“We?” Simone’s eyebrows draw together. “Agent, no offense, but what does the FBI have to do with my ex-husband?”
I look over at Matthew and shake my head.Nice going, hot shot.
He shrugs.
With an exhale, I look back at Simone. “I don’t know how to sugar coat this, so I’m just going to go ahead and say it…Travis is a capo in the mob.”
“A what?” Simone asks.
“Think of him as a military captain who reports directly to the higher ups and commands his own soldiers,” Matthew explains.
Simone pales. “What? No, that’s not possible. I—"
“You couldn’t have known,” Matthew interrupts. “The mob is very good at hiding its tracks, Mrs. Slade. Travis is no different.”
Simone twists to face Bennett and tears fill her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
Bennett draws her to her feet and pulls her in for a hug. “Donotever apologize for that man. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
She swallows and looks away.
Bennett fixes Matthew with a look of steely eyed determination. “Whatever you need, agent, you have my full support. I’m not going to let anything happen to my family.”
“Well, then, you can help me convince Jen to go undercover,” Matthew responds. “It’s really important for us to move quickly. There’s a limited window of opportunity here to re-introduce Jen into the fold without drawing too much attention to her, but if we don’t act now, we probably won’t get another chance.”
I push myself up to my feet and shove my hair out of my eyes. “There’s something I need to tell you before we start debating the pros and cons.”
Silence stretches across the room.
I wander over to the window and push the curtain aside. I hide my trembling hands behind my back. They deserve to know the truth, no matter how hard it is to talk about. Especially Simone and Bennett who’ve done nothing but help me. They were my family, closer to me than my own ever was. And secrets were never going to make a bad situation better.
I’ve kept my past to myself, afraid of the shame and judgment it would bring. Now that I finally have a family of my own with the Slades, I don’t want to lose them because of the reckless mistakes I made when I was younger. I want to protect them, and the best way to do this is to come forward with everything.
I spin around to face them.
“The reason why the FBI approached me to go undercover in the first place is because I was a part of the mob.”
Simone goes as white as a sheet, swaying a bit on her feet, and the surprise on Bennett’s face as he draws his wife closer breaks my heart. I already feel a wedge arising between us.
Matthew sits upright and stills.
“I graduated school with a lot of debt, and when my parents became addicts, the debt just kept piling up. I left home when I was sixteen, and I worked several jobs just to make ends meet, but it still wasn’t enough. Whenthey—whenIwas approached, I was barely surviving. One small job after the other, and before I knew it, I was too caught up in it and there was no way out— alive.”
A lump rises in the back of my throat.
Somewhere in the house, a clock ticked, chiming five.
I wipe my hands on the back of my skirt before letting them fall to my sides. “I’m not proud of what I did, but I did what I had to do in order to survive.”
Bennett lifts up his head and looks directly at me. “What exactly did you do?”
“Delivered messages, mostly. Sometimes, I had to deliver packages too. But I always told myself that as long as I didn’t ask questions, it was fine. But it wasn’t. None of it was, and I should’ve never gotten mixed up with them to begin with.”
Simone stares at me, her expression ashes.
I avert my gaze and fix it on a spot on the wall over her head. “I’m sorry. I know that I’ve brought them right to your door, but I didn’t know any better. I know what they do to people who betray them. I’ve seen them destroy entire families, torture then killed loved ones. They don’t know mercy, and they’ll stop at nothing to get what they want.” I shake my head. “If I could go back in time and change things, I would.”
But I couldn’t.