Jonny's Redemption (Gemini Group Book 7) Riley Edwards (ebook reader screen .TXT) 📖

“Listen, Chasin, I hate to bother you but I think you need to come home.”

“Where’s Evie?”

God, he loved my friend.

“I reckon she’s on her way back to the house. I told her something about my childhood. It wasn’t good and she took it harder than I thought she would. She’s pissed at me and left. I think she needs you.”

I heard Chasin’s ragged exhale, then he asked, “How bad?”

Shit.

I drew up all the courage I had and remembered this was Chasin. He was not only Evie’s soon-to-be husband, he was my friend.

“I told her about a time my daddy gave me a belting.”

“Son of a bitch,” he snarled and my heart sank.

Maybe this sharing stuff wasn’t a good idea especially while Evie was pregnant, planning a wedding, and getting ready for a concert. She didn’t need me unloading my shedload of crap on her. Later I could find a way to gently explain my childhood had sucked and leave it at that. I’d been selfish in my newfound knowledge of what true friendship was.

“If that piece of shit wasn’t already rotting in his miserable life, I’d strangle the motherfucker.”

All the oxygen was leaving my lungs as I wheezed, “What?”

Chasin softened his tone but that didn’t mean it softened the blow when he told me, “Evie doesn’t know, but you were part of our original investigation. We had to clear you so we could focus on finding her stalker. I did it personally, no one else knows what I found. But even if they did, none of them would think less of you.”

Of course, Gemini Group would’ve investigated me. I was closest to Evie. I was the only one who had access to every part of her life. I didn’t know why I had never thought about it. My juvenile record being sealed wouldn’t stop Chasin from finding the records.

He knew.

He knew about all of it.

“Bobby—”

“I’m not that person, Chasin. Please believe me. I’m not that. I would never hurt Evie. Never.”

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“Please, Chasin, don’t take her away from me. I didn’t…I mean, I did. I did do those things, but I didn’t want to. You have to understand.” Panic drowned out all sense of reality. I was right back in the holler. Right back to being a Layne and all that it meant.

I was a thief.

A liar.

I had a record and not the kind that Vivi Rush made. I had the arrest kind.

Jonny’s mom had been arrested.

“I have to go.”

I disconnected the call and tossed my phone on my desk. It wasn’t mine, it was Evie’s. She paid for it. It was all hers. And Chasin knew I was a thief. How closely had he been monitoring the accounts I had access to? If he knew everything I had done, he probably checked them daily and I didn’t blame him. He loved his fiancée and he’d want to make sure she was protected in every way. Especially from a piece of trash like myself.

God, I was so stupid to think I could get away from where I’d come from.

I was nothing more than white trash from the holler.

Her Appalachia is showing.

If Genevieve only knew how true that was, she’d be appalled.

15

Jonny was sitting behind his new desk staring out the window. The sight before him was bittersweet. The natural light streaming in the big window and the view of the green fountain across the street was a stark contrast to the artificial light of the bullpen and his only view was of the interrogation rooms.

The pay was better. The job description was much better. But Jonny still couldn’t shake the ache in his chest. Somehow when he’d been hiding at the beach he’d managed to push aside his new reality. He was no longer a cop. He’d quit the one thing he’d always wanted to be. From as far back as he remembered, he knew he would be a police officer. Now he wasn’t.

He’d signed the operating agreement, made arrangements for the wire transfer, and he was now part-owner of Gemini Group.

Time.

He needed time to adjust. As soon as he got lost in his first case he’d acclimate to his new surroundings, he’d redefine what it meant to protect and serve.

Which reminded him—Jameson had left a file on his new desk that was alarmingly thin for a case Jameson said he’d been working on for almost a month. With the security brief for Evie’s concert and the visit to the attorney’s office, Jonny hadn’t had time to look at the file.

Jonny flipped it open and was surprised to see a picture of a man he knew—Anderson Bull. Over the years, Jonny had thought about him. Not every day but it wasn’t rare for his mind to wander to Anderson’s arrest. It was the first time Jonny had suspected something was going on in his department. Something had not been right then and something was wrong now. Anderson Bull had been a model citizen his whole life—that was, until he was arrested. The charges were pled down, Anderson had done his time and was a model prisoner throughout. When he was released, he went right back to being a productive member of society. Though he did it while on probation.

Jonny flipped the image over but hadn’t read a single word when he heard feet pounding down the hall. Instinct had Jonny on his feet with his hand reaching for his sidearm. Chasin came barreling into his office with a seriously pissed-off face and wild eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Jonny asked.

“This might piss you off, it might not. If it does, bury that shit,” Chasin returned.

Seeing as Jonny was done burying shit, he didn’t agree. If whatever Chasin had to say pissed him off, Chasin would know it.

Jonny didn’t get a chance to communicate this before his friend announced, “Bobby called me.”

Every cell in Jonny’s body froze. Not because Bobby reached out to Chasin, the two of them were tight, her best friend was engaged to