Page 57 of Unmasked Legacy

The initials on the dog tag.

The two boys in the photo.

Oh my god.

Wolfe was helping my father.

Vomit rises in my throat, and I press a hand to my chest, dropping the phone and leaping backward out of the chair. My father is yelling something on the other side of the glass, but I can’t focus on him. I can’t hear what he’s saying, and I don’t care to listen. The guard behind me takes hold of my arm and turns me toward the door.

I need to get out of here.

The walk down the hall is a blur, and the only sound I can hear is the excessive ringing in my ears. My brain is struggling to process what I just heard, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to focus.

Stepping outside of the prison, my knees wobble as I stumble into the parking lot.

I don’t see them, not at first, but when a flash stings my eyes, my heart jerks up. Two reporters are standing outside the prison, aiming their cameras right at me. Someone tipped them off, someone told them I was here. Someone has been watching me and now the entire world is about to know that I came to see my father.

They are going to assume I am here to get his help, because they will never see it for what it is.

“Mera Sloane, is this the first time you’ve seen your father?”

“What are you doing here, Mera? Is it because of the missing girl?”

“Do you have Nia? Do you know where she is?”

“What did he say to you, Mera?”

Pressing my hands over my face, I run toward the exit.

A motorcycle rumbling has my heart jerking up, and I see Zane on a large, black bike. How he knows I’m here, I don’t know, but I’ve never been more grateful to see anybody in my entire life. “Get on,” he yells, and I waste no time jumping onto the back of the bike and pulling on the helmet he unclips from the back.

Then, he takes off, getting me out of there.

The rest I will worry about when my brain decides to start working again.

The rest, I will process when I come out of this shock.

All along, Wolfe has known.

All along, Wolfe has lied.

Itrustedhim.

13

Zane doesn’t take me to the club, and I’m thankful for that.

If I saw Wolfe right now, I’m not certain what I’d do.

Right now, I need to process what I just heard. I need to let my body adjust to the fact that the one person I actually trusted has been lying to me this whole time. It all makes sense now, why he wanted me out of town, why he had to come with me on this search. It was all so he could keep the truth from me. He was hoping we would find Nia and I would leave town without another question.

All along, he knew exactly what he was doing.

He used me.

That hurts in a way I can’t process. I developed feelings for him, and all along, he had a plan to get rid of me. He used my feelings to his own advantage, making sure I was so distracted by how I felt for him that I wouldn’t question anything else. The pain of knowing that he never gave a single crap about me is crippling.

“What were you doin’ at that prison, Mera? That was a bad fuckin’ idea.”

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