Page 74 of One Kiss Isn't Enough
“And we still need him,” Jase reminds us all. It’s his ass on the line. This is all his fault. His sloppy choices made us take the deal with Walsh.
Although Carter’s talking to Jase, the statement is directed at me. “Until we find the footage he’s blackmailing you with, his head stays on.”
My blunt nails tap along the polished wood in a soothing rhythm, so at odds with what I feel. “And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Let him scare her? Let him get to her?”
“No,” both Jase and Carter say at the same time. My eyes dart between the two of them, judging their response for sincerity until I can nod.
With my thumb brushing against the fleshy tips of my fingers, I ask Carter, my older brother and the one I rely on in order to move forward every day in this shit of a mess we’ve gotten ourselves into with a dirty cop, “What can I do?” I feel weak asking them rather than acting. I hate this and I know they can feel the turmoil rolling off of me in waves as I close my eyes and try to loosen my tight throat. “I need something to give her. Something to make all this better.” There’s nothing to make it better, a voice hisses inside my head and I lean forward, burying my face in my hands. I grit out the words between my clenched teeth as I add, “I fucking hate this.”
“For now, I’ll remind Walsh that our women will be respected and they stay out of it?—”
“She said…” I have to swallow the hard lump in my throat before continuing as I stare past him again at the ambers and emeralds of the trees. “She said he seemed concerned, then he was… gauging her. He’s trying to flip her.”
“Concerned?”
“She isn’t handling the recent events well.” I can barely get out the words. Each syllable claws the back of my throat before it’s spoken. “He approached her, she said, because she didn’t look like she was doing well.”
The leather behind Carter groans and protests as he readjusts in his chair opposite the desk from me.
“If he thinks she’s a weak spot, he’s wrong,” I tell him and there’s more defensiveness in my cadence than I wanted. “She would never tell anyone anything.”
“No one thinks she would.”
“That’s why he brought up the foster fuck? You think he was gauging her to see if it was true? To see if she knows anything?” Jase asks.
“That’s what she thinks,” I answer him. “If he’s trying to get more dirt on us, we need to end this now. Finish him.”
“He can’t know for sure about her foster father, how many fucking years ago was it? And Addison would never give anything up.”
“How did he know?” I question them. It happened a decade ago. No one ever knew. It was only us.
“Forensics, maybe evidence.” Jase sounds suspicious but shakes his head at the thought and shrugs as he adds, “Maybe word on the street, but I don’t see how.”
“He’s bluffing. He had a hunch and he’s testing us to see if we’ll play into his hands.”
It’s quiet as the information is digested. This balancing act is getting harder and harder. What was once planks of wood feels like a thin tightrope now.
Carter takes a deep inhale before speaking. “Let’s make him feel comfortable. That’s the only way we can use him until we’re safe to get rid of him.”
Make him feel comfortable… I’m seething inside. This isn’t the way things used to be. It’s complicated and every move we make only gets us deeper and deeper into bed with the devil.
“Did you tell Addison about her father—” Carter starts to ask, but stops and corrects himself. “Foster father?”
I simply nod before replying, “Last night when she told me.”
I remember the way she couldn’t look me in the eyes before I told her. The way she turned her back to me to go to the bathroom. The way her knuckles turned white as she stood there gripping the doorknob, not moving but not asking. She wanted to know, but she knows better than to ask. That’s what we decided. I tell if she asks, but she never asks. She doesn’t want to know. “I told her because I thought she’d want to know the truth.”
“It’s been years.”
“A decade.”
“She never even considered it was us back then.” I repeat my thoughts, but out loud now. “No one did.”
“What did she say?” Jase questions, concern clearly written on his face.
The vision returns to me of her eyes closing slowly, her chin dropping as she took in a shuddering breath. Her response came out as nothing but a whisper and then she closed the door to the bathroom, leaving me sitting there, watching the glass knob and wishing it had been my hand she was holding when I confessed.
“She said, ‘thank you,’” I tell them.