by Kelly Favor
Raven swallowed. “Are you angry with me for not telling you the truth last night?”
Jake shook his head. “I’m not angry with you.” He sighed and glanced out the window at the quickly passing highway. “But we can’t have anymore secrets between us. It’s getting too dangerous.”
She nodded. “I know. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. It’s been hard to trust…hard to trust anyone after the things I’ve been through.”
“I get it,” Jake said, and she knew that he wasn’t just saying empty words.
“Okay,” Raven said, taking a deep breath. “Here goes.”
She started to tell Jake what had happened to her when she’d left the hospital and Max had grabbed her and forced her into the car where the man who called himself Zeke had been waiting.
When she mentioned Zeke’s name, she expected to see some flicker of recognition in Jake’s eyes. Jake had known who Scott from Club Alpha was when she’d told him about that little encounter, but there was no reaction to this new person who’d entered their world.
Raven told him everything, and when she got to the part about Club Alpha’s spying operation, she saw Jake’s hands close into fists again and tighten until his knuckles were white. But his face was cool and impassive. He showed no emotion, not even as she continued to recount how they’d wanted her to find out information about Jake’s missions in the Middle East during his military service.
It was actually strange how little he was reacting to the story, given his temper.
Somehow, his lack of anger was almost more unnerving. It signaled to Raven that this situation was far more serious than anything else they’d ever discussed.
Finally, she told how they’d thrown her out of the car and told her to lie about being mugged.
At this point, Jake startled a little, as if he’d just been jolted by a cattle prod. “They told you to say that?”
She looked down, guilty. “Yeah.”
“And you went right along with it.” His voice was disbelieving.
“I was scared. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“But you realize that everything you’re telling me now could be a lie too, another lie in a series of lies. How can I trust anything you tell me after so much dishonesty?”
She looked back at him again, and her jaw quivered. “I didn’t think I had a choice. They’re powerful, and they’re stronger than me. You and I weren’t even speaking at the time, so how could I feel safe telling you the truth?”
Jake folded his arms. “But you just went along with their plan. Were you going to try and find out about my military secrets too? Was that seriously going through your mind as a realistic way to handle their threats?”
“No, of course not.”
“But you used their cover story.”
“I told you I didn’t know what else to do, Jake. I’d been thrown out of a car, threatened, and I was terrified.”
Jake shook his head. “You should have told me the truth, Raven. Right away.”
“I know that. But I was foolish and I lied. I’ve apologized and now you can either choose to believe me or not.”
Jake looked upwards, as if asking for help from above. He closed his eyes and didn’t speak for a little while. When he opened his eyes again, he was staring at her with the kind of intensity that seemed so dramatic as to have been part of a scene from one of his movies.
Only she knew he meant it. This wasn’t just a role in a film. This was Jake’s life, and he wasn’t fooling around.
“Raven, I’m going to choose to trust you now. I have to, because I care about you and I want to believe you’re worthy of my trust. But you’re not the only one who’s been burned in the past.”
“I know.”
“And if you lie to me again—if you withhold anything from me--then I’ll have to do something very difficult.” He looked away as if it was too hard to even think about such a possibility. But then he looked at her again, finally. “If you ever intentionally mislead me again, I’ll cut you loose for good. It won’t be my choice—it will be because you’ve left me no choice.”
Hearing him say the words brought tears to her eyes, and they spilled over and down her cheeks. As hard as it was to hear him say such things, she understood his need to say it and know that she’d heard him. “I wouldn’t blame you,” she told him.
“So we understand each other,” he said, his brown eyes hard and unforgiving.
“Yes.”
He nodded, seeming like he wanted to say more, but then he finally just glanced toward the front of the sedan. “So Club Alpha’s expecting you to give them some dirt,” he said, musing aloud. “Maybe we can oblige them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m not sure yet,” Jake said, “but I think maybe we can give them something to chew on. If we slow them down a little, it’ll give me time to plan a real response.”
“Don’t we need to involve the police?” Raven asked. “Hasn’t it gone far enough?”
“It’s already gone too far for the police,” Jake said, and his tone was ominous.
“I don’t understand how that’s even possible.”
“Well it is.” Jake took out his phone and then put it to his ear.
“Who are you calling?”
“Kurt,” he said. “I need to tell him what’s going on.”
Raven felt her stomach lurch at the mention of his manager. “Please don’t call Kurt.”
Jake looked up from his phone. “Why not?”
“Because,” she said, “I don’t trust him.”
Jake’s expression turned skeptical as he hung up and took the phone away from his ear. “You don’t trust him?” he said. “Well, I do. I fought side-by-side with him, and he’s been with me through everything. And I mean everything.”
Raven had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She was coming up against the worst situation now—the one she’d been afraid of from the very beginning of their relationship. She’d never wanted to tell Jake about Kurt’s underhanded maneuvers and the way he’d tried to sabotage her and Jake’s relationship. She knew that Jake confided in Kurt more than anyone else, and she didn’t stand a chance when put up against a man that Jake felt he could trust one hundred and fifty percent.
“You said you didn’t want me to hold anything back,” Raven replied, her voice shaking as she said the dreaded words. “Well, there’s something about Kurt I haven’t told you because I was afraid of your reaction.”
Jake ran a hand through his hair. “You can’t be serious. How many things are there? How many stories can there be?”
Raven clenched her fists. “I’m sorry that there’s so much to tell you. You think I wanted it to be like this?”
“I don’t know anymore. It seems like everywhere I turn with you, something new pops up. Something new, and it’s never anything good.”
“I can’t change the fact that these things are happening. It’s not my fault.”
Jake rubbed at his forehead above his eyes, his head slightly bowed. “Just tell me the damn story. Tell me what Kurt did to you.”
“Don’t speak to me in that tone of voice.”
He looked up at her. “If you’re going to stick the knife in, at least be quick about it.”
“Fine,” Raven replied, holding her chin higher. “That first day when we decided to pretend I was your girlfriend, Kurt called me and threatened me.”
Jake’s eyebrows raised. “Maybe you misunderstood him. Kurt’s a very intense guy.”
“No, I didn’t misunderstand anything. He told me that he knew I was a gold digger and he offered me money to disappear from your life.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “He offered you money?”
“A hundred thousand dollars. I think it was because of how much money you stood to lose by cancelling your shows.”
Jake sat back as if he’d been punched in the stomach. “It doesn’t make any sense,” he said, as his eyes searched the distance for
answers. “Why would he go behind my back like that?”
“It wasn’t just that one conversation,” Raven said. “Anytime we were alone for even a second he would make comments and little disparaging remarks. And I’m not sure, but I suspect he might’ve had something to do with leaking those old stories about me to the media. But that’s just speculation on my part.”
Jake placed his elbows on his knees, dipped his head and put his hands over his face. When he glanced at her again, his eyes were red-rimmed and glassy. “If what you’re telling me is true, then I can’t trust Kurt either. My best friend, the man who saved my life in battle, the brother who stood by my side through my fiancé’s death, and the list goes on.”
“He thought he was protecting you, I guess,” Raven offered, but her voice sounded as weak as the sentiment itself.
“Hell of an excuse,” Jake replied. “But how do I know this elaborate story of yours isn’t all made up to get something from me? How do I know that you’re not the one who’s lying and setting me up?”
Raven flinched as if he’d slapped her. “I don’t know how to prove anything. But I do know that I couldn’t have burned my parents’ house down because you and I were together when it happened.”
“Maybe you had a friend do it.”
Raven’s mouth puckered. “If it makes you feel better to think that, then fine.”
“None of it makes me feel better,” he growled. “I’m just trying to make sense out of all of this. You’re giving me a lot to chew on at once.”
“And you’re making sense out of it by imagining that I’m just a compulsive liar,” Raven said, smiling bitterly. “How flattering.”
Jake’s eyes were pained. “You understand that what you’ve told me today is shattering to pieces everything that I’ve built. My entire life—the person closest to me whom I’ve entrusted with my business—the military secrets that I’ve sworn to protect—all of it’s in danger now.”
“I’m sorry, Jake.” Raven wanted to touch him, wanted to soften things between them, but he was so hard and withdrawn from her.
Jake nodded, putting a hand to his chin, his eyes still searching for answers. Suddenly, he leaned forward, his eyes focused on her once more. “I need you to do something for me,” he said.
“I’ll do anything I can,” she said.
“I need you to call Kurt and pretend you want to take him up on his offer.”
Raven felt a chill pass through her. “He’ll know it’s a trap, Jake. We hate each other and I turned his offer down a long time ago.”
“I just need to hear him acknowledge that he made the offer in the past. I need to know you’re telling me the truth.”
Raven nodded, sighing. She understood why Jake needed her to do it, even though it made her vaguely sick to even think about speaking to Kurt again. And what if he somehow caught on to the fact that it was a trap and pretended he had no idea what she was talking about? She’d look like a fool and Jake would never speak to her again.
But she’d look even guiltier if she refused to call him.
“Okay, I’ll call him right now.”
Jake moved so that he was sitting beside her in the car, the left side of his body pressed up against hers tightly. “Take out your phone,” he said.
Raven took her phone out of her pocket and Jake told her the number to dial. Her fingers shook as she pressed the numbers.
As the phone started to ring and she put it to her ear, Jake leaned his head close to hers so he could hear the conversation.
His jaw and lips were just inches from hers.
She could feel his warmth and hear his breathing. Somehow, it calmed her a little and her pulse slowed a fraction.
“Hello,” Kurt answered, sounding annoyed already.
“It’s Raven,” she said.
“I know who it is.” He sounded short-tempered and uninterested in conversing, but she pushed forward.
“We need to talk, Kurt.”
He laughed. “What could you and I possibly have to say to one another?”
Oh God, she thought. He’s like a dog—he’s already sniffed this out. He senses a trap and he’s acting like he knows nothing. She felt Jake’s body stiffen next to her.
“Because,” Raven told him, “I’m in trouble. I need to get out of here.”
“Not my problem, hon.”
“Remember what you offered me? Well, I’m interested now.”
There was a long silence. She held her breath, knowing that he was going to deny it. But then he just laughed again. “You missed your chance.”
“You know that Jake and I spent the night together,” she said. “I’m back in his life.”
“One night? It doesn’t mean anything.”
“And you know that he put me up in an apartment. He cares about me and you know it.”
Jake glanced at her, his eyes narrowing.
“He wants to make sure you stay out of his way—that’s why he got you that ridiculous apartment in Boston,” Kurt replied.
“That’s not what he told me last night,” Raven said.
“Really.” Kurt’s voice was pretending disbelief, but Raven could tell she was making him question his assumptions.
“Yes, really,” Raven said. “Jake wants us to be together again, but I can’t do it anymore. I have to get away from all of this.”
Kurt was silent for a long moment. “Where’s Jake right now?”
“He’s taking a shower and I left the hotel room, supposedly to go get coffee.”
“I’ll meet you outside the hotel in ten minutes,” Kurt said. “Once I give you the money, you don’t ever see or speak to him again. And I mean ever, not for one second to explain anything or make nice. I want him to hate you, Raven—that’s what I’m getting for my money.”
“And the price—“
“One hundred thousand, like we agreed. But I can’t get it all to you right now. I can only get my hands on a third of it on such short notice.”
Jake grabbed the phone from her hands and put it to his own ear. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he said. “Who the hell do you think you are, trying to run my life?”
Raven could hear Kurt sputtering excuses, but his voice was muffled, and Jake didn’t give him much time to speak. “Shut up and listen to me, Kurt. Listen to me closely. You know what I’m capable of if you put my back against the wall. Don’t you?”
Clearly, Raven could hear Kurt speak. “Yeah, I know, Jake. But you should let me explain myself. There’s good reason for this.”
“Oh well I’m glad you have a reason,” Jake said sarcastically. “Then you understand that I’ve got a good reason to say this. If I find out you try to interfere in my business or personal life ever again, I’m going to make you suffer. You’re fired, Kurt. I’m going to alert the security team immediately that you’re out. No more access to any of the business accounts, no more access to me. Our friendship is over, scumbag.”
“Jake, I was trying to help,” Raven heard Kurt plead.
“Fuck you and your help,” Jake said and hung up on him. Then he handed the phone back to Raven.
She looked at him. He was slumped next to her in the seat, looking like a beaten man. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“It’s not your fault my life’s filled with liars and users.” Jake shook his head. He took out his own cell phone and began texting. “Now I need to make sure that Kurt didn’t rob me blind. He was in charge of everything—all my business finances, everything went through him.”
Raven shuddered to think of what it might mean if Kurt had been mismanaging all of the millions and millions of dollars that came through Jake’s business. “I’m sure it’s fine,” she said, knowing very well that it might not be fine at all. Still, she wanted to reassure him somehow.
“I’ve been wrong about every single thing in my life,” Jake said. “Every person I believed I could trust has let me down. And in the process of doing what those liars wanted me to do, I’ve bec
ome somebody that I’m not, so that makes me just as bad as them.”
“No,” Raven said, putting her hand on his leg and turning her entire body towards him. “You’re not like them,” she said. “You’ve been here for me when I needed you. You’ve sacrificed for me and even for my best friend, my family. Don’t let people like Kurt drag you down and make you think the worst about life.”
Jake put his hand on hers and gripped tightly. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes, Raven. But one mistake I’m not going to make is to let anything happen to you ever again.” He smiled a little and shook his head. “You’re the one person who’s been fucked over by more people than I have,” he laughed. “So at least you understand what I’m going through.
Raven had to laugh. “That’s true, actually,” she told him. And then she smiled, her entire body growing warm. “I’m going to protect you too. It’s not a one-way street. We’re in this together.”
He put his arm around her then, encircling her shoulders and pressing his lips to her ear. “I never should’ve doubted you,” he whispered.
By the time they arrived at the burned down shell of her family home, Raven was wrung out emotionally.
She’d watched as Jake had made calls to his entire team, informing them that Kurt was no longer part of the company. She’d seen the pain etched on his face as he’d explained that Kurt had violated his trust, and listened to the defeated sound of Jake’s voice as he’d contacted the company lawyer and told him that all the books needed to be audited in case of fraud.
At the same time, she was filled with dread in anticipation of what the scene would be like at her old home.
And it was just as bad as she’d feared.
The house was a blackened, burnt shell. It had been destroyed utterly and completely and there were still police and fire trucks all along the street when she and Jake arrived with their small fleet of security.
When they exited the car, they found her mother, brother and father huddled together, looking desperately tired. Her father’s face was drawn and pale as he sat in his wheelchair, staring at the remains of his old life.
