“I love you.”
“I love you, too, but you’re scaring me right now.”
“Promise me that no matter what happens, you won’t leave me.”
“Did you cheat on me?” Tears burn my eyes.
“No, baby. Never.”
“Are you having a baby with another woman?”
“Fuck, Leighton, no.”
He pulls me to his chest.
“Is my sister okay?”
“As far as I know. Shit, come on. I think I’m just making it worse.”
We head down the hall. I’m crying and I don’t know why. The breakroom is full and questions hit us the second we step inside, but Gaige doesn’t answer any of them as we cross over and go into Wren’s office.
Gaige has talked about the guy so much over the last week, I feel like I know him. I know he’s the one who sent the texts about Lala’s heart attack.
“Wren,” Gaige says as he closes us in the freezing office.
My arms immediately go around me, a false sense of security. Several computer screens cover the desks, and there’s too much information on them for me to understand a single thing. Wren’s face is somber when he turns around.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Gaige snaps. “I won’t keep secrets from her any longer. Just say it.”
“Hey, pretty girl.”
I snap my head to the side and see a bird prancing back and forth on the other side of the room.
“Not now, Puff,” Wren mutters.
“Don’t cockblock, man. Hey, baby.”
“Wren!” Gaige snaps.
“Okay,” Wren grumbles. “Shit.”
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Your dad has been embezzling money from Redmond for years,” Wren begins.
I gasp. “He wouldn’t.”
“I thought he was embezzling money,” Wren says. “I’ve been digging, and it’s taken weeks, but I followed a lead, and I just found some new shit.”
“He’s not?” I verify.
“Your mother is.”
“No,” I argue. “She doesn’t need the money.”
“She doesn’t,” Wren agrees. “But she does want revenge. It seems she found out about your dad’s affair a very long time ago, possibly shortly after it started and has been making it look like he’s been skimming, and that Margaret is involved.”
I huff. Now this sounds like my mom. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Have her arrested,” I say without hesitation. “If she’s a criminal, she needs to go to prison.”
“Yeah?” Wren asks, looking a little surprised. “And if your dad was the one stealing?”
I hesitate just a half second longer. “Same goes.”
“Ruthless,” Wren says in awe. “I love it. You’re sure?”
I nod.
“I’ll set things in motion.”
Gaige turns me so I’m looking at him.
“You don’t hate me because I knew about the embezzling?”
I blink up at him. “Just how much do you know?”
He swallows, having the nerve to look embarrassed. “Probably too much, but if it’s any consolation, I really wanted to learn about all of it from you.”
“I didn’t know the company was being embezzled from, Gaige.”
He scoffs, pressing his lips to my forehead. “I know that, Leighton.”
I pinch his side, the same way I did at his parents’ house earlier, and he takes it. I promised to love him forever, and I will, but that doesn’t mean I can’t torture him a little for it.
“We’ll talk about it when we get home.”
“You still love me?”
“Always,” I tell him.
“Daddy needs love, too!” the bird screeches as Gaige walks us out of the office.
Gaige is whispering in my ear all the things he wants to do to me to make up for the secrets he’s kept when silence fills the room. I want to bury my face and hide, thinking that they’re looking at us, and maybe they overheard something he said but then I feel Gaige freeze.
I look up, and the day just gets worse.
There’s an angry woman standing in the middle of the room. Her hand is clasping a round tub with a red switch on the top, a wire running from the bottom of it to the inside of a leather jacket.
“Finnegan Jenkins!” she screams.
The Irishman turns from the counter near the coffee machine, an unimpressed look on his face as he lifts his KISS ME, I’M IRISH coffee cup to his lips.
With her free hand, she rips open her jacket, revealing a series of boxes at her waist. I don’t watch much television, but I’ve seen enough to know exactly what we just walked in on, seen enough to know it wouldn’t matter if we were in this room or in Wren’s office. We won’t survive the blast.
The door at our backs opens, and the bird flies out.
“Take cover, we’re going to fucking die!”
Someone on the sofa chuckles, and I’m too terrified to look over and see who it was, but apparently, they’re as terrified as me if nervous laughter is their go-to in a situation like this.
My heart is racing, and I cling to Gaige, wanting to tell him I love him a million times more before I die.