“[Confidential] South Eden acquisitions.”
It’s Jay’s old neighborhood.The same neighborhood being emptied house by house, like someone decided it didn’t deserve to exist anymore.And just like that, I do the one thing I’ve promised myself I wouldn’t do.
I reach for his phone and swipe to unlock it.
The passcode is predictable because he’s never changed it.
Mom’s birthday.
The screen unlocks with a soft click that feels too loud in my ears, then the flood hits.
Contracts.
Electronic signatures.
Property transfers filed under fake-sounding LLCs—mapped onto streets I grew up driving through.
Houses that belonged to people with real lives, real histories.
And Jake’s name is stamped on half of it.
My stomach lurches as heat crawls up my throat.My hands won’t stay fucking still.
“Nate?”Ollie’s voice breaks through, soft but startled.“You good?You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I set the phone down fast—too fast.
“Yeah.I’m good.”
Lie.
Huge lie.
The kind you swallow even as it burns on the way down.
The drive homeis quiet and usually I can handle quiet.But not when I see Jake still scrolling through his phone and frantically typing away every couple of minutes.I keep glancing at him, trying to see the kid he was and trying not to see the man Scott is turning him into.
By the time we pull into the driveway, my pulse is a hammer beneath my skin.When we’re inside, I finally say something.
“Jake.”
He turns.“What?”
“I’m going to ask you one last time.”My voice sounds like someone else.Older, tired.“What’s Scott got you doing?”
He freezes and a flicker of something—fear, guilt, recognition—crosses his face.
“What?”He says it too fast, too sharp.
“Please,” my throat feels raw.“Don’t lie to me.I saw the emails on your phone.What is he having you do?”
“You went through my fucking phone?”
“Answer the question.”
“Wow.This is a new low, even for you.”
There it is again—that fear underneath the anger.The kind that makes your voice shake even when you try to hide it.
