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“Is that why you were so keen on me paying so quickly?”
I jump up from my chair and it falls to the ground as I do. “You’re suggesting I would fuck you over, not to mention my own wife, for money? I have known you for twenty-four fucking years.”
His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. Deep down he knows I’d never do that. “You’ve broken my daughter’s heart,” he snarls instead. “Now get the fuck out of my house.”
I look down at Lucia who stares at me with her mouth open, her lower lip trembles and all I want to do is carry her to my truck and drive us a million miles from here so we can escape all of this bullshit. If she would just give me some time, I can fix everything.
“Luce?” I plead as my world starts to fall around down my ears. My chest is tight and I can’t breathe.
Then my damn cell phone starts ringing. I take it out and my aunt Molly’s name flashes on the screen. With a heavy sigh, I answer the call and press the phone to my ear.
“Jackson, he’s awake,” she says with a deep sigh.
“Good,” I breathe again, thankful for some good news.
“But, he said…” she sniffs as though she’s trying not to cry, “he said the men who attacked him told him that you paid them to do it.”
The phone almost drops from my hand. “What?”
“That’s what he told me.”
“Has he spoken to the sheriff?” my jaw ticks as I wait for her answer. Being arrested and thrown in jail by that asshole is the last thing I need.
“Yes, but he didn’t tell him anything. He said his memory is still fuzzy.”
“Fuck!” I sigh, running a hand through my hair.
“We know it wasn’t you, but we need you back here, Jax. He wants to speak with you.”
“I’m kind of in the middle of something in LA,” I say, even though after this morning, I suspect the entire fucking thing is connected. But who the hell is trying to ruin my life, and why?
“I’m worried, Jackson,” she says and this time she cries.
Fuck! My aunt isn’t scared of anything. I hate that I’ve taken the darkness of my life here in LA home to her peaceful ranch.
“I’ll be back by tonight,” I tell her and then end the call.
Alejandro is glaring at me but Lucia won’t even look at me.
“I have to go back to Dallas…” I say to her.
She stands, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “So, go.”
Then she turns away from me and walks away, tearing my heart out as she does. How can she be so quick to believe that I would betray her like that?
I look to her father. My closest friend. My brother in all but blood. “You know that’s not me in those photographs, amigo. Someone is trying to fuck up my life.” I shake my head in annoyance that I never saw it coming.
I’m always so fucking careful. Life as his right hand man has always taught me to be security conscious, but I’ve taken my eye off the ball. I used to be a workaholic, and now I spend every spare second I have with Lucia and Matthias. How do I find the balance to be able to do what I do and have a family? Maybe that’s not meant for men like me.
“Whoever attacked my father told him that it was me responsible,” I add, because I have to tell someone. He is the man who would usually work things through like this with me. He’d be the one at my side figuring out what the hell is going on, but by marrying his daughter, I’ve put him an untenable position. How did I become an actual member of his family and at the same time become less like family to him than ever?
That at least provokes some reaction in him and his brow furrows in confusion. “What?”
“Someone is fucking with me, Alejandro.”
“The photographs? They’re not all fake though?” he asks.
“No. The one of me and Shannon in the stables is real, but it’s old. I would never…”
