“I’m not a bad person, okay? I get how it sounds.” She stood and walked over to the window, hands twisted together. “But when I saw the two of you, it made it all startlingly real in a way I wasn’t prepared for, and I knew I’d never be able to go through with it.”
I scoffed. “So if you hadn’t come with your dad that night, then it would’ve been easy? To throw Jake’s life away without so much as a second thought?”
“I—”
“Hey!” Jake stood too, irritation all too apparent. “Why are you both assuming that I’d lose in this fight?”
I dropped my half-shift and faced him. “It’s not really the point I’m trying to make here.”
“I get that, but this situation is shitty enough as it is without the pair of you writing me off as useless too.” He glared at me, every part of him tense as he waited for me to say something.
Something he could argue with if I knew him, and Ididknow him. That was why I also knew he wouldn’t have reacted this way if his head wasn’t all messed up from everything going on.
Fuck,myhead hurt. I could only imagine how he must be feeling. “I’m sorry,” I said, wanting to reach for him, but I kept my hands by my side. “I’m just trying to get to the truth.”
Jake grunted.
“I wouldn’t have done it anyway,” Myla said, voice quiet as she turned to look out the window. “Even if I hadn’t gone with my dad that night. Killing Faris was one thing, both Izzy and me had reason to want him gone.” She glanced at Jake. “I wouldn’t have asked her to fight an innocent to the death.”
I wanted to believe her.
For no other reason than if we couldn’t find a way out of this, then Jake would end up marrying her, and I didn’t want him to be tied to someone cold enough to do something like that.
“Look at me and tell me that’s the whole truth. That you’re not hiding anything else.” I walked to stand in front of her, needing to look her right in the eyes when she answered.
She let me look my fill, chin still tipped up with a determination I found myself liking despite everything she’d just said. “That’s everything. I swear.”
Instinct had never once let me down, and I trusted that gut feeling telling me that what Myla said was the truth. That we could trust her.
“I believe you.” I stepped back so I had them both in my eyeline. “But what do we do now?” The two blank expressions staring back at me added to the weight already sitting in my stomach.
We were all fucked.
