Danni Rose (The Sherwood)

He turned and headed to the door and Danni followed but her legs were tingly from being tied together. She stumbled, and Jesse stopped, glancing over his shoulder, he looked at her. “Are you, all right?”

Danni glared at Jesse. “No, dumbass. I’m not. You tied me up for hours. My legs are numb.”

Jesse threw his back and laughed from deep in his belly at Danni’s audacity. She wasn’t afraid of him. Then he started walking towards the door. She scowled at him but followed behind him. She glanced around trying to determine how she was going to get herself out of here and back to Walker.

Inside Danni looked around and realized that Jesse had been staying here all along. The cabin had empty fast food bags that needed disposed of. “Don’t believe in cleaning up after yourself?” She asked.

He shook his head at her. “I have more important things to worry about,” he informed her.

“What do you need to talk to me about?” Danni asked hands on hips.

“Sit,” Jesse told her.

She glanced around at the mess that was Jesse’s habitat. He rolled his eyes at her. Then he snatched up about ten bags and took them to the kitchen where he deposited them in the trash can. Like that made all the difference in the cleanliness of the cabin. She still didn’t want to sit down.

When Jesse returned he shoved her in the closest chair to her. “I said sit.”

Danni glared at him.

“I didn’t kill Laura or Danielle.”

“Did you know that Danielle was only sixteen?” He did a double take. Obviously, he didn’t. Then Jesse dropped onto the sofa.

“I didn’t know how old she was. Danielle lied to me.” Jesse leaned over on his knees and ran his hands through his hair the way that Walker did. Danni could see so many similarities between the two brothers that she never noticed before. Maybe she never wanted to see the similarities because she always saw Jesse as something bad and Walker as good.

Right now, sitting here with Jesse she realized that he wasn’t all bad. She could see his regret for Danielle. The night his mother was killed she saw the horror in his eyes that his gun had killed her even if it was an accident. She saw it again in his eyes. They were filled with sorrow and regret.

“Jesse, what did you need to talk to me about?” She wanted him to get it out, so she could talk to Walker.

“Danielle and I found Laura dead in the bed at the motel, so I returned Danielle to the diner and left her where her car was parked,” he explained. He got up and went to the window behind the sofa. His back was to Danni. His shoulders were tense. He crossed his arms over his chest. “She was afraid.”

“But you left her anyway,” Danni said to him.

Jesse glanced over his shoulder. “I thought she was safer away from me,” he explained. “No one is safe around me anymore.”

Danni rolled her eyes at him. “So, you kidnap me and put me in danger.”

He turned to Danni. “I had no choice.”

“What do you want?” Danni asked “Jesse, just spit it out.”

Jesse explained that the man who killed both Laura and Danielle was looking for him. He moved away from the window and sat down on the sofa. Jesse had seen something that he shouldn’t. Jesse had seen the murder of a high-ranking government official.

Danni moved over to the sofa. “Jesse, you can’t just stick to petty criminal activity and selling drugs. You have to get involved in an assassination?”

“Lieutenant Governor John Belvedere.”

Danni’s head shot around. “What the hell, Jessi. She slapped at his shoulder and bicep while he tried to deflect her blows. “How the hell did you get yourself into this mess?”

“I was working for Damon Kane,” Jesse explained. The Lieutenant Governor was in Kane’s pocket providing him with favors and in exchange Kane lined John Belvedere’s pockets.

“So, did Kane kill him?” Danni knew that Damon Kane was organized crime or at least the authorities suspected that he was. Nothing had ever been proven though. Most people in Ohio and Michigan knew who Damon Kane was.

“Nah, not Kane. An assassin working for another family that wanted to hurt Kane killed him.”

This was too much for Danni to absorb. She shouldn’t have even asked the next question, but she did. “How did you get your stupid ass involved in this, Jesse? You’ve always been a petty criminal?”

Jesse rubbed his hand across his face. “I met a friend of Damon Kane who introduced me to him. He was impressed with my skills.”