug intoxication. You had Rohypnol in your system.”

“Roofies? What the fuck? How in the Hell did that happen?”

“That I don’t know.”

“Was Elena roofied too? If you knew I was roofied, why were you asking questions like you didn’t know that I was?”

“Because I don’t know who to believe and who to trust at this point. I had this wild idea that you were roofied just to make yourself look innocent.”

“You don’t know if you can trust me? Are you serious?” I snap. “What is going on? Tell me why Elena is here, what happened?”

“Some of this is hearsay and some of this is what I know. Elena and I were upstairs in the attic when we heard you come in. She was going down to meet you when Keeley started screaming at her to stop and that something wasn’t right. Elena said there was a noise and then the stairs were engulfed in flames. Keeley says that there were three people downstairs in addition to you. She said that a female came in the front door to distract her, she thinks, then you came in after and it was clear there was something wrong with you. She went after you, and saw one person pouring gas on the stairs. She backed away, called 9-1-1, and then grabbed the gun I had placed under the front counter in case someone had broken in again. When she came back she confronted them and then fired off two shots. She hit both of the men who tried to set the place on fire.”

“And I was there?”

“Yeah, she said she thinks one of the men hit you or something because you were out cold when she fired the shots.”

“Did she kill them?”

“No. She used to date a cop and took shooting lessons, so she shot to injure, not kill. When the cops arrived one was limping through the parking lot, the other was still inside.”

“Who was it?”

“Luke and Ryan.”

“Luke as in…?”

“Yeah, the same guy who injured you. Kiara’s boyfriend. His hockey career is over.”

“And Ryan?”

“Yup. From what I’ve gathered so far from the police statements. Ryan also thought he was in a relationship with Kiara. She got Luke and him to go after Elena.”

“Because of me? I can’t…”

“No. This is where it gets wild, bro. You were just a pawn.”

“What do you mean?”

“Luke is being very cooperative to get out of trouble. He said that Kiara came to him saying that you were abusive, stalking her, and all kinds of other stuff. After he attacked you at the game, she said that he proved his loyalty to her and that she would tell him the truth. She told him that she’d only started dating you because you were close with Grams and that she had stolen a lot of money from Kiara’s grandfather.”

“I don’t follow.”“Grams was married to a man named Armand, who was a Parisian gangster. A long time ago, he stole a lot of money from a con artist, Lucien Moreau, who happened to be Kiara’s grandfather. He raised her and his dying wish was that his family fortune was restored. However, according to Kiara, Armand told Lucien that Grams stole it , not him, and that she had fallen off the grid. I am assuming that Armand only did that so that there was someone else looking for Grams.”

“But I’ve met Kiara’s parents.”

“No, you met actors. According to Luke, she admitted to hiring people to play her parents. Her grandfather raised her, but she wanted to give the illusion that she was from a respected normal family, in case Grams knew she existed. She felt that Grams would be waiting for Lucien to come back for the money. Everything Elena and I have read shows that Grams thought the money belonged to Armand all along, so she wouldn’t have thought twice about it if she ever mentioned his name.”

“Where’s Kiara?”

“They’re looking for her.”

“All of this is mindblowing. Kiara isn’t that smart. I always had to explain things to her multiple times and even then, she rarely understood. ”

“It seems that she was pretending.. I think everything so far has been an act.”

“I’ve heard that name Lucien Moreau before all of this and not from Kiara,” I murmur.

“You know, I have too,” Daniel says.

“Do they have proof that she’s the mastermind?

“Yup. Luke and Ryan have texts. Ryan says that he got Jaclyn involved too. He used her because, at the time, he thought she and Elena were great friends and that she could assist with distracting her and getting information.”

“What in the Hell?” I repeat. “I can’t…wrap my head around any of this. Everything is so fuzzy anyway, but this is… insane.”

“My response too.”

“I need to see Elena.”

“You need to stay put. The IV’s are trying to flush everything out of your system.”

“I need to see Elena.”

My phone buzzes on the bedside table, pulling me out of my thoughts. I reach for it, wincing at the pain in my side.

A text notification from an unknown number. I open it, and my blood runs cold. There are pictures attached—pictures of me and Kiara together in my office. We’re both naked. My heart pounds in my chest as I swipe to the next image. It's a video of the two of us having sex.

I feel sick, my mind reeling.

How is this possible?

I never... I scroll back to the top, noticing the date stamp on the images and video. It’s from the day before.

This is why I was roofied, it has to be.

Daniel’s phone starts vibrating as well. He looks down at it.

“Daniel, I don’t…” I start.

"How could you do this to Elena?"

"This has to be fake. I would never cheat on Elena. I love her. Someone must have done this, edited it somehow."

"The date stamp says it's from yesterday. Fuck, that’s why you have Rohypnol in your system. How did they drug you?”

“I don’t know. I remember my assistant bringing my lunch in and then telling me that Jaclyn had come to visit, but she ran her off.”

“Shit, Ethan, I know I’m contradicting myself. I want to believe you but you’ve hurt my sister before and it’s not easy to just forget that. This is all so crazy. What am I supposed to believe?"

"I don’t know, but I swear to you, I didn’t do this. I wouldn't. You can tell by the video that I don’t know what’s going on."

He looks at me for a long moment, before he blows out a breath. “I do believe you, but my first concern is Elena as she’s taking the brunt of everything right now. I need to go check on her.”

As he leaves the room, a heavy silence settles over me. I try to get up, to go after him, because I need to see Elena. I need to know she’s okay. That we’re okay. But the moment I swing my legs over the side of the bed, the room spins and I collapse back onto the mattress.

"Nurse!" I shout, my voice cracking with desperation. "I need to see Elena. Please, help me!"

Two nurses rush in, their faces masks of professional concern. They gently but firmly push me back down onto the bed.

"Mr. Anderson, you need to stay in bed," one of them says, her voice soothing but firm. "You’re still recovering. You can’t be moving around like this."

"But Elena," I protest weakly. "I need to see her. I need to explain..."

"Rest now," the other nurse says, adjusting my IV. "You can talk to her later."

I lie back, feeling helpless and trapped. My phone buzzes again, and I reluctantly pick it up. This time, it’s news notifications. I open one article, then another, my heart sinking with each word.

"Trouble in paradise for hockey hottie?" one headline reads. "Exclusive photos and videos reveal steamy affair in his office."

Another article accuses Elena of using clothing from known sweatshops, dragging her reputation through the mud. My mind races, trying to understand why anyone would believe any of this nonsense.

Is what Daniel said true? Is Kiara after her family fortune?

Kiara used to ask to go visit Grams often with me, saying that she wanted to get to know the people that were important to me. She would get lost in the clothing though and barely talk to Grams when I was there. Then she would tell me that she dropped lunch or something off for Grams and had good talks with her.

She told me that.

Shit. Was she just doing those things because she was looking for the money?

Did Grams know?

Is that why Grams said she was glad I ended things with her because she didn’t trust her?

How was I so blind?

My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of Daniel’s voice in the hallway. He’s shouting and speaking loudly to people.

Finally, the door opens and Daniel steps back in, his face a mask of controlled anger. "Elena's not in her room. She’s gone."

"What do you mean, gone?"

He clenches his fists. "She left the hospital. I don’t know where she is."

I try to sit up again, but the nurses push me back down. "I have to find her," I say, my voice breaking. "Daniel, you have to believe me. I didn’t cheat on her."

"I do believe you, Ethan. But this... this is too much. I’m going home to her house to see if Ellie is there, she’s not answering the phone. I’ll call Keeley in case she shows up at the store."

As he leaves the room again, I feel a crushing weight settle over me. I’m trapped here, unable to do anything to fix this, to find Elena and explain. My mind races, trying to piece together if Kiara is working alone with all of this.

She’s not smart enough to do this on her own.

Is my mom helping her?

An hour passes , feeling like an eternity. The nurses come and go, checking my vitals, adjusting my medications, but none of it matters. All I can think about is Elena.

Does she know that I was roofied?

Did she leave because she believes that video is real and that I cheated on her on my own free will?

My phone buzzes again, another news notification. I don’t want to look, but I can’t help myself. I open the article, my stomach twisting with dread.

Another article accusing Elena of unethical business practices. Another one accusing her of stealing from other designers.

Kiara is throwing whatever shit she can at the wall to see what sticks.

The article is filled with accusations, each one more damaging than the last. I know it’s all lies, just like the photos and video of me and Kiara, but that doesn’t make it any easier to stomach.

***

A few hours later, I'm woken by the sound of my phone buzzing again. I groggily reach for it, hoping for some kind of good news. Instead, I see more messages, more articles. Each one feels like a nail in the coffin.

I hear footsteps outside my room and look up to see Daniel entering again. He looks exhausted, his eyes red and tired.

“Did you find Elena?”

He shakes his head.

“No. Keeley can’t get a hold of her either. Her things at the house are still there. I don’t know if…”

“Did you talk to Deitrich, they can file a missing persons report.”

“No, but I’ll do that now.”

He picks up his phone and starts to dial the number on the detective’s business card, when Deitrich walks into the room.

“Perfect timing,” Daniel says.

“Have you seen Elena?” Dietrich asks. “Did they take her for testing?”

“No, she walked out of the hospital at some point today. I was just calling you to file a report because I can’t find her or reach her on her cell phone.”

“Did she tell you that we identified the body?” he asks.

“No. Who was it?”

“Armand Rochefort. He was a very, very bad man. He was an assassin and known thug in Paris in the fifties. He disappeared one day. His disappearance doesn’t match up to our lab’s timestamp of his death though: according to Parisian police records, he went missing around 1965 and the lab believes he wasn’t killed until sometime in the seventies. I did some digging and found that he was married to Grams. I also learned that he also went by another name, Marcel Le Faucon, he was married to a woman named Isabelle, who he fathered two children with before he went missing. ”

“Elena and I found journals yesterday before the fire that also said she was married to him. They also said that he hurt or tried to kill Grams numerous times and she fled for her life when she learned she was pregnant. There’s another entry saying that her daughter was kidnapped and she thought he did it, but the girl was kidnapped in the fifties. Are you saying that he had two identities?”

“Yeah. From what I can tell around 1965 he disappeared and a minor child was taken in as a ward of the state. Around that same time, Armand disappeared off the radar. The last report from the detective that was on his case stated that Armand owed numerous gambling debts to a man known as “The Butcher.” The detective closed the case stating Rochefort was good as dead.

When I cross referenced Le Faucon’s information, he became active in the drug trafficking scene in Catalonia, Spain. Again, he ran up a big amount of debt when people learned that a lot of his drugs weren’t what he claimed them to be. His wife reported him missing around 1970. The lab believes he was killed close to that time.”

“Did he come looking for the money Grams stole from him and that’s how he ended up dead?”

“I can’t answer that. Only one person can. Any luck in finding Grams?” Dietrich asks.

“No, but something tells me that Elena went looking for her.”

“I’ll need to see these journals.”

“Of course.”

“And this is why Kiara believes your grandmother has her family’s fortune?” Deitrich asks.

“Maybe. There’s an entry that says she took money from her husband so that she and her baby could survive. That money must have belonged to Moreau and Armand spun it to make it look like Grams stole it.”

“We’ll get to the bottom of it. Maybe we’ll find Kiara in the process.”

“You still can’t find her?”

“Nope, she went underground after her attempted arson last night.”

“It doesn’t make sense that she would try to burn up a building in which she thought her family’s fortune was.”

“None of this makes sense,” I interject. “I still don’t understand why she would make it so obvious that she was to blame for the break in.”

“Something tells me she thought by being so blatant, no one would believe it was her. Any lawyer could plant seeds of doubt with the evidence citing that his client is too intelligent for something so stupid.” Dietric explains.

“She’s way more manipulative than I ever realized. How was I so blind?” I ask.

“I’ll put out a missing person’s report for Elena. I’ll talk to hospital staff and see if they remember anything or if there is video surveillance of her leaving the grounds,” Dietrich says with a shake of his head. “Let me know if you hear from her.”

He walks out of the room and Daniel’s phone vibrates as he’s leaving the room, just seconds after mine.

If you want to save her, come to the old warehouse on 5th and Main in an hour. Come alone. Bring a million dollars or you’ll never see her again. Don’t tell the cop that just left about this either. I’m watching.

“Mine says to come in two hours,” Daniel says. “Are they trying to get a million from each one of us?”

"What do we do?"

"We can’t trust this," he says, his voice tense. "It has to be a trap."

"I know," I say, my mind racing. "But what choice do we have? If there’s a chance to save Elena..."

He nods reluctantly. "Alright. But we’re not going unprepared. We’ll go together. But since your time is before mine, you’ll go in alone."

“Don’t you think they’ll be watching?”

“I guess we can’t underestimate them, but I don’t believe they’ve thought this far ahead. They’re desperate. They saw us both in the room together if they knew Deitrich was here.

“It’s got to be Kiara.”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

A nurse walks into my room as if on cue.

“I need to be discharged.”

“The doctor won’t do it. You need to finish that IV bag at the least,” she replies. “And he won’t come back for a round for another three hours.”

“That’s too late,” I growl.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” she shrugs.

“Can he have the forms to discharge against medical advice?”

“Do you know the risks involved with that? He’s still got Rohypnol in his system, not to mention the damage from the fire, and the injuries sustained.”

“We know the risks,” Daniel responds evenly.

“Fine, I’ll go get the paperwork. We’re about to have a meeting for shift change and then I’ll have the new nurse on duty bring it.”

“She’s going to drag her feet,” I tell him, as I remove the IV from my arm.

Daniel grabs some flex tape from the countertop and wraps the IV up. He glances back at the door and then nods.

“Can you walk?”

I swing my legs over the side of the bed. My entire body hurts and there is still lingering dizziness and nausea, but it’s not like it was before.

“Yeah, I’ll push through it.”

Daniel sticks his head out the door and looks around. I start getting dressed, pulling on the clothes that I arrived in. He turns around and hands me his baseball cap and glasses. I put them on, putting the hat low over my eyes before the two of us leave the room.

We stick close to the walls, Daniel blocking me from anyone’s view. All of the staff are at the nurse’s station talking animatedly and, luckily, we’re out of their view. We make it to the elevator quickly. Well, as quickly as my body would allow.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You’re white as a ghost.”

“I’m adapting to the pain. I’ll be fine once we get to Elena.”

The elevator doors open to the front lobby and we quickly walk out the doors.

“I’m parked extremely close, thank goodness,” Daniel chuckles.

As soon as I climb inside his truck I breathe a sigh of relief.

We made it out. Now we just need to get to Elena.

We drive to Daniel’s house first. He runs inside and gets the money from his safe and carries it out shortly after in duffel bags. He hands me a pistol and I notice that he’s also carrying one.

We pull out of his driveway and go to the address from the text message. I half expect my Mom to be there waiting for me with Kiara. Nah, that’s crazy. I just can’t wrap my head around the idea that Kiara is behind all of this alone. I get that she’s had some help, but for her to be thinking this all up alone is mind-blowing. She really had me fooled if she’s capable of doing so.

The old warehouse looms ahead, a decrepit structure that looks like it hasn’t been used in years. We park a short distance away and approach cautiously, keeping to the shadows.

The money is tucked away in duffel bags in the backseat and we grab them as we climb out of the car.

"Stay behind me," Daniel whispers, his hand on the gun tucked into his waistband. "We don’t know what we’re walking into."

We slip inside the warehouse, the air thick with dust and the scent of mildew. The interior is dark and silent, save for the faint sound of dripping water. Daniel follows me but via a different path behind crates and boxes, where he can’t easily be seen.

"Hello?" I call out, my voice echoing in the empty space. "I’m here! Where is she?"

There’s no response, just the oppressive silence pressing in from all sides. I move deeper into the warehouse, my footsteps echoing on the concrete floor.

"Over here," a voice calls out from the shadows, making us both jump.

A figure is shoved into the light, and my heart leaps into my throat. It’s Elena, her hands bound and a gag in her mouth. She looks terrified, her eyes wide with fear.

"Elena!" I shout, rushing toward her.

"Stay back!" a new voice commands, and a man steps out from the shadows, a gun in his hand. He points it at Elena, his expression cold and calculating.

"Who are you?" I demand, my own gun aimed at the man. "What do you want?"

The man smirks, his eyes gleaming with malice. “It doesn’t matter. Give me the money.”

"Let her go," I say. "I’ve got your money.”

“You’re not in a position to make demands,” he chuckles.

Before I can respond, there’s a blinding flash of light, and the warehouse erupts into chaos. I hear a gunshot, followed by a scream.