Page 80 of Roots of the Wicked

“Jax, you have to believe me. Think about this logically. I would never hurt you like this.”

I stopped listening. I was done. I scooted him out of my way.

Tears clouded my eyes because of how much I had begun to care about Chase. A toxic mix of rage and hurt, threatened to blow my head off. I had allowed myself to fall for him. My dumb ass had stopped listening to my mind and had allowed my heart to open up.

I marched past him brushing his arm as he persisted in pleading his case. “Jax wait. Let’s talk this out. You’re upset, not thinking straight.”

I laughed even as my heart was exploding in pain. “Now, you’re a fucking shrink.”

Once I stepped out of the office, I slammed Chase’s office door so hard, it vibrated the thick glass surrounding the frame. Every head on the floor stopped and peaked from desk and cubicles like I was the devil.

Richard, one of the research analysts I occasionally spoke too, approached with a question, but I scooted him out of my way, same as I had done to Chase. I kept stepping until I reached the elevator and attacked the down button.

Without glancing back, I sensed him behind me. If people didn’t know it from the photos displayed on the news, they would figure it out I was the woman in the picture with him now. I no longer cared, all my give-a-fucks on the matter had been set on fire.

Chase stood behind me. “Jax please. Just listen to what I’m telling you.”

I knocked his hand away from me and kept my angry face pointed at the elevator. The shiny stainless steel elevator door gave me a warped reflection of him standing behind me.

My spit my words through gritted teeth. “You’ve been watching me work my ass off attempting to figure out who did this. You even sat at my dining room table watching me and TK work to solve this, and it was you the whole time.”

He put his back against the wall in an attempt to see my face.

“Someone is setting me up. I don’t know how to prove it, but I can promise you, I won’t stop until I do,” he choked out his desperate words, his face anguished as tears stood in his eyes.

When the ding indicated the elevator had arrived, I stepped in not allowing the doors to fully open. I beat the hell out of the lobby button the same as I had the down button. Chase was smart enough not to climb in with me.

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