AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We know it wasn’t you,” Theo repeated. “After you… left, we had a discussion that—” He glanced at Jax and Luke, then slightly shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. What does, is that after the shock and hurt passed, we remembered you mentioned you lost your key, so we used Helix to track it. Every key for the chalet is coded with a personal identifier, and because Helix is also in charge of the security for the whole resort, key card checkpoints allowed us to track your key.”
Jax moved suddenly and disappeared behind me as Theo spoke. He returned a moment later with a laptop and set it in front of me. Theo’s words repeated in my mind as Jax hit the spacebar and a video played.
“We think you lost your key in the bar last night,” Jax said, “because the time you came home yesterday didn’t match with your key. Your key went on a journey to a hotel room, but we were able to confirm that you were here.”
“I didn’t notice because Tabitha let me in last night,” I murmured, watching the screen. The video showed the lounge, and my heart punched through my chest when Felix suddenly slipped through the door. “Felix.”
“He slipped in when you were busy with the kids at lunch, and Jax was busy with Marina,” Theo said. “I hope that you will be able to forgive us for reacting so quickly at the information. It was a lot of panic and pain to process.”
I glanced at Luke who hadn’t said a word. His eyes were on the Christmas tree in the corner, his hand up to his mouth as if deep in thought. If there was one thing that was unforgivable, it was surely my role in his accident.
“So Felix was here?” I asked hoarsely, eyes back on the screen.
“Yes. We don’t have cameras in the bedrooms, but he is on the feed going into that corridor,” Jax said, “which is good enough for me but not for a smart lawyer.”
“So luckily, I’d seen Felix before,” Theo said.
I glanced up at him. “How?”
“When we were looking into things, we only had the photo in his criminal record to go by; thanks to Marina. When I saw the footage of him though, I realized he looks different, and that I had seen him before in the bar. With Marina.”
“Marina?” My eyes widened, and I looked at Jax, who shrugged.
“She never could resist a bad boy,” he muttered.
“They seemed pretty close, so it definitely wasn’t their first meeting,” Theo said.
“But… how?” Marina and Felix knowing each other was so unexpected that I had no idea how to process the information.
“Unclear,” Theo admitted, “but she’ll crack soon, I’m sure. As Jax said, she likes the bad boys, and if they both frequented the bar, it’s not difficult to see how they could have crossed paths. With her desire to screw over Jax, and his desire to ruin you, they probably thought they were a match made in heaven.”
“Hell’s more like,” Luke scoffed. I glanced over at him, willing him to look at me, but his gaze still avoided mine. Understandable.
“It gets even better,” Jax sighed deeply. “Marina called exactly two minutes before Felix broke in. And she kept me on the call until two minutes after he had left. Which wasn’t hard with the shit she was saying, but the timing is enough that she was surely just playing distraction. With you all at lunch and Marina causing a big enough stink that the guys would support me, Felix was free to sneak in, plant that shit, and leave.”
In all my wildest theories during my time in that jail cell, this didn’t even come close.
“Holy shit,” I murmured, watching the footage loop in front of me. “That’s insane.”
“Insane enough to be true,” Theo pointed out.
“Marina has been grasping at straws to make me look like a terrible father,” Jax sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I think hearing about our fake engagement scared her. She saw us becoming a perfect family while she had nothing.”
“Felix… knew I was engaged,” I said softly as I remembered our argument. “And he kept calling you John like she did the first time I met her. I just… I never made any kind of connection there.”
“I doubt anyone would have,” Theo said, “but the evidence speaks for itself.”
Nausea churned in my gut and I swallowed hard, pressing my trembling hands flat against my thighs. “So… I’m not going to jail?”
“No.” Jax touched my arm. “Not at all. I’m sorry—we’re sorry for not trusting you immediately. The shock of the drugs after that call with Marina, it was all a lot to process, and I let my feelings get the better of me.”
Fighting tears at this point was impossible. Jax’s words almost didn’t breach the fog of relief that descended over me. I wasn’t going to jail?
I wasn’t going. Fuck.
“I understand,” I said croakily. “You have your kids to think about and—and a lot was revealed.” I glanced at Luke who finally lifted his gaze to meet mine, but his expression was unreadable. It added to the unsettled feeling in my stomach, and I pressed my lips together.
“I’m so sorry,” I gasped as the tears spilled down my raw cheeks.
