Swallowing, I focus my attention back on Jessica.
"I need the Jessica who implicitly gave herself over to me last night. Can you do that, Jessica? Can you still trust me?"
Her eyes go wide. "I never stopped trusting you," she replies, sounding hurt that I would even insinuate as much.
"Good." I lean in and give her a chaste kiss on the lips and then rest my forehead against hers before pulling back and holding my hand out. Without me needing to ask, Noah passes me the whiskey.
"Drink this."
She takes it from me and takes a long sip, coughing once she's swallowed. "That's it and the rest."
She finishes it as instructed and hands me back an empty glass. Noah is already back with the bottle, pouring me two fingers worth, and I down it in one go.
And then he pours himself one, doing the same.
"Who's coming?" Jessica asks, hugging the robe around her small frame. She looks so fragile, yet she's one of the strongest people I know.
Noah clears his throat and steps past me, sitting beside her and pulling her to his side.
"Some friends of ours—they're skilled in things like this."
She frowns. "Like this?"
"Yeah, security breaches, stalkers."
I sit on the edge of the solid oak coffee table, knowing any other circumstances, Noah would be riding my arse for doing so, but he refrains.
"What I don't get is how he found you."
Pulling up the feed, I zoom in as he looks up at the camera and then points to his eyes and back to the camera before making a slicing motion with a knife along his throat, smirking.
"Are we sure it's him?" Jessica asks, eyes darting between me and Noah.
"You tell me."
I rewind it a few frames and turn it to face them both.
She watches, her lips parting.
"Yeah, it's him." Her lip trembles as she blinks back unshed tears, but it's useless as they roll down her cheeks.
She quickly swats them away.
"Did you ever tell him about us?" Noah questions as he takes the tablet to look over the footage.
We don't have any cameras in the house, but now I'm contemplating remedying that.
"No, never. He was always really jealous."
She bites her thumbnail, lost deep in thought and then lurches forward.
"Oh, my god." Her eyes go wide. "My phone, could it have been when I switched on my phone the other day?"
Noah looks at me and then back to Jessica. "Possibly. I didn't think you were using it."
She shakes her head. "It was just to check in case Mason had reached out. But it was just threatening messages from Curtis."
Noah cups her cheek. "Why didn't you say anything about the messages?"