Page 48 of The Unravelings

“You want to show,” JJ reiterates, looking deep into my eyes like he’s unraveling everything inside me. “Because if you don’t? I’ll tell them everything. I’ll show them the surveillance videos of you destroying the headstone and getting into that dark SUV with some strange man. I’ll show them you walking into your hotel room with long hair and emerging like this.” He waves a hand at my outfit. “And I’ll show them that the Olivia they thought was dead and gone is alive and breathing and right under their stupid noses.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “And when Mack finds out that it was you… God, the fight,” he groans, throwing his head back.

But I’m too stunned by his words to process the fact that Mack essentially set Oliver up to die against Brutus. AKA me.

“Why would you keep my secret? What’s stopping you from going to them now?” I ask.

He takes a step forward, forcing my chin up with his warm fingers. “Because a long time ago, I had loyalty to a girl whom I fucking loved with all my heart. I swore my life for her. And she for me. The same girl who took me under her wing when I was at my lowest and learned sign language with me. Who understood me like no one else.”

“But you have loyalty to them, too,” I whisper with a trembling voice again.

“Yeah…” He trails off. “I do have loyalty to them, but you always came first.” He leans in and brushes his warm lips against mine and steps away before I can protest. “Besides, I need to figure out what happened to you and prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that it wasn’t us. You understand, right?”

No. Not really, but I slowly nod as the phrase—the woman was too stunned to speak—runs through my mind.

“This…this is our secret?” I ask with furrowed brows.

“For now,” JJ says with a sigh. “We’ll eventually have to tell them, you know that, right? I can’t let you leave here without telling them everything.”

“And if I disappear?”

JJ cocks his head. “I don’t think you will, Spitfire. No one comes back from the dead to dress as a man without reason. You’ve cut your hair. You’ve got contacts hiding your beautiful brown eyes, a binder on your chest, and thick glasses to cover your tracks. You’re hiding something, too.”

And with my heart racing in my chest, JJ exits the room, taking my fucking sanity with him.

“What the fuck just happened?” I mutter to myself, slumping against the wall, all the motivation I had from earlier slowly leaking out of me.

I pull my phone out of my pocket.

JJ: See you tomorrow night, Spitfire. Your secret is safe with me.

JJ: For now, at least…

Me:

I quickly click off that message thread and start a new one with Carter. That asshole. He’s blackmailing me, and I can’t wiggle out of it.

Me: Can you hack into Jasper Jone’s computer and erase everything he has on it?

Carter: The prick with the porn? Wasn’t I just fucking looking into him and found nothing? Now, you want fucking more from me? Greedy-ass Agent Princess.

Huh. That’s news to me about him finding nothing. Last I talked to him was a few days ago, when I had lunch with Jordy and begged him to get me a new identity.

Me: Yes. And Agent fucking Princess? Again?

Carter: I’m bored enough, sure. Anything specific you need me to erase? Your sex tape?

I groan inwardly.

Me: I don’t have a sex tape with him, asshole.

Carter: You sure about that?

I rear back, taking a step toward the door. The quicker I get out of this random office and back into my room, the quicker I can calm myself down from this encounter.

Me: 100% Positive there’s no fucking tape. But there is a tape of me on surveillance footage proving that I’m not who I say I am.

Carter: So…a tape, huh? Let me see what I can do…

Carter: He’s tightened ship with his fucking computer. It’s harder to access. Almost like he was tipped the fuck off that someone was looking into his shit.