Jackson Stiles, Road to Redemption (Road to Redemption #1)(103)

“Apparently, there’s some history there, with your dad and Threshold.” She hesitates when she says the word dad, and when she’s done, it takes me a couple seconds to compute what she just insinuated.

“I’m sorry. Did you just f*cking say my father is personally acquainted with the douchebag who’s been wreaking havoc in Redemption?”

“I didn’t say personally,” she corrects me. “I just said there was some history there. Enough to make Threshold think Walker wanted in on an illegal operation that’s been going on under his direction for at least five years or so.”

Definitely longer.

“I don’t know all the details, yet, but─”

“What do you mean, yet?” I interject. And why do I have a bad feeling about this shit?

“I mean Walker kind of promised me an exclusive on the story if I promised to play tonight through like I was on Threshold’s team.”

Awesome.

“Another exclusive, you’ll be set for life.”

“Or at least get a real investigative reporting job somewhere, right?” Her face beams with excitement.

I’m not feeling it so much.

“Sorry,” she tells me. Her voice is low and soft.

I shake it off, though. “Keep going.” I peek over at my dad, who’s chatting it up with Walker on the down-low. I’m gonna need to dig into that BS later.

“All I really know is Walker needed an in to get to Threshold. He’d already made some sort of connection with your father a while back, and once I came into the picture, it was a done deal. Tonight was a test for both of us. He thought we’d passed until you showed up. And then your dad pulled out the Uzi.” She laughs. “Guess he didn’t see that one coming.”

“Nobody did.” I’m still trying to comprehend that shit.

“How did you even know where we were, anyway?” she asks and I think about Thomas for a second or two and how maybe there really is a conscious underneath that drug-dealing, potential psychopathic facade of his.

Nah.

“A friend tipped me off.”

Green nods and turns quiet. “Tell me you believe me.” She tugs at my hand, which is still firmly gripping onto hers. “I really didn’t know anything about any of this until we were at that bar.”

I search her eyes for answers while she continues.

“There wasn’t enough time to explain, and I knew you’d try to talk me out of it. But we needed this. We needed to get him, Stiles. Tonight was it.”

She doesn’t twitch, or tuck, or lose eye contact one time.

She’s being truthful.

She wasn’t screwing me over.

She’s not planning on it either, despite whatever plans Walker might’ve had.

Not that it should surprise me, but I let out a sigh of relief anyway.

“Listen.” I don’t do apologies. It leaves too much out there for people to hang over your head for too long. “I am sorry about that whole having my dick in the evil temptress comment back there. I didn’t mean─”

“Yes you did.” At first she’s bitch-faced, but then I see it.

A grin.

A smug, pompous, sexy grin.

“A ‘thank you’ and an ‘I’m sorry’ in one night. I don’t know what to say, Stiles.”

Me either. So I pull her into my arms and wrap them securely around her frame instead. I’m f*cking tired, and I use her shoulder as a pillow of sorts, burying my face into her hair, like it’s the last time this’ll happen, even though, if I have anything to say about it, that’s far from the f*cking truth.

Her arms slide around me too, and when she leans in closer, I know for now, she doesn’t harbor too many hard feelings about the shit I said outside by the fence.

The two of us, here, like this, in this f*cked-up barn, in the middle of this f*cked-up situation, takes some of the confusion and pain away.

I find myself breathing a little easier than normal.

Part of me hates to admit this, another part is relieved, though—having the knowledge that there’s someone out there to count on.

Her name being Emma Green.

I keep my eyes closed for a few seconds. When the moment’s over and there’s some space in between us again, I breathe out everything I’ve been holding in. When our foreheads rest against each other, everything feels right. As miniscule as it may seem, I feel relief because the shitstorm is over.

At least the worst part of it is.

A small win, in my book. I’ll take what I can get.

Green slowly pulls away. I half smile at her, glad to have gone down this road with her. Relieved we’re both still alive, and hopeful that it’s just the beginning of letting a few things heal inside.

Her eyes narrow at me. “You totally thought I was gonna shoot you.”

I admit, the accusation is surprising yet not completely unexpected. I wave that shit off anyway.

I stand up straight and start off toward the other side of the barn where Nick’s getting wrapped up in bandages.

“No, I didn’t.”

She follows me.

“Yeah, ya did.”

We’re next to the ambulance when I insist, “Green, I knew you had my back the whole time.”

“Bullshit.” My brother, the interferer, jests from within the confines of his hospital on wheels. He’s just about ready to get the green light from the medics, and I’m relieved, but he still annoys the shit out of me.