“Yeah, it’s not pretty. He went off on me when I found your letter,” she explained, her voice soft. There was no anger or resentment in her voice, and I loved her all the more for it.
“You and James…are…?” I didn’t want to get into their business, but I had been rooting for them since the beginning. James was a good man. Haley deserved a good, passionate love in her life.
“He probably hates me, Kay,” she whispered, her green eyes filling with tears. I shook my head.
“I don’t think that man could ever hate you, Hals. He loves you so fucking much.”
My best friend’s tears fell down her face as her green eyes avoided mine, looking past me to the door.
At least the man you love loved you back.
The man I loved was the most wanted criminal in the Western hemisphere, a cold, heartless blue-eyed demon with blood red hands. .
“What did he say to you before he let me in here?” I whispered, wondering why he had a sudden change of heart.
Her eyes met mine. She knew I was asking about Collin. “Nothing. He wouldn’t even believe the information about the sex trafficking operation his boss is running in the underground. When I started telling him that they were going to put me in it—”
“Stop,” I said, holding my hand up to her as I took a few deep breaths. My stomach twisted up in knots at the thought of her being used against her will by dirty, soulless men. “I need just a second,” I breathed as the images of her turned into me, except the images weren’t just from my imagination.
They were memories.
Rein it in, Kay.
You survived.
I cleared my throat as I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to regain some composure. One, two, three…one, two, three. My body calmed down, and my mind refocused on the present. When I opened my eyes, Haley was staring at me with a concerned look. “Sorry. Weak stomach,” I lied.
She offered me a small smile of sympathy before continuing. “Anyways, when I told him all that he got pissed and stormed out.”
“He believed you; he just didn’t want to,” I said almost to myself, but she heard the words.
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I know Collin. When he can’t handle his emotions, he builds walls,” I explained, knowing he has built a fortress against me.
“There’s something else…” she trailed off.
“There’s more?” My eyebrows rose.
This was the information dump of the century.
She looked at me and grabbed my hands again. “Kay, I need you to promise me you won’t say anything to him. I want to know if he already knows, and the more time we spend here, we can find out.”
“Hals, what are you talking about?”
“You know that Collin is an orphan, right?”
My heart dropped a little. Yes, I knew that. He was an orphan like me. My biological parents were dead, I didn’t remember them. Sheila Jones adopted me when I was young. She was friends with my parents, and she took me in, raising me as her own. She was the only mother I ever knew. I nodded. “That’s what Kevin told us.”
She took a deep breath, wincing slightly at the end. “Hey, take it easy,” I cooed.
“I need to tell you this. James found this out, and he let me see the file, which had the proof inside.”
Shock tapped me on the shoulder at her sentence. James Garner, the uptight FBI agent, let his woman look at a case file? Had the world tilted on its axis?
“What was in the file?”
“Promise me youwon’ttell him,” she pressed.
