Page 11 of Tripped By Love
“Espionage charges?” I couldn’t keep the shock from my tone. That was the last thing I’d expected.
“Corporate espionage, not the national security kind,” Trevor said. “I’ll dig some more.”
Brady would flip. Cassidy would be disappointed.
“Don’t say anything to Brady until we have all the facts,” I said. “We don’t want him to overreact.”
Trevor chuckled. “Brady? Overreact when it comes to Cassidy? What could you possibly mean?”
I didn’t return Trevor’s smile. It wasn’t a joke to Cassidy. She hated the way her family coddled her almost as much as she loved them for it.
My phone rang, and I glanced down at it, fully expecting to send it to voicemail, until I saw Jonas’s face on the screen. As part of the generation who knew how to text but not how to carry on an actual phone conversation, he rarely called. My remorse filled as the promise to myself from last night returned, and I stepped away from Trevor’s desk to head for the privacy of the conference room.
“Hey, Jo-Jo. What’s up?” I greeted.
A sniffle came from the other end, and my heart fell. “She had another episode.” His words struck me in the gut. “She’s alive, Marco. But they’ve got her wrapped up in wires and machines.”
Goosebumps littered my skin in a way they rarely did. I took a deep breath, held it, and then exhaled.
“What have the doctors said?” I asked as every single muscle in my body tightened, ready to do battle against an enemy I couldn’t fight.
“No one will tell me,” he responded as his sadness turned to anger and frustration that I couldn’t blame him for.
“Can you give them my number? Have one of them call me? That way we’ll get the facts.”
“Fine. But they should tell me. I’m not a kid.”
He was, but I remembered being sixteen and thinking I was already a man. It took years for me to figure out that I wasn’t. It took situations that were out of my control and standing up for things I believed in before I realized I hadn’t really known what being a man was before. Even then, I’d still failed.
“You’re not. But they see a number attached to your face and nothing more,” I told him, trying not to wound his pride more than it already was. “Is she awake?”
My stomach twisted, thinking of Maliyah’s happy face sagging with pain. Guilt almost rendered me frozen as I thought of what she’d looked like the last time she’d been in the hospital for her broken heart syndrome?because of me. What would happen to Jonas if this continued? Would Child Protective Services let him stay with her if she kept having these episodes?
“I stepped out to call you when she fell asleep,” he answered.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I came home from school and found her at the bottom of the stairs. The EMTs said she hadn’t been there long, otherwise she might not have…” He couldn’t finish it as a sob overcame him.
We both sat in silence while I allowed him to get control of his emotions, fighting a desire to cry myself. I blinked back tears, my grip tightening on my phone as my other hand formed a fist with my nails biting into my palm.
“She said she was taking her meds,” I said quietly. Plans started flying through my brain. I’d need to catch a flight to Austin. I had to work on a coverage plan with Trevor. I had to talk with Cassidy...
“She is. I watch her take them every day.” His voice grew stronger, tucking away his actual feelings. I hated that he felt like he had to put a front on with me, but it had always been this way between us. The first time I’d come home on leave to find him sitting on the back step, he’d fucking saluted me as I’d walked up in my camos. It had made the pain stretching through me that day even worse because, at that moment, I’d been nothing more than a rat in the henhouse. The soldier turning on his military family.
“I’m coming,” I said. “I don’t know how long it’ll take me to get there, but I’m on my way. Who’s there with you?”
“Maria Carmen and Julianna. They both said I could stay with them, but I’m okay at the house,” he replied, defensiveness in every word. He was more than old enough to be on his own for a night, but I could almost guarantee one of them would badger him into going home with them until I showed up.
“I’ll call when I have a flight, but if she wakes, will you call me so I can talk to her?”
“Sure.”
He sounded broken. Jonas’s life had been nothing like mine. I’d been loved and cherished until the accident that took my parents from me.Jonas had been an afterthought to a mom focused on her next high. Maliyah was the first person to be utterly devoted to him, and now she might disappear.
“It’s going to be okay, Jo-Jo,” I said quietly.
“No. It’s really not.” And he hung up.
My gut and chest twisted a notch tighter, making it difficult to breathe.
“Fuck,” I said to the ceiling and thumbed open my phone’s browser, looking for flights out of Albany.
