“You don’t know,” he seethes. “You couldn’t possibly know what that was like. What it’s still like. You can’t know because you always knew the truth. You knew he was alive. That he was out there.”
I rub a hand down my face. “I didn’t do it to hurt you.”
“Then why did you do it?”
I scoff. “Why do you think? Because Jake was in danger. Real danger. He made a mistake. A big one. And no way was I going to let him pay for it with his whole life. It was the only way.”
“And you decided to play God with the truth?”
“I decided to protect him.”
Brett’s shoulders rise and fall with shallow breaths. He’s angry, yeah, but underneath that? He’s gutted. That’s what makes this worse.
“I could’ve helped,” he mutters.
“I know. But the fewer people who knew, the better.”
That lands hard. He flinches, like I struck a nerve.
“You think I would’ve blown it?” he asks.
“Back then? No, I didn’t think that. But if we brought you in, we’d have had to bring in Alex and Seb too. It was too dangerous for Jake.”
He shakes his head. “So what did the two of you do?”
I draw in a breath. “I can’t, man.”
“You can’t what?”
“I can’t tell you that. It has to come from Jake. I made a promise to him twenty years ago that his secret would die with me.”
“You already told us?—”
“I already told you way more than I should have. The rest has to come from him.”
“What’d you bring him back here for?” Brett grits out.
“Because it’s time,” I say. “Because Jake deserves more than to live like a shadow.”
“You should’ve let him decide that.”
“He did,” I snap. I take a breath, trying to steady myself. “He wanted to come back. I didn’t drag him out of hiding. I offered him the choice, and he said yes. He said he was ready to stop running. And he knows what that may mean for him. For him and us.”
Brett folds his arms, muscles tense, like he’s holding himself together by sheer force of will. “And what about the rest of us? What are we supposed to do with all this? Just act like nothing happened?”
“No. You’re supposed to remember who he was to us. And trust that he’s still that guy, somewhere underneath everything he’s been through.”
Brett lets out a bitter laugh. “You’re asking me to trust you after twenty years of lies?”
“I’m asking you to trust him.”
Brett doesn’t respond right away. His jaw tightens, and I can see it in his eyes—how badly he wants to be angry, to stay angry. But under it all, the hurt is louder.
I step closer. “Brett, if I could’ve done it differently, Iwould have. If there’d been any way to bring him back safely without putting a target on his back?—”
“But there wasn’t,” he cuts in. “So you lied. To all of us.”
“I did what I had to do.”
