We’re eating a late breakfast on the patio, having dropped Matthias off at school, when the email alert comes through on Lucia’s work cell. It’s one of dozens she gets on a daily basis and I take no notice, but she glances at the screen and frowns.
“What is it?” I ask her.
“It’s from an anonymous address and it has images attached,” she says with a tremor in her voice.
“Open it, angel, and we’ll see what it is,” I tell her.
I paid the blackmailers last night and was wondering if they would make further contact.
She opens the email and her face pales as she looks at the screen.
“What is it, Luce?”
She blinks at me, tears in her eyes.
“Lucia?”
“I-it’s you,” she stammers.
“What?” I frown at her, reaching for the phone but she pulls it away as she flicks through the rest of the images. Tears start to roll down her cheeks and I sit staring at her, wondering what fresh hell is in store for us now.
As though staring at my wife’s brokenhearted face while she looks at whatever is on that phone isn’t bad enough, her father comes storming out of the house with a look of fury that makes yesterday’s meltdown pale in comparison.
“Let me see the phone, Luce,” I hold my hand out to her.
She blinks at me, in a daze, so I reach over and take it from her.
“I’m going to fucking drown you in a pool of your own blood,” Alejandro snarls.
I check the email. It simply says.
You should be careful who you trust.
And then there are half a dozen images of Toni and me. Heads huddled together and deep in conversation. They look like they were taken in LA, but I have no idea when. It’s only when I come to the next one that I realize I have no idea when they were taken because they’re one hundred percent fake. It’s a picture of me and Toni and in this one we’re kissing — and it ain’t no friendly peck on the cheek either.
“Angel, these are fake,” I insist as her father reaches us.
“Even the last one?” she snarls.
I frown as I scroll to the last one on the email. It’s not fake, but it’s old. It’s a photograph of me nailing Shannon at the stables back at the ranch. She’s naked with her legs around my waist as I fuck her against the wall with my head buried in her neck.
Fuck!
I look at her, ignoring her raging father beside her.
“Lucia, that’s from years ago.”
“Do you ever fuck women somewhere normal, like a fucking bed?” Alejandro shouts, like he can talk.
“It’s years old,” I insist.
“Papi, can you please let me handle this?” she snaps at him and he backs off. “And the ones with you and Toni. They have a date and time stamp, Jax. It was four weeks ago.”
“They’re fake, baby. Before last week, I hadn’t see her for months-”
“You’re kissing her!” she yells at me,
I reach out to take her hands but she pulls back from me and the look of disgust and pain on her face almost breaks me. “Luce, you know how easy it is to manipulate photos. That is not me, angel. Let me prove it to you.”
“Did the two of you plan this?” she whispers, ignoring every word I just said. “The video and the money?”
I frown at her. I can’t believe she would even consider that for a second. “What?”
“What the fuck were you two doing then?” Alejandro barks as Lucia sinks back into her chair looking utterly defeated. I have to convince her that someone is trying to set me up here, but she won’t even look at me.
“We weren’t doing anything!” I shout at him. “That is not me.”
“Is that why you were so keen on me paying so quickly?”
I jump up from my chair and it falls to the ground as I do. “You’re suggesting I would fuck you over, not to mention my own wife, for money? I have known you for twenty-four fucking years.”
His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. Deep down he knows I’d never do that. “You’ve broken my daughter’s heart,” he snarls instead. “Now get the fuck out of my house.”
I look down at Lucia who stares at me with her mouth open, her lower lip trembles and all I want to do is carry her to my truck and drive us a million miles from here so we can escape all of this bullshit. If she would just give me some time, I can fix everything.
“Luce?” I plead as my world starts to fall around down my ears. My chest is tight and I can’t breathe.
Then my damn cell phone starts ringing. I take it out and my aunt Molly’s name flashes on the screen. With a heavy sigh, I answer the call and press the phone to my ear.
“Jackson, he’s awake,” she says with a deep sigh.
“Good,” I breathe again, thankful for some good news.
“But, he said…” she sniffs as though she’s trying not to cry, “he said the men who attacked him told him that you paid them to do it.”
The phone almost drops from my hand. “What?”
“That’s what he told me.”
“Has he spoken to the sheriff?” my jaw ticks as I wait for her answer. Being arrested and thrown in jail by that asshole is the last thing I need.
“Yes, but he didn’t tell him anything. He said his memory is still fuzzy.”
“Fuck!” I sigh, running a hand through my hair.
“We know it wasn’t you, but we need you back here, Jax. He wants to speak with you.”
“I’m kind of in the middle of something in LA,” I say, even though after this morning, I suspect the entire fucking thing is connected. But who the hell is trying to ruin my life, and why?
“I’m worried, Jackson,” she says and this time she cries.
Fuck! My aunt isn’t scared of anything. I hate that I’ve taken the darkness of my life here in LA home to her peaceful ranch.
“I’ll be back by tonight,” I tell her and then end the call.
Alejandro is glaring at me but Lucia won’t even look at me.
“I have to go back to Dallas…” I say to her.
She stands, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “So, go.”
Then she turns away from me and walks away, tearing my heart out as she does. How can she be so quick to believe that I would betray her like that?
I look to her father. My closest friend. My brother in all but blood. “You know that’s not me in those photographs, amigo. Someone is trying to fuck up my life.” I shake my head in annoyance that I never saw it coming.
I’m always so fucking careful. Life as his right hand man has always taught me to be security conscious, but I’ve taken my eye off the ball. I used to be a workaholic, and now I spend every spare second I have with Lucia and Matthias. How do I find the balance to be able to do what I do and have a family? Maybe that’s not meant for men like me.
“Whoever attacked my father told him that it was me responsible,” I add, because I have to tell someone. He is the man who would usually work things through like this with me. He’d be the one at my side figuring out what the hell is going on, but by marrying his daughter, I’ve put him an untenable position. How did I become an actual member of his family and at the same time become less like family to him than ever?
That at least provokes some reaction in him and his brow furrows in confusion. “What?”
“Someone is fucking with me, Alejandro.”
“The photographs? They’re not all fake though?” he asks.
“No. The one of me and Shannon in the stables is real, but it’s old. I would never…”
“How old?” he snaps.
I rub a hand over my jaw. The last time I went to the ranch before I started dating Lucia, Shannon and I hooked up. “It’s gotta be at least eighteen months.”
“So you were being watched or followed for the past eighteen months then?” he scowls. “How haven’t we known about this?”
“Maybe it was just while I was in Dallas?” I suggest. I’m more relaxed while I’m there. It’s the place where I allow myself to switch off a little. “If someone had been following me, watching me in LA, I would have known. Someone would have seen something. I’m sure of it.”
“I sure fucking hope so.”
“They must have been watching me on my last few trips,” I say, thinking out loud. I look past him at the house. “I have to go figure out what’s going on. I don’t feel like she’d be safe at the barn house on her own.”
“I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to go anywhere with you right now, anyway,” he says, the cold edge in his tone still there.
I suck in a breath. She’s my wife and her place is at my side. But I can’t get the image of her walking away from me out of my mind. She didn’t even give me a chance.
My head is spinning with it all. I feel like I can’t breathe with the weight in my chest. I need answers and I’m not going to find any here.
“She belongs here with her family,” he adds and it feels like the final fucking nail in my coffin.
