Page 150 of The Exit Strategy

Every word is calm. Every one a nail going into a coffin she’s building in real time.

“Not here.”

Natalie saunters off toward an associate, happy with the bomb she dropped in my lap.

“It hashername on it.”

“Please, not here, Junie.”

She looks at me, while Hudson scans the room, keeping track of Natalie. I don’t even know where Nana Mae is.

Junie doesn’t look angry. It’s worse than angry. This is the look of a woman who’s just been handed a key that unlocks a door to everything I haven’t told her.

“Why is your work on her wall?”

Every honest answer I have would unspool the last six years in the middle of a ballroom full of people. The foreclosure. Her mother. The loan. Marcus. The letters. The video. The locked drawer. Every protection I’ve constructed around Junie’s safety is dependent on this not being said out loud in a room full of architects and industry press until I’ve managed the fallout in every direction.

And I’m trying. I fucking asked Hudson for help. But none of that matters when I see the pain on Junie’s face.

So I say the stupidest thing I’ve ever said in my life. “It’s complicated.”

“You fucking idiot,” Hudson growls.

But I don’t look at him because Junie’s slipping away from me like rain on a windshield.

I’ve spent a lifetime memorizing her reactions, so I know what it looks like when Juniper Mercer locks down.

The expression that raced across her irises when she was fifteen and found that her mother had been lying about the bills—my first inclination that something was wrong.

The one she wore a month after Nolan’s graduation party, when he told her I was gone and she didn’t know I was hiding upstairs to make sure she was okay.

The one she’s spent weeks telling me, without words, that I’ll understand when I finally cross the line she can’t forgive.

I’ve crossed that line now. I glance at Hudson, but he understands a sinking ship as well as I do.

“Let’s go outside,” he offers.

Junie doesn’t remove her hand from my arm, dragging me along with her. Her destination is clear before we reach it.

Natalie.

Hudson tries to step in front of her.

“Don’t.” That’s all she says to Hudson, and we both see the crash before the accident’s even happened.

We cross the room. I’m in a haze of panic because I can’t find a solution fast enough. Nana Mae’s head turns toward us from her table of allies, and Hudson never leaves my side.

“Whatever you do, don’t say a word,” he seethes.

Natalie looks up from a group of three men as we approach. Her smile is already prepared. She’s a womanwho fights dirty and has years of experience anticipating underhanded tactics.

“I have a question about the memorial,” Junie says without waiting for pleasantries.

“Fuck. This is going sideways fast.” Hudson’s hissed words are drowned out when Natalie’s smile shifts a fraction.

“The—”

“The veterans’ memorial. On the wall.” Junie gestures without looking. “I was admiring it just now.”