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“Where did you go?”
She sighs. “It’s a long story.”
“Tell me.”
So she does.
She tells me the story about how she met Jack. How he was looking for us on behalf of his father and hadn’t realized who Aimee was before they started dating. When the truth came out, Jack had to hide Aimee away to protect her from Padraic, and then put a ring on her finger for good measure. But Padraic had punished Jack for their engagement by hiring Connor to take him out in a fighting ring.
Connor had lost, and Jack defected to start his own organization with Aimee at his side.
“It’s quite literally underground,” she concludes. “But it’s the only way we could escape Padraic and keep theDead Eyesoff our backs.”
By this point, we’re both sitting up on the seat. Aimee, with her legs crossed, faces me while I hug my knees to my chest. She wasn’t lying; it was a long story.
“I can’t believe Connor did that,” I huff as I absorb it all.
“Can’t you?” Aimee says a little resentfully.
I grimace. Maybe I wouldn’t have a month ago, but seeing my brother again and the man he has become… Partnering with his sworn enemy to “save” his sister? What lengths would he have gone to if Arnie hadn’t foundme? I don’t really want to think about it.
“So you’re a part of all this now too?” I ask, looking at the expensive shoes Aimee had kicked off onto the floor.
“I never wanted this,” she replies firmly. “Not for me and certainly not for you. But I’m in too deep now. Padraic will stop at nothing to get his revenge on our family. That’s why you need to leave New York and go back to LA before he can find you.”
“It’s a little too late for that…” I say with a sad smile.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a long story,” I parrot back with a wince.
She places a hand on mine encouragingly. But I can see her heart breaking as she listens to my story. How I witnessed Douglas Jones’ assassination and how Arnie had taken me away. I tell her about seeing Connor again and how theDead Eyeshad found us at Alpine and burned down Arnie’s house.
“Every second, I feel like I’m being hit with a nuclear bomb of information,” I confess as I wring my hands. “There was so much you never told me.”
Aimee turns away, waving at the barista for some more coffee. When she looks back at me, her eyes are brimming with tears.
“I’m so sorry, Roisin,” she whispers. “I thought hiding you at Julliard would keep you safe. I did everything I could to make sure he wouldn’t find you. I even took your name.”
Something hard settles in my stomach. “So you’re the mastermind behind hiring Douglas Jones as my babysitter?”
“He was keeping you safe and concealed, yes. I won’t apologize for that,” Despite her tear-stained face, she still manages to look intimidatingly defiant.
Still, the pain of his loss ricochets through me. It festers as the barista fills up our mugs and scuttles away, clearly uncomfortable by the tension.
“He was my friend, Aimee,” I bite out. “The only person who consoled me after you left. I cared about him, and then I found out he was being paid to care about me? How do you think that felt?”
“Roisin, I–”
“No,” I interrupt. “I need to say this because if I don’t, I think I might start to hate you even more. I trusted him. I told him everything. I put my hopes and dreams into our relationship, and then suddenly he was gone, and he was n-never the person I thought he was.”
Aimee is openly crying now, but she doesn’t interrupt. Instead, she simply waits for my breathing to slow down and for me to smooth my shaking hands around the warm mug before me.
“He did care about you,” Aimee whispers empathetically. “Douglas was Jack’s friend; we never paid him to do anything. He’d give us little updates every few days on how you were. They were the only thing keeping me sane while we were underground because there was so much of you in every message.”
She pulls out her phone and hands it to me. “Look for yourself.”
Hesitantly, I look down at the string of messages. All from a few weeks ago.
