Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 137176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
“The witness, her daughter, and the federal agent were all shot execution style. You were shot from a distance. You and Cass were walking toward each other. The shooter was somewhere behind Cass, so if his goal was to take out all possible witnesses—”
“Then why leave Cass alive?” I asked -myself. I lifted my eyes to look at my brother for the first time since he’d entered the motel room. He looked tired. Worn out. How long had he been that way and why hadn’t I noticed before?
Because you were a selfish, whiny little fuck.
The voice was right, of course, but I’d have to deal with that later.
“You think I was the target,” I said. “Oh my God,” I whispered as reality hit me. If Sully was right…
“No, no, no,” I called out as I climbed to my feet. My head spun crazily, throwing the rest of my body off balance. “No,” I repeated, even as a hand reached around my upper arm to steady me.
“JJ, I need you to listen to me,” Sully said, his voice firm. “It wasn’t your—”
“Fault?” I asked incredulously. “It wasn’t my fault?” I said as loudly as my sore throat would let me. “That little girl, her mother, the agent—”
“There was no way you could have known what would happen, JJ.”
My brother’s words had no effect on me whatsoever. They changed nothing. Three people were dead—an innocent little girl was dead—because of me. Because I’d done something to someone, or I’d seen something…
The water I’d taken a few sips of all came back up. My knees buckled and my body folded in on itself until I was crouched on the floor. Sobs of anguish, regret, and guilt consumed me even as my body continued to try and expel something that was no longer there. I heard my name being called, but I didn’t go to it. I didn’t want to.
I wanted to go back to the place I’d been for so long. The place I’d told Cass he should have left me in. The place where I was safe. The place where it was quiet. The place where I’d been able to live my life however I wanted.
I wanted to go back to the lie.
CHAPTER 19
Cass
“Mr. Ashby,” the man who opened the door said as he motioned for me to enter the house. I figured he’d been expecting me since I’d had to check in with Owen, the guard who’d been working for the Ashbys for as long as I could remember. He was in charge of who got past the heavy iron gate that kept what my father had always called riffraff from entering the sacred Ashby family compound.
It had ended up taking more than ten minutes before Owen had gotten the okay to let me in. He’d even insisted on scanning my ID before letting me past. He’d blamed the whole thing on red tape, but I hadn’t cared because that open gate meant I at least had a chance to be reunited with the only Ashby who’d ever truly loved me.
The mansion had looked exactly like it had from the first time I’d seen it through the lens of a fifteen-year-old kid who’d finally come to understand that the people outside my world weren’t riffraff at all.
After handing the keys to my Mustang over to a valet who’d seemed to appear out of nowhere, I’d walked up the wide front steps that had huge marble lions sitting outside the doors as if they were truly there to guard it.
The door had opened before I’d had to knock.
“Renly,” I said in reply to his greeting.
The butler had been with the Ashby family for as long as I could remember. He was a good deal younger than my grandmother, but his manner of speaking and grace while he worked solidified his commitment to his job and the people he served. As a child, I’d always wondered if Renly was his first or last name, but I’d never dared to ask him. Even though he wasn’t an Ashby, he’d become one of my grandmother’s closest confidants after my grandfather had passed away and he was always tight-lipped when it came to the family, my grandmother especially.
“Please do come in,” Renly said with a graceful motion of his arm. As always, he was impeccably dressed and well groomed. I hadn’t seen much of him since I’d joined the military when I’d turned eighteen, but he looked pretty much exactly the same as he always had. His hair was a little grayer in spots and a few more wrinkles lined his face, but at fifty years old and single, he was the epitome of what some would call a catch.
“Your grandmother is in the garden,” Renly said with a slight nod. The Ashbys were in no way officially royal, but he often dipped his head to show his respect. He’d withheld the gesture from most of the Ashbys, though.