90

"What was so urgent that you filled me with calls?" Alec asks Howard when the driver walks into his mansion office. "In fact, I took courage and proposed to Evangeline in marriage.”

"Really, boss? Did you give up the ring that’s been in storage for ten years?”

"It is..." he smiles passionately, as if he were not a violent mobster. "but do not tell her about it. I do not want to look like a soft man.”

Howard laughs, almost forgetting the reason that led him there.

"I would never do that. Anyway...”

"You can talk. Don’t bullshit.”

"First, as you asked me, I found Leah’s whereabouts. Evangeline’s mother.”

"So what?”

"She really is dead." Alec sighs deeply. "It’s been a few years since it happened. Looks like she was prostituting herself to get money for drugs. One of these days, she overdosed in a cheap motel room and a maid found her. At least she was carrying papers and managed to get a proper burial.”

"It’s... less bad. But that’s not all you have to talk about.”

"