Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 126580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
“What else did Justin tell you that night?”
She began looking around.
“Kelly.” I leaned forward, a hand on the paper. “What else did Justin tell you that night?”
She shook her head, her eyes clouding over. She hunched forward, her head lowering, and her voice got quieter. “I can’t tell you. I want to. I really do, but I can’t, and it’s nothing to do with me or Justin. But Justin’s family . . . he’s got a big family, it turns out. Big and pushy. He told me the real reason we quit Katya. Not because his cousin got him the job, though I think that was part of it. He really doesn’t like Vivianna, but he said the two owners are into some shady business dealings, and he couldn’t tell me any more because of you. He didn’t want to put me and you into a bad spot. So, yeah. I kept quiet about it. You mad?”
Was I mad? Jesus.
I was more mad at seeing those women with Trace. Different woman every night, it seemed.
I shook my head. “I’m not mad.”
“But.” Her head dipped even farther down, her eyes still on me. Her chin would be grazing the table if she hunched any more. “I knew your bosses were shady, and I never told you. That’s shitty of me.”
Now I really felt like a shitty friend. “I already knew.”
“You knew?!” She sat back up.
“But you don’t work there anymore . . .” I was lying to cover my ass. I’d made a conscious decision not to tell Kelly when she was working there. Yep. Shitty. Me.
“Guess you have a point, but what about you? You’re still there after all this time?”
She was right. Trace had clearly moved on.
It was time I did as well.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
TRACE
Ashton: She put in her two weeks.
I knew instantly who “she” was and where she would’ve put her two weeks in.
I’d stayed away for so long, needing to get a handle on the family business. My uncle knew about her. My father as well. Remmi. There’d been a concerted effort to put them all off her trail. I went on dates so many fucking nights in a row, and all of them had left me cold. Every one of them.
All of that was for her, so she was safe, but she remained at Katya. That gave me hope that she hadn’t moved on yet.
She was moving on now.
My phone rang right after. Ashton calling.
I answered, putting it on speaker since I was in my downtown office.
“That article came out today,” he said as a greeting.
“I saw.”
“There were pictures of you with different women.”
“I also saw that.”
“That means she still cares.”
“What’s the point of this call? You’re not saying anything that’s helpful.”
He laughed. “The attention’s been diverted. You could probably go and see her. It’s been months.”
See her? God, yes. Every fiber of my being wanted to see her, but it was pointless. “This shit’s not going away.”
“We’ve cleaned everything. Businesses. Phones. Computers. New security systems. We have men now on our relatives. We have the upper hand now. Remmi is in Vegas and quiet. If there’s a time to go see your woman, it’s now.”
“She is still working for the other side.”
“We all have our crosses to bear.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
He laughed again. “Go and see her. You’re becoming a grouch to be around. You could do with getting laid again. Remember how that used to feel? And then after, we can move on Bobby finally.”
Right. Bobby with his note saying that my mother was alive. My mother. Jesus. If she was alive? What Pandora’s box would that open?
We’d had to wait this long before reaching out. Suspicion and alarms were high with Uncle Stephano. I didn’t dare connect with Bobby about her, but Ashton was right. The last three times I’d seen my uncle, he’d acted like nothing had changed. There’d been no altercation with him. He was back to bringing up his health, me taking over for him, but there was no more mention of his timeline. All in all, nothing and everything seemed to have changed.
This shit was now my nightmare.
“Go see her. We’ll talk about it after.”
We hung up, and I checked in with a new security detail specifically for her. They were hired the same day we’d had her tracker taken off. It was at their request, stating the tracker would be found before they were spotted. They were specialized enough and trained specifically to handle law enforcement agencies, so we’d removed her tracker.
When it came to Jess, I wasn’t messing around, whether she knew it or not. She could hate me, as long as she was alive to hate me.
Me: Where is she?
Team Leader 1: At a studio.
His second text was the coordinates.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
JESS
The lights were off except for one lamp in the corner. I had dark folksy music going, and I was drinking. Fine. I needed a break from my life, so here I was. Painting again. Feeling shit. Bring on the feels.