She looked stunned by my outburst, but I saw the hurt in her eyes too. As I turned to leave, I heard her mumble about West and something he’d said, but I didn’t care. I stormed out of her room across the house to my own room, devastated that my best friend had just accused me of trying to steal the man she wanted. Burying my face in the pillow, I let the tears flow from all the frustration and hurt bottled up inside me. How could she think I would ever do that to her?
I wanted to believe she’d lashed out at me because of her problems at work, but her words had hurt. All the money in the world meant nothing without Tristan, and she knew that. She knew how much I loved him, so why would she think I’d ever go after Gage? And that she thought I’d ever break the girlfriend code and chase after someone my best friend wanted, even if there was no Tristan in the picture, was crazy. Since that first day in college, we’d been like sisters. My own sister had never rejoiced in anything that made me happy, but Jordan did. From the moment we met, I’d been able to tell her whatever was in my heart and she supported me, and I’d always been there to do the same for her. I’d never betray her, and it hurt like hell that she could even entertain the idea that I would.
I needed to clear the air with her. No matter what else was going on, she was my best friend. Hurt or not, I had to make her understand there was nothing between Varo and me. How I’d ever explain the two of us being seen as a couple in public was beyond me at that moment, but I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
Just as I sat up to go back to her room, my phone vibrated with a text. Looking down, I saw the first words scroll across the top of my phone.
I think it might be better if I move
I quickly swiped the phone and read her entire message. I think it might be better if I move back to the city for a while. Maybe we just need some time apart. I know you’ll be safe here with all these people to take care of you.
My heart sank as her words sat there staring up at me in orange on the screen. What hurt more were the ones she hadn’t typed in. That somehow I’d changed and didn’t need her anymore. By the time I reached her room, she was gone. She’d cleaned out her dresser and much of her closet, but most of everything she owned was still there. I ran to the garage to catch her, getting there just in time to see Jensen drive through the gate at the bottom of the driveway.
I typed out I don’t want to lose another person in my life and clicked Send. All I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and close my eyes. I already missed her. When she didn’t text back, I walked back to my room and climbed into bed, the smell of buttered popcorn still hanging in the air. It wasn’t even nine o’clock at night, but it didn’t matter.
Grabbing my phone from the nightstand, I typed out my last message for the day, as I always did before I went to sleep, but unlike usual, it wasn’t a profession of love. Losing my best friend had put me in a mood that was anything but loving.
Jordan moved out because she thinks I’m with Varo now and she liked him. I hope this whole plan of yours is worth it. Now it’s just me, Varo, West, and Jensen. Maybe it would be better if you got rid of West and Jensen so the world really could see Varo and me as the loving couple we are. Just a thought.
Chapter Five
Tristan
As I lay in bed awake just staring at the ceiling, I heard the phone vibrate on the night table next to me. It was the one Nina messaged me on. Picking it up, I read her text so full of anger—at me, at the entire situation we found ourselves in—and I couldn’t blame her. That didn’t mean her mention of her and Varo as a loving couple didn’t make my insides churn from jealousy. Just the thought of it made me want to race back to the house and remind her how much I loved her.
Except I couldn’t. Doing that would put her in as much danger as I was in, and the last thing I wanted to do was get her hurt in all this.
Fuck. I hated this. I’d intentionally avoided the whole business thing with my brother and father for this very reason. All this cloak and dagger shit was what they’d always reveled in. I didn’t care. If it weren’t for Nina, I would have handed Karl the damn notebook at the beginning of all this and walked away to live on a secluded island somewhere. The problem was that whatever he was looking for didn’t seem to be in that notebook.
I’d combed through those pages until I knew their contents by heart. How my brother and father were the monsters I’d never imagined they could be. How the Cashen family had paid more than any should for my family’s greed and callousness. Some days, I sat with the tablet in my hands, unable to open the cover because I didn’t want to face the ugliness inside. On those days, I hated the name Stone more than I ever thought possible. I wasn’t like them, no matter what lies I’d told in my life, but the real fear that what they were wasn’t something I could choose but something innate in me terrified me to the bone.
Other days, I did nothing but read those lines over and over, needing for some masochistic reason to be reminded of my family’s crimes and the terrible consequences that had resulted. Not that I would ever forget what they’d done. The memory of Taylor’s treatment of that young girl and her tragic death, along with Judge Cashen’s murder and the killing of all those innocent men, women, and children all for the sake of saving my father from losing some sexual harassment lawsuit would forever be imprinted on my mind and my soul.
I’d be stained by their guilt for the rest of my life.
But what about my mother? Had she known what my father and brother had done? There was no mention of her in any of Joseph Edwards’ notes about Amanda Cashen’s suicide and her father’s murder, but the thought of what she may have known loomed as an unanswered question in my mind every time I thought about what Nina’s father had uncovered.
Sleep wouldn’t come if my mind continued to race with all these thoughts, but I couldn’t stop them. They spun in my brain like some tormented top, slamming into good memories and corrupting even them. Of all my family, my mother had always been an island of kindness in a sea of ruthless behavior, a quiet presence I now understood I never appreciated enough. While my father and brother had worked to rearrange the world to suit their twisted desires, my mother had been the often silent, gentle force behind our family.
Nearly invisible to even me, she’d been an angel among devils who looked on her with distaste and an indulgent son who ignored her in favor of satisfying his hedonistic soul. But as she watched the three men in her life do as they liked with little regard for those they hurt, had she known or even had the tiniest hint of what they truly were?