Page 87 of Jesse

“Then what?” I ask. “He’ll come after me and I’ll end up a headline on a newspaper taped to a window?”

“No,” Zach says. “That’s not Johnny. All that was our fathers.”

I look at him. “They were assassins?”

They both shrug.

“You’re telling me they killed those people and in the same breath you’re telling me you don’t know?”

Nothing but blank stares.

I open the cabinet.

CHAPTER THIRTY - JESSE

It’s empty. She opens all of them, and all of them are empty.

But it doesn’t even matter. She saw more than she should’ve. And she knows. At least she knows as much as we do.

“Can we go now?” I ask. “Did you see what you needed to see?”

And suddenly I’m angry with her. No, I’m pissed at her.

So I don’t wait. I just walk away.

“Jesse,” she calls.

But I can’t even wait long enough to call the elevator. I just punch the code for the fire stairs, open the door so hard it smashes against the wall with a bang, and take the steps three at a time back up to my floor.

“Jesse, wait,” Emma calls, following me. Her footsteps are soft, in stark contrast to my loud ones.

When I reach the landing I whirl around to face her. “You know what, forget it, Emma. Just…go on. Think what you want. Judge me, hate me, whatever. I brought you here because I thought we understood each other. I thought we had something. I thought, at the very least, you’d give me a fucking chance. Why? I don’t know. I should’ve known better. That little drugging and kidnapping stunt should’ve told me just how understanding you are. I didn’t leave you, OK? My fucking uncle died. I was a mess. My brother came and got me. Maybe I am a liar. Fine. I lied to your business partners when I fucked them. I told them whatever they wanted to hear to get what I wanted. How was I supposed to know a few days later I’d meet you? And then when I said all those things to you, I meant them because it was you.”

I pause and take a breath. See if she’s got anything to say.

She doesn’t.

But I’m not done yet.

“We’re good. OK? Everything that happened Friday night is forgotten. I never went to the hospital. Zach Photoshopped that toxicology report. I was lying. Again. So just go back to your life. Forget about me, and my family, and my fucked-up house.”

She’s three steps below me and she recoils back as I rant, so that I suddenly feel like a mountain of rage as I hover over her.

Her brown eyes are wide and there is no innuendo in her raised brows.

She’s conflicted. I see that. Maybe she wants to get on this ride with me. Maybe she doesn’t.

I point up the stairs. “You know what’s up there? At the top?”

She says nothing.

“Johnny. That’s who. Those cabinets were empty but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“What?”

I back up until I hit the wall of the landing and lean against it. So fucking tired of carrying this burden. She can still opt out. But if I tell her the rest, then she can’t opt out. She’s just in… whether she wants to be or not.

“Forget it,” I say. I want to walk away and leave her behind. But I don’t know if I could live with myself if I did that.