Page 96 of Brandishing Betrayals

He sighed and looked away from me. Anger was radiating off him and I knew he wouldn’t still be laying in this bed if he could get up and walk away. I needed to change the subject, but had questions of my own I needed to ask. And what better time than when he was laid up in my bed, unable to leave?

“Why didn’t you guys come for me?” I turned the question around on him. “You had to have known I would have gone to my sister, knowing I wasn’t on good terms with my parents. I know you have ways of finding people.”

Jason nodded slowly. He rubbed a hand over his face, which was way out of character forStone, but he was never that person when it came to me. Never used to be at least. I was getting a glimpse beneath the mask he’d been keeping up whenever I was around and it was nice. “I did come up there.”

“What?” Shock and disbelief rocked through me.

“I came up about a year after you left. None of it felt right. I kept replaying everything in my head from both that night and the night in the woods. I knew we fucked up and took things too far, but after Trish… things didn’t feel right. We never got a chance to fully question her. Buckley killed her before the three of us could get answers.”

I frowned. “Why would he do that? Isn’t he your president?”

“Was. Was our president. Buckley was in business with Hillcrest. They teamed up together against the Ravager Knights. They organized the hit on Mac Taylor, Johnny’s dad. Before they killed him, they had him framed for a bunch of white-collar crimes that Vince Carmichael is currently awaiting trial on.”

“Your president is in league with Hillcrest?” I asked incredulously, my voice rising.

“Was. He was our president. He’s dead now.” Jason said. He reached out with the hand of his injured arm and grabbed my hand.

My heart pounded. “You don’t think he—”

“I don’t know what to think, Maya.” Jason squeezed my fingers.

“Jason, if your president and Buckley were involved back then, and he had a hand in driving me away, it changes—”

“It changes nothing,” Jason said forcefully, his hand dropping mine.

“How can you say that?!”

“Because you still fucking left us! You didn’t come to us! You didn’t trust us to take care of you!” Jason’s voice rose with each word. He barely managed to keep his voice down as to not yell in the middle of the night and wake Luke or my mom, but his anger was still epic.

“You’re right,” I choked out, stifling a sob.

“Maya.” Jason sighed and tried to grab my hand again.

I evaded him and hugged my pillow. I buried my face into the cool fabric and let it soak up my tears. Life really wasn’t fair sometimes.

“You said you came up to Chicago?” I asked, needing him to finish that explanation.

“Yeah,” he huffed out. “About a year after you were gone. I went to the hospital you were working at. I saw you on the ICUfloor. You were standing at the nursing station with two other women. You looked happy. You were laughing and you looked like you had a nice tan. It was summer.”

I frowned and pulled my face out of the pillow. About a year after I left, I would have just been back to work. Luke would have been about three or four months old. I was probably fresh off maternity leave where I had spent as much time as I could in the sun, soaking up the vitamin D before I was due back to twelve-hour days under florescent lights. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Jason shrugged his good shoulder. “I ask myself that all the time.”

An uneasy silence settled between the two of them and I shifted uncomfortably. A yawn burst out of me, cracking my jaw with its intensity. “Where do we go from here?” I asked, my voice soft.

He sighed deeply. His hand rubbed over his face tiredly and he shook his head. “I don’t know.”

I rested my head on the pillow looking at him, feeling lost. “We have to figure out a way to coexist.”

Jason nodded slowly. “Yeah. Truce?” He looked over at me and raised an eyebrow.

“Truce.” I agreed.

“Alright, get some sleep,” he ordered. He shifted himself until he was laying down again and I had no choice but to also lay down.

I rolled onto my side, facing him, and slowly dozed off.

Marcos

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