About my sister owing it.
I thought so poorly of her. That she would owe so much money to men like him.
And he put that on her.
With a sudden twist, my gut wrenches with sickness and I have to focus on breathing just to keep from losing it.
He lied to me. It was all a lie.
How can I believe anything that comes out of his mouth? How many lies has he told me? How many things has he kept from me?
“Where are you going?” Carter’s voice carries down the hall, chasing after me and I ignore him. I don’t trust myself to speak.
Every step hurts more and more. I’ve fallen for him. That’s the only explanation for the way my face crumples as I storm off. The way my eyes feel hot although there’s no fucking way I’ll cry. I won’t cry for a man who lies to my face over and over again.
I let him touch me. I let him use me. Because he lied about a debt.
I’m foolish. I’m a stupid little girl in his man’s world.
“I hate him.” The words tumble out in a single breath as my hands form fists. I hate that I believed him. That I fell for him.
No… no I don’t. My throat dries at the realization.
I hate that I wanted him to treat me like he loves me. I hate that I believed he did.
You don’t lie to the ones you care for. You don’t use them.
You don’t coerce them and blackmail them.
I thought he loved me though.
Maybe he still does… the small voice whispers. The voice that’s gotten me deeper and deeper into bed with a man who tells me lies. A voice I wish would speak louder, because I desperately want it to be speaking the truth. But the rest of me knows it’s a childish wish, that I need to grow the fuck up and slap the shit out of Jase’s lying mouth.
Jase
“What did he say specifically?” I question Seth, comparing notes.
“To meet… to come alone… and that he has evidence he doesn’t want to use against us.”
Our pace is even as I walk with him from the foyer to the office. I waited for him outside after taking Bethany to bed last night. Watching the late dusk turn to fog in the early morning and preparing for what has to happen today.
I respond, “Officer Walsh is my new favorite person to hate.”
“Do you think it has to do with Jenny?” he asks.
“I doubt it. If he has something on us and if he’s going to use it to blackmail us…” My teeth clench hard as I release an agitated exhale.
“Do you think you should tell Bethany? In case this leads to something?”
“No.” Shaking my head, I think about the way Bethany’s going to react when she finds out about her sister being alive and the fact that I knew this whole time. “I want to know I’ll be able to bring her back before I tell her anything.”
“Marcus will know when we find her. I don’t see how he won’t know when we approach. Unless it’s only a few of us, but that would be suicide.”
“We’ll all go. He can know. I would think he already knows we’ve been watching.”
He stops walking and the sound of two men walking down a long hall turns to one and then none as I turn to him, waiting for him to speak.
“You think Marcus would go against us?”
“I don’t know,” I answer him honestly and feel a chill run up my spine. The silver glimmer of the scar on my knuckles shines in the dim hall lighting. “We’ve never openly been against him, but he’s never taken from us either. He has her. He knows we want her back. It was his call to decide that and ours to decide the consequence.”
“We don’t know that. We don’t know how it happened and what she’s doing with him.”
“There’s too much we don’t know, but we don’t have time to wait. If we find their lookout point or storage centers, or anything at all, we go in.” My words are final and Seth’s slight nod is in agreement.
With a tilt of his chin, we continue back to the office. Every step I take grows heavier, and the anxiousness of getting down to what we have to discuss stifles the air and coils every muscle in my body.
I force myself to stay calm with my hand on the doorknob to my office, careful not to say anything until he walks in first.
“Did you get it?” I ask him as I flick on the light. It’s still early morning and the sky’s a dark gray. Pulling back the curtains, the harsh sound of them opening is the only thing to be heard as Seth walks to the row of books on the other side of the room.