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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…”
“How old?” he snaps.
I rub a hand over my jaw. The last time I went to the ranch before I started dating Lucia, Shannon and I hooked up. “It’s gotta be at least eighteen months.”
“So you were being watched or followed for the past eighteen months then?” he scowls. “How haven’t we known about this?”
“Maybe it was just while I was in Dallas?” I suggest. I’m more relaxed while I’m there. It’s the place where I allow myself to switch off a little. “If someone had been following me, watching me in LA, I would have known. Someone would have seen something. I’m sure of it.”
“I sure fucking hope so.”
“They must have been watching me on my last few trips,” I say, thinking out loud. I look past him at the house. “I have to go figure out what’s going on. I don’t feel like she’d be safe at the barn house on her own.”
“I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to go anywhere with you right now, anyway,” he says, the cold edge in his tone still there.
I suck in a breath. She’s my wife and her place is at my side. But I can’t get the image of her walking away from me out of my mind. She didn’t even give me a chance.
My head is spinning with it all. I feel like I can’t breathe with the weight in my chest. I need answers and I’m not going to find any here.
