Apocrypha of Truths

This morning I found myself trapped in a mire of legalese and subtle threats when I had my lawyer instruct that my financial concerns be relocated to a new accountant. It was a move I had been considering since the discovery that my assets are my Dubois inheritance from Axel and I did not wish for control of my income to be subject to a flunkey of Gervais. My accountant, who was in reality someone chosen from the Dubois empire, called me up in a flurry of panic refusing to do anything until I had come to his offices personally. His wisdom being that perhaps I was unaware of the consequences of such a rash and perhaps not thoroughly considered action. I translated this into “Gervais is going to get totally pissed and I don’t want to be the one to tell him.” My response that I considered the accountant to be untrustworthy due to his association with the Dubois family left him well---gob smacked. Since I was now in essence a Dubois myself, I suppose the last thing he expected was mutiny from within the family itself.

He attempted to put the fear of Gervais into me by stating rather arrogantly that Mr. Dubois would not wish for me to remove my account, for my own well being of course, as I did not have great experience in the complexities of the financial world. After putting on my best Liselle face and glaring at him very coldly I expressed my dissatisfaction with his lack of services and assured him that despite whatever displeasure this might incur from Gervais I was not in the least bit interested in his personal trepidation. The accountant whimpered for a while as he attempted to change my mind but after a few minutes, he realised the pointless exercise of trying to control another Dubois. I left him with the name of my new accountant, instructions from my lawyer, my mother’s lawyer for despite her fluffy veneer Mother did ensure her legal needs were outside the Dubois realm. Like her, I had not realised that the accountant was part of the Dubois empire and with my future actions in mind, mainly the murder of my cousin, I required being completely outside their tentacles of evil influence, I had enough of my own evil to contend with.

I went back out to my car to discover to my surprise none other than Jojo Sedero leaning against the side. Mother’s old Mercedes, easily recognised, had been the source of many jokes so it would not have been difficult for him to discover where I was in town. He looked tanned and relaxed from his little sojourn and I wondered if he had grown jaded from playing international playboy or if Chantal had jerked his leash to return home. His family believing they knew their children well had sent the child they felt most dangerous to Gervais from the country not realising that their sweet daughter was in the midst of murderous plotting. His handsome face was creased in expectation and I wondered what he imagined was going to occur, did he think I would throw myself in his arms, or have the Gervais issue resolved already, was I supposed to beg him to deal with my family, ask him for guidance? Whatever Jojo had in his mind he was not going to get as I told him he was making my car dirty and brushed past to get inside. Jojo being Jojo and not much else was not going to let reason sway him from his plans and so demands we go for a drive. I had enough experience with him to know that it was better to deal with his impossible lunacy sooner rather than later and so we went off for a drive.

True to form Jojo started our conversation with a ludicrous statement, "I have been thinking,” and despite the little mischief elf dancing inside of me begging me to respond I let it go in the interests of communication. Jojo thinking was a first, Jojo reaching out to me for whatever reason was a new step in his evolution. Perhaps he was finally growing up, which I doubted for he had proved he was his father’s son in the end and if I was going to have a man in my life Simon with his solid strength was the one for me. Jojo required a woman like his mother, tough, shrewd and willing to handle his wandering eye for whether he was like Tony by chance or design it was not a future I would even begin to consider. He expected a response of sorts and I knew I was supposed to do what the women in his life did and that was to solve all his problems. I flashed a brief look at his beautiful profile, handsome enough to make a young girl swoon, unless that girl's experience was to be used and abused by his whoring ways, I was well over Jojo Sedero but that did not stop us from forming an alliance against Gervais. I went up the lookout, the one place safe from prying eyes, no one had followed us there and we could see anyone approaching for miles, so let the minions of Gervais speculate all they liked for my cousin had told me to get rid of Simon, Jojo had been nowhere in his threats, at least for now.

Jojo asked me if I had any plans for revenge over what Gervais did to everyone and I wondered if he had any clue how self-involved his question sounded for nowhere in it was concern over what Gervais had done to me. I turned to Jojo and told him that I was planning a little vacation at the Dubois compound and as his face darkened with a vitriol passion, I hastily added it was to get all the information I could on Gervais. While I pacified him with a half-truth, I also realised that in no way was I going to add Jojo to our consortium. I had enough loose cannons with Tiah and Coco practically shouting “Off with his head!” every time they spied Gervais so the last thing I needed was to weaken our already diluted mix with someone with little to no self-control. His tension eased and I added that once I had worked out what my cousin’s weaknesses were then we could have another chat on how to get our revenge. A cloud crossed his face when he rudely asked how he knew he could trust me and it took all my resolve not to stab him with anything within reach. I reminded him that I had nothing to gain by pretending to be angry with Gervais and I could have moved into the compound from the very moment I found out who I was, Gervais had issued enough invitations, now he was down to demanding. I could not help but add that I also was not the one running off with Lynx, an obvious Dubois puppet every ten minutes.

Jojo started with his fateful words again, “I’ve been thinking,” he repeated, “That perhaps everyone should stop acting like they hate him, maybe if we act like we’ve moved on he won’t notice us as much.” I stared at Jojo in disbelief, the surf meatnut finally had a coherent thought and it was a good one. He was right, all our scowling and whispers only added to our intrigue and kept us firmly in his sights so what we needed was a distraction, something away from our little band of merry murderers, something to keep Gervais occupied while I visited the compound. If we could divide his attention then we might be able to find a way to get close enough to remove him without destroying our own lives any further. I knew that although he was not up to matching wits with a Dubois, any Dubois, I told him to keep his eyes open for we needed a distraction and his restaurant was a great source for information of the dealings of this town. Jojo was not terribly satisfied with the answers I was giving him but then again I was not terribly satisfied with having to bother to reassure him. The last thing we needed right how was a host of counter plans to get back at Gervais, as long as we could keep the loose cannons on deck there might yet be a death in the family!

Previous Next