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Nyla and Amelia immediately snapped it open. After looking at several pages, they frowned, and Nyla cursed under her breath. One of the other agents, a younger bloke who looked like he was in his mid twenties, took the book from her, took a couple of photos with his phone, and then put it on some machine kind of thing. "We'll send this to headquarters. Have them evaluate it. They'll have something before we pull in."
Nyla nodded. "We heard the gunshot. That's why we came in. What happened?"
"One of my father's men found me in the office grabbing the ledger. He tried to stop me, so I shot him. I think it was just a flesh wound. I'm sure he's fine."
"Which one of your father's men? We want to account for everyone."
"It doesn't matter who. Besides, I don't care about any of them. What about my father?"
Amelia looked at Nyla, and Nyla shook her head. "I'm sorry. We didn't get him."
I banged my head against the side of the van. "Are you kidding me? All of that and you still didn't get him?"
"Not yet, but we will. With this evidence, we're going to get Igno too."
I opened my eyes. "Well, I hope you're happy. I hope you two got everything that you needed because my life is in complete shambles."
Amelia placed a hand on my knee. "Don’t say that. You came out on the other side of this. You can go back to your life."
"Can I? Can I just go back to school next week as if none of this ever happened?"
"Igno is on the run. Your father is on the run. There's no reason for them to come for you. And you’ll be protected. We wouldn't just put you back out in the wild without someone watching over you. You'll be fine."
I lifted my head and then shook it. "I am anything but fine."
For the next two hours, I closed my eyes and tried not to worry about Westin. I tried not to wonder if he'd gotten help or if he had a way out. I just couldn't get past the look on his face when he caught me in my father's office.
The dread and emptiness threatened to consume me. All along. He’d been the thing to fear.
I couldn't believe how things had gone down. All I had to do was get the damn ledger and give it to Amelia. That was it. One ledger, one last task, and I was home free to be with Westin, and my father could go to jail. Dangerous but simple. Instead, Igno had shoved Westin and I between a rock and a hard place.
Once we reached one of the bland stone buildings in Central London that could have easily been a bank, or a prison, or a school, for all I knew, we climbed out of the van, and Amelia and Nyla lead me to the equivalent of what looked like a small conference room, or maybe an interrogation room. "Have a seat. We'll get you something to eat."
I shook my head. "I'm not hungry."
Amelia sighed and sat opposite me. "Can you tell us anything else about what happened today?"
"No. Like I said, I don't know anything. I didn't know Igno was even going to be there until he showed up at breakfast this morning. The moment I saw him, that's when you got my SOS prompt. Then he threatened to kill me unless Julian delivered the ledger. Westin and I were locked in my room for hours."
Nyla nodded and looked down at her pen. "Right, Westin St. James. He has worked for your father for a long time."
"I guess so. It turns out I didn't really know much about him."
Nyla lifted a brow. "Okay, but didn't you two grow up together?"
I shrugged. "He lived with our housekeeper on the edge of the grounds. We saw each other sometimes, and he became my bodyguard a few years ago. But that didn't last long. He abandoned me. He only came back a few weeks ago."
"Where did he go when he left?"
"I don't know." To kill your sister. Or…Maybe he just made her disappear like he said. Either way. He made sure I never saw her again.
Fuck my life. How had I fallen for it all again? Believing that Westin cared about me. Believing that I was not completely alone in this world. I’d trusted Westin, opened up my heart like a fool. He made sure I would never see her again.
That’s not him. You know it’s not. He wouldn’t. You know him.
I shoved those thoughts away. The truth was I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe in him. But that wasn't the true Westin.
As much as I wanted to believe he wasn't the one pulling the strings, I couldn't. All this time he'd known I was looking for her, and he'd said nothing. I couldn't forgive that.
