Chapter 74
The message slid into Jace’s phone
~ hey, i was thinking we should meet to talk about last time… No, not the sex silly… let’s talk about how to take over my father. Maison Aurelia, 9pm. what do you say?
Maison Aurelia. Even the name tasted like velvet and polished silver. Jace stared at the screen for a full minute, ridiculous heat crawling up the back of his neck. For weeks, his life had been a grinding, bitter loop of files and hospital corridors and the small stubborn hope that the evidence he’d clawed for would finally matter. Now Elias was taking him on a date. This would be a great way to clear his head.
Before he could type, another bubble appeared.
~ Are you still thinking about the sex …I promise I will be gentle this time.
His face betrayed him before his fingers could. He felt the warmth rise behind his ears, down his neck, until he could almost feel the heat at the base of his skull. He imagined Elias, sleeves roughed up, a rueful smirk creasing the corner of his mouth. For a second, Jace was a kid again, cheeks flushing at the theft of a glance. He typed quickly, fingers clumsy.
~ yes. see you there.
~ okay i’ll come pick you up.
He laughed at himself a short, embarrassed sound, then tossed the phone onto the couch and went into a frantic, inefficient search for something that did not scream he was trying too hard. He tried on three shirts, rejected a fourth, and finally settled on black and understated something that would look sharp enough in Maison Aurelia.
Elias arrived as the city softened from dusk into a scatter of lamps and rain-streaked glass. The car was dark and quiet; Elias stepped out with an ease that still made Jace’s heart hiccup. “You look good,” Elias said his hand brushed the back of Jace’s fingers as he offered his arm. The contact was brief and human, and it set Jace’s chest on a dangerous tilt.
Maison Aurelia swallowed them in warmth the moment they stepped through the door. There was an intimacy to the place low lighting that painted everyone in honey, servers who spoke in discreet half-phrases, and a pianist whose fingers wove between the tables like an unseen tide. They were ushered to a corner table with a view of the room’s slow, careful bustle and a soft candle between them.
They ordered without much ceremony a bottle of something old-sounding, a few small courses chosen by Elias in that calm voice that made everything sound like it was already solved. For a moment, neither of them spoke. The candle flame trembled between them. Jace’s fingers wrapped the stem of his water glass, counting breaths to steady the rust in his chest.
“So,” Elias said finally, the word small but anchored. “What are your plans regarding my father?”
Jace folded his hands and let his voice come out low. “I thought I had things in order,” he admitted. “I underestimated him. I thought him knowing that i had evidence would be enough, but he did not even flinch.”
Elias chuckled, “My father’s not afraid of anyone, I don’t think he’s afraid of even God.”
Jace gave a small scoff. Elias tilted his head, looking at him with an expression that made Jace feel exposed “Why don’t we just go to the police?”
The question was both simple and hard. Jace looked at Elias, and he answered honestly. “I thought of that. But Victor Crane has reach. I thought the proof would be enough. I thought I could hand it over and let the law do the rest. But I am sure that your father has the police on payroll.”
Elias set his glass down. For a moment, his jaw line was hard. “You are not wrong,” he said. “But I think you are also underestimating me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m Elias Crane. I have ties too, people who answer when I call. Not all the police are compromised. I have worked with officers who still believe in procedure. It’s messy, but it’s not impossible.”
Jace blinked, digesting what elias had just said. “If that is true, then why didn’t you submit what you had? Why not hand the file to them yourself?”
Elias’s expression shifted in a way Jace had not seen before a quick flash of shame, a shuttering. He took a breath, and the rawness that followed made Jace lean in.
“Because I was scared.... I was weak. I was scared that he was going to kill my mother. I didn't want to lose her.... but when you came with your file, you gave me something I had not had in a long time. You gave me a reason and courage.”
Jace’s fingers sought Elias’s across the table before he even realized he had moved to comfort him.
Then the first course arrived– a delicate scallop that melted on the tongue and for a brief, delicious moment they let the food be their focus. They ate, and the conversation softened into the practical. Elias mapped out, in clipped phrases, the officers who could be trusted and the reporters who would not be bought.
They worked the plan out like a pair of thieves a lawyer who would vouch and transfer the file to evidentiary custody, a reporter ready to hold the line if the paper trail disappeared, Elias making the calls to place the right people in positions where they could not be bought away by his father’s wealth. Every piece was fragile; every step had the potential to explode into open danger.
They spoke in whispers that felt conspiratorial and sacred. All around them, the restaurant hummed a little universe of strangers living another life. Jace felt the small thrill of complicity like a drug. There was fear, always, a steady thrum beneath the plan, but there was also a real and growing resolve.
When the desert course arrived, Elias reached across and covered Jace’s hand with his. “Tomorrow, we go to the police together and hand over the evidence.” Elias’s thumb rubbed the back of Jace’s hand “ but tonight....” he said with a gentle crooked smile, “is about us.”
Jace let out a breath, and they continued eating, and between bites, the small talk softened into touches, a folded hand... leaning in.... a hollow laugh shared over wine. The restaurant blurred into a light river of warmth and sound. They finished dinner slowly, and neither wanted to hurry away from the careful heat of the moment.