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He shakes his head. “We can fix this.”

“No, there is no fixing this.” The only thing left to do is go to my dad and figure out how to fix this mess. God, how did I allow this to happen? How did I not see the signs?

“I can’t let you leave me. Don’t you understand how much I love you? How much I’ve risked for you?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore. This,” I gesture between the two of us before gesturing around the room. “All of this doesn’t matter anymore because it’s been a lie all from the start.”

I toss some clothes in my bag before brushing past him and walking into the bathroom to retrieve my toiletries.

“I’m going to make you see,” he murmurs and I glance over at him as he stands in the doorway to the bathroom. “You’re not leaving until I can make you understand.”

He takes a step back and as it registers what he’s planning to do, I jerk forward to stop him, but it’s too late. The bathroom door slams shut and when I try the handle it doesn’t move. My heart races as I pound on the door.

“Gavin!”

“I’m not the one you need to be worried about,” he says. “But don’t worry. I promise you I’m going to fix this.”

I open my eyes with a shudder and Sawyer squeezes my hand.

“What did you see, baby?”

“Gavin betrayed me. He has this file full of information on me and who knows what else… and when I tried to leave, he made me his prisoner.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Juliette

“And the last thing I remember is that he was holding me as his prisoner,” I say, my stomach rolling as the nine pairs of eyes stare at me with shocked expressions. We have been in the war room for the past twenty minutes going over everything we know about my case so far which isn’t much when you see it all pinned up on a cork board like Streak did. I swear, the more we dig into this, the more hopeless it feels and more than once I’ve found myself wondering if we’re seeing things that aren’t really there.

“For how long?” Chance asks and I shake my head. No matter how much Fuzz, Sawyer, and I worked this morning, we couldn’t break past the memory of Gavin locking me in the bathroom and no matter how much they both assured me that it was okay, I can’t help but feel like I failed.

“I don’t know.”

“How did you make it out?”

I shake my head again as my chest feels tight. “I don’t know.”

“But somehow, you ended up with your dad and y’all got into the accident?” Kodiak asks, his face drawn together in concentration and I nod.

“Correct.”

Blaze sighs. “Do you have any idea what was in the folder?”

“I remember saying that the only reason he would have the information is if he was going to use it against me but when I try to focus on the paper itself, it’s just blurry.”

Storm turns to Streak. “Did you find anything that can help us?”

“Oh, yeah.” he answers, rubbing his hands together. “Juliette gave me permission to speak to her father’s lawyer and he was very helpful. Up until two days before the accident, one Gavin Alexander Hale was listed as the beneficiary on Juliette’s will.”

“And how much money was he going to get in the event of your death?” Fuzz asks and I suck in a breath.

“Before my father’s death, between what was left of my trust fund and what I had made through my business, somewhere around three million.”

He nods. “And after your father’s death?”

“Three hundred and fifty million,” I whisper and a wave of shock ripples through the room.

“Holy fuck,” Chance breathes, eyes wide as he falls back in his chair and scrubs his hand over his short hair.