“He can talk! Ashamed, then?”
“Listen, Ada, just take me wherever you want to take me, and then do what you want with the ledger. I know you think the worst of me, but I was only trying to find it so that I could give it back to Sharpe and keep him away from me and those who are close to me. Got it?”
She studied him silently for a moment.
“I do not doubt your intentions. I do doubt your ability to take this all on yourself. There’s nothing wrong in accepting some help.”
“From you?” he said incredulously.
“From anyone,” she finished. “Listen, Jonny, out of everyone you know, I am the one who is most aware of Sharpe and Blackwood’s operations. You can work alone, or we can work together, sharing what we know to try to get you away from him and living your own life again.”
“What’s in this for you?” he asked suspiciously. “And how can you even help?”
She smiled slowly. “I can provide you with information about how Sharpe operates,” she said. “My father supplied him with ammunition for years. He knows the who’s who of the entire operation. I can also help you when needed. Like tonight.”
“I was hoping to give him the ledger and be done with it,” he said, but she could tell from the resignation in his eyes that he knew the truth as well as she did.
“Jonny,” she said, shifting closer to him, looking deeply into the depths of his warm brown eyes with their hint ofgold. “As much as we can hope that to be true, we both know that this will never be the end. If you give him the ledger, he will see it as you agreeing to work with him. He will suck you back under, and you will never be free of him.”
“So, what’s the alternative?” Jonny practically shouted at her, realizing in the moment that they had continued to lean toward one another as they spoke, and she was now just a breath away from him. “That I don’t give him the ledger? He will keep coming after those I love until I return it, and then he will be more powerful than ever with the information within it.”
“I have a plan,” she said. “And the end? That is what I want from this. To bring him down. Him, and everyone alongside him.”
Jonny could only stare at her. Part of him was so deeply emasculated by the fact that he had to rely on her for help, that he hadn’t come through this alone.
The other part of him wanted her so desperately that it was becoming harder and harder to hide the fact.
The best way to do so, he considered, was as he had been doing — defending himself by pushing her away.
“You really think that you can take down Sharpe?”
“I think thatwecan take down the entire organization. Sometimes you can’t go at everything alone, Jonny.”
He had tried to do things with others before, but all that had gotten him was betrayal. Even last year, when he had joined forces with his new teammates, in the end, they still questioned him, still doubted him, still wondered if he had truly left his old life behind.
“You think it’s better to do it with you?”
“Your friends care about you, Jonny,” she said in a softer tone. “Even if you don’t believe it.”
He snorted. “I’ve seen that play out, luv,” he said. “No one will ever truly believe I’ve changed.”
“You’re wrong in that.”
“Am I, though?” he challenged her. “I miss one practice, and Rhys is on my ass. You didn’t want to have anything to do with me.”
“No, I didn’t,” she said calmly. “How was I supposed to trust the man who I witnessed showing up at my house, demanding my father to go along with Blackwood’s demands or else he would hurt me and my entire family?”
Jonny took a sharp inhale. Hehadgone to her father’s house, yes. Had made threats. But he had never followed through on them, nor had he ever had any intention to do so. He couldn’t say the same for Blackwood’s other men.
“I’m sorry,” he finally muttered. “I would never have hurt you.”
“I’m growing to believe you,” she said. “But you have to understand where I’m coming from.”
“And you have to realize that your father supplied guns for all of Blackwood’s operations. That hardly makes you innocent.”
“Do you take the blame for your father’s actions? Your brother’s?”
He didn’t have much to say to that.
