Fortune Favors The Bold

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: NOT ANYMORE

Alaya heard the statement from her desk, and she stifled her anger with great difficulty. That man had some gall coming to the headquarters and asking for her like she was his wife. If he thought he could barge his way into her life once again without apology or a change in attitude, he had another thing coming.

“I got this Bosco,” she said in a steely voice before pinning Adonis with a glacial stare. “Mr. Fortune, as you can see we’re very busy and you have no business here,” she said loud enough for everyone around to hear. It was a Sunday, and they were all working, and they could do without the interference of a certain overbearing billionaire.

He grabbed her by the arm right in front of all her colleagues and Alaya could only splutter in outrage. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she protested, wrenching her hand free from his grasp in one jerky movement.

“Listen, I apologize for being a jerk. I didn’t mean to manipulate you…or…or anything. I won’t lie to you - I did believe that my main priority was to keep my family safe. With hindsight however, I realized that I will never be able to move on if the killer is not unmasked.”

Alaya glared at him with measuring eyes – what new ploy was this? She knew that Adonis Fortune would move hell to keep his family safe, so where had that change of heart come from?

Hands placed on her hips, she challenged him. “So, are you saying that you’re ready to hand me over your uncle right now?”

The chameleon eyes glazed with a darker shade, and Alaya figured out that the man was playing her once again. It would be too tempting to trap that bastard in his own game, but she was too busy to indulge on the whim.

“Listen, Adonis,” she snapped upon his hesitation – she didn’t actually need him to give his uncle on a silver platter, it had only been a test. One he’d pathetically failed at. “We’re exploring different trails and will let you know as soon as we have something new. I would advise you not to waste your precious time by coming to the quarters so often, but we both know that it will fall on deaf ears.”

She shrugged in a way to show that she didn’t give a damn. “Now, move. Out of my way,” she shouted as if she was talking to a child.

“Okay,” Adonis capitulated like she hadn’t spoken. “Okay, I’ll give you Uncle Elijah,” he promised in a desperate tone, and Alaya was taken aback. Was that man completely demented? Did he take her for a fool?

“Adonis Zeus IV Fortune, what stupid games are you playing?” she scoffed at him enjoying every minute. “Do I look like an i***t to you?”

“Pet?” somebody called out, and she glanced towards the door to see a handcuffed Elijah Fortune being dragged inside. That rat had gone to hide in Vashon Island. Her instincts about the yacht had been on point.

“You see,” she jeered with great relish, unable to deny herself the pleasure of watching his slackened jaw sagging in an ungraceful manner. “I don’t need your help to dig him out.”

“H…How did y…you find him?” he stammered incoherently, and for the first time since she’d known him, he dropped the act of the sophisticated businessman. The transformation wasn’t physical, but she was standing so near that she could read his every expression, his every posture. It felt like a new man in front of her.

“I have my own means,” she replied evasively. “Thank you Jimmy,” she spoke loud enough for her partner to hear and move two steps back without breaking eye contact with Adonis. Her coworker had flown to the island early this morning to fetch the culprit.

Hands buried in her pocket, she fervently wished she could give some reassurance to the desperate man standing in front of her, but she’d sworn to herself that she would behave as a professional from now on. It wasn’t something she would have done for anyone else, so she made a saddened moue before heading towards the interrogation room.

What Adonis didn’t know was that Kenneth Fortune was also under questioning since morning since he was also a potential suspect. Freddy J Kimble from the FBI had taken it upon themselves to break them when she’d failed to get more information from the cousin. She hadn’t objected for now she had carte blanche to interrogate Elijah Fortune.

The man looked almost paranoid as he stared at her with a stoic blank expression. There was none of the sassiness she’d perceived the first time they’d met when Elijah had been in a hurry to head back to Italy. A mere excuse or a means to escape before he was caught?

“Mr. Elijah Fortune,” she spoke his full name for the resemblance with Adonis still put her off. If she had any doubts about the way Adonis would look twenty years from now, she only had to look at the man in front of her. “You’re not an easy man to find.”

He raised his hand in defense. “It wasn’t my idea to go away,” he replied instantly. “I didn’t want to incriminate myself further by running away.”

She c****d her eyebrows in surprise at him. “Then whose was it?”

Elijah Fortune was exactly as Adonis had predicted – a ticking bomb. He seemed to realize his mistake for he snapped his mouth shut as he would never sell his own nephew.

“I mean it was a collective decision. I didn’t escape because of the case – I had business to conduct on the Vashon Island.”

“Really?” Alaya sighed tiredly deciding to humor the man. “What business?”

“The b…beach house. It had to be maintained and I was sent there to spend the weekend surveying the maintenance. I mean Adonis asked me if I could go, and I accepted.”

Alaya sighed again. “Listen, Mr. Fortune. I haven’t started recording yet, and see behind that glass over there? All my colleagues are waiting for me to read your rights and press this button. It’s the usual procedure.”

The man sagged back in his chair in defeat, folding his hands on the table in silent prayers. “Then what are you waiting for?”

“The truth,” Alaya answered truthfully. “For once, I want a real version from you. An uncensored one. I already know about the affair, so please don’t hold back.”

“Affair? What affair?” the man took on a bland look to instinctively deny her statement, and she shrugged insouciantly.

“We can play this game for hours. It’s you call. I have all the time in the world. But you however will not be let easily off hook if I press the button and you haven’t started talking.” As threats went, it was very effective for all trace of color drained from Elijah Fortune’s face.

With deliberate sadistic torture, her thumb shivered over the press button of the recording device, and Elijah Fortune panicked like predicted. “Alright, alright. I will talk. What do you want to know? Surely not about the affair? Did Adonis tell you?”

“He didn’t have to,” Alaya commented haughtily. “Having Nora and you in the same room was proof enough for me. Did you have anything to do with Mason Zeus III Fortune’s murder?”

Elijah dropped his face in his hands. “How can you ask this of me? He was my brother, one that I’ve wronged. I mean, regardless of how he treated Nora, I should never have indulged in that affair. I would have done everything in my capacity to atone for my sins. I’ve stopped seeing her for years now. That’s the reason why I moved to Italy three years ago. I knew that as long as I was here, I would be tempted. So, I completely removed myself from the equation.”

“What happened on the murder of the night? You had an argument with your nephew Kenneth?”

Elijah shook his head. “He provoked me. I was so shocked by his transformation that I let the anger get the better of me. One second I was shouting at him for occupying Apollo’s seat, and the next he was blackmailing me.”

Alaya inhaled sharply. “About the affair?”

The forty-seven years old man sagged his shoulder in utter defeat. “What else? What other dark secret is there in my closet? One mistake. Only one mistake which I have to pay my whole life.”

“So, Kenneth knew about the affair? And he threatened to divulge the shameful secret to the whole family?” she questioned, taking a wild guess. Time was short. In a few minutes, somebody would come knocking and they would sonder why she hadn’t started the recording yet.

“Yes, and in a fit of rage, I passionately exploded into a dramatic lover by saying that if something happened to Nora, I would burn the whole world down, even if it includes Apo…Mason, my brother.”

“What did you do after that? Where did you go?” Alaya asked with a frown. His statement had nothing to do with a murderer, but it had been only a short relapse. If she could help him find an alibi, she could clear him. “Do you remember what time it was?”

He frowned. “Around eleven in the night maybe? After my argument with Kenneth, I was so pissed off that I went to see Ben.”

“Benjamin Foster?” she asked with avid interest. “Adonis’s secretary?”

“Yeah. He’s more than an employee to us. He’s Adonis’s best friend, had been with him since kindergarten. His father was a trusted employee and he died in an infamous incident, so my father Zeus took him in.”

Adonis’s late grandfather? That was interesting. It was the first time that Alaya had heard any mention of the man. “What did you tell him? Everything? Does he also know about the affair?”

“Benjamin Foster knows every secret of the family. I doubt that something escapes his eyes. If we have some problem and Adonis is not here, we go to him. I couldn’t find Adonis that night, so I went looking for Ben. He advised me to stay put, and he will have a talk with Kenneth.”

That Benjamin Foster could prove to be a real asset to the case, Alaya thought. If he was the one whom everyone believed their friend, then he must surely know each and everyone’s secret. He might have a better idea who the killer might be.

“And did he? I mean talk to Kenneth on the same night?”

Elijah was shaking his head before she’d finished her sentence. “No, I was too livid with rage after my argument. And Kenneth had already gone home. Ben was reluctant to leave me alone in my state, so he kept me company for a while before I slept in the study.”

“For a while? Can you be more precise? For approximately how long you and Benjamin were together?”

The thick grey eyebrows of the man knitted in a perfect pattern as he struggled to remember. “I don’t know the exact time. We chatted a bit and played some chess until morning, maybe? Ah, I remember him saying that it was already two o’clock and that he had work tomorrow. So, we must have played until the wee hours. Why?”

Alaya produced a satisfactory smile, cursing herself for being happy about the outcome. She shouldn’t. Her case was still stuck. But she couldn’t help the happiness and relief which speed inside her heart. “Because, Mr. Fortune, we just got you an alibi.” She winked at him.