Page 24 of Always Us

“They threatened him, or they threatened to hurt his family if he doesn’t stay away from Harper.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. There’s no other reason he’d suddenly act that way. He wouldn’t even call Harper back after she left him all those messages. You know that’s not Sean. The Sean we know would’ve called her back right away. He wouldn’t let her worry like that. He cares about her way too much. That’s why he’s drinking. He can’t handle hurting her like this, but he had no choice. They threatened him.” Garret holds my arms and looks me in the eye. “This is serious, Jade. I mean it when I say to stay out of this. If Harper wants to talk about Sean, just change the subject. Don’t even mention his name.”

“Doing that will just cause her to ask more questions.”

“I don’t care. She’ll have to get answers from someone else. She’s not getting them from us.”

Once again, the organization is interfering with our lives. But this time, they’re going after our two closest friends.

CHAPTER SIX

6

GARRET

Jade and I are flying back to California in a few hours and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I like our beach house and I like where we live, but I don’t feel safe there. What if my grandfather is having us watched? What if he changed his mind and decides to do something to Jade now and not wait until later? If he wants me to transfer to Yale, he can’t wait years to hurt her. He’d have to do it soon.

I feel like I can’t let Jade out of my sight, so how is this going to work? I can’t be with her every second of the day. But when I’m not with her, all I can think about is if she’s okay.

My dad still hasn’t called me. I’ve been sending him texts just to see if he’d respond, but he hasn’t. And now I really need to talk to him. If he won’t talk to me about my grandfather, I at least need to ask him about Sean. I need to know what’s going on with Kiefer.

The organization sent their people to threaten Sean, which means they want to hurry this along. They want to make Kiefer a member, but they can’t until he’s met all the requirements, and breaking up Sean and Harper was one of those requirements. I’m guessing the organization found out Sean wasn’t giving up on Harper so they took matters into their own hands.

What I can’t figure out is why Kiefer took so long to force Harper to break up with Sean. I’m sure Kiefer’s membership offer came with a deadline. Just like my grandfather, the organization likes deadlines. They probably gave Kiefer several months to do whatever they asked him to do in order to become a member. And yet he waited until last week to give Harper that ultimatum. So was Kiefer purposely stalling because he’s not sure he wants to be a member?

I need to know the answer to that. If he’s wavering, maybe my dad could talk to him and convince him not to do this. It would be risky for my dad to do that, but someone needs to talk Kiefer out of this and it can’t be me.

If Kiefer joins the organization, his life, and the lives of his wife and daughters, will be destroyed. And if he joins, Jade can no longer be friends with Harper. I haven’t told Jade this because I thought she’d figure it out herself, but she hasn’t so I’ll have to tell her soon. It’s going to be a huge loss for her to lose Harper, but we can’t be friends with someone who has ties to the organization. Obviously, Jade and I are already tied to the organization by way of William and my dad, but they’re family so we can trust them. But I don’t trust the other members, and Harper will eventually be married to one of them, which will make being around her too much of a risk.

“Garret, are you done in there?” I hear Jade in the bedroom. I’m in the bathroom, shaving.

I open the door, wiping the towel over my face. “Yeah, I’m done.”

She comes up to me like she’s going to kiss me but instead starts sniffing my face. “I love the smell of shaving cream. I have to sniff you before the smell is gone.”

“You’re funny.” I kiss her, mid-sniff, then walk past her into the bedroom. “Did you pack everything?”

“Almost. I just need to grab my makeup bag.” She comes out of the bathroom with it and tucks it in the suitcase. “Ryan has breakfast ready so we should get out there.”

As I walk to the door, she stops me, her arms around my waist. “It’s Sunday and I can’t go to Garret’s Pancake House.”

I brush the wispy strands of hair off her face and kiss her. “You can go next Sunday.”

“Can I pay for them ahead of time? Like when we get back?”

“There’s no pre-payments allowed but we can still do stuff, Jade. You don’t have to wait until next Sunday.”

“Good, because it’s been almost a week and that’s just way too long.” She leans in and whispers. “And we never got to celebrate our sexiversary.”

“We’ll celebrate it.” I kiss her, then open the door. “Let’s go eat.”

Jade wouldn’t have sex in Frank’s house so we haven’t done it since before we left. Truthfully, I haven’t been in the mood because of everything that’s been going on. I’m distracted and stressed and exhausted from my lack of sleep, so right now, sex isn’t even on my mind. That’s totally messed up and I don’t like feeling this way and I’m pissed that I do. I have a beautiful wife who wants to be with me and we’re newlyweds so I should be as eager as Jade is to get back home so we can do it. But I’m not.

I don’t know how long I can go on like this. Hiding this from her is nearly impossible. She knows I’m not sleeping, she notices when I don’t eat, and if I give her any indication I’m not in the mood for sex, she’ll definitely know something’s wrong.

“It’s all ready,” Ryan says as Jade and I walk in the kitchen. “Help yourself. We’re just eating at the counter today.”

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