Page 80 of I Promise You
My phone buzzes in my pocket, throwing me out of my element. I pull out my cellphone as Ari continues to recollect herself behind me. I’m still facing the wall, looking at my phone in annoyance—back to fucking reality.
Rooker: Another mission, Grim. We gotta go.
I read the text, Rooker holding me accountable for my team, reminding me a job still needs to get done.
I throw it back into my pocket and exhale.
Time to go.
“Did something happen again when you were away?” Ari asks me from behind, and I stiffen. I can’t tell her anything, at least no details. She wants me to open up to her, and I don’t blame her. If I was in her position and she kept leaving me all the time, I’d want to know everything.
So I decide to open up just a smidge of what I’ve been dealing with, keeping shit still classified.
“Yeah…it’s not anything good…to say the least.”
“It never is good…” She holds me from behind, giving me a hug. “Open up to me, please.”
Fuck, how am I ever supposed to say no to her?
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to tell my girl no ever again.
“It involves children. That’s all I can say.” I grab her hands, pulling them off of me, slowly.
I start to disassociate myself from her.I have to. The stress of the next mission tugs at my concentration. I’m already entering a state of mind where I don’t feel anything, a state of mind where I’m focused on solely keeping people alive.
“I don’t want us to keep any secrets between us.”
I freeze.
Because even though I’m not lying to her, I feel like I am when I refrain from giving her all the details. But it’s not only because I want to protect her…it’s becauseI can’t.
“There’s something I think I should tell you. Maybe I’m overreacting and…maybe I’m even going a little crazy, but I don’t want to keep things from you. I did that with Shane, but I won’t do it again.”
“What is it?” I ask.
She thinks I don’t know that Kane visited her when I was called in to work, but I do, and I’m still waiting for her to tell me about it. I want to kill him for going behind my back and visiting her in the middle of the night.
He was one of Paul’s best friends, too, and he’d made a promise.
We all did.
But I will engrave it into his head that the promise made to Paul is my responsibility now, no one else’s.
And I will.
She looks up from the floor, finally mustering up the courage to let me in.
She should never keep secrets from me again…she should’ve told me about what Shane was doing to her right away. She should have told me that she was pregnantsooner.
I push these thoughts out of my head.
“The other night, my window was open. I don’t remember opening it, and I doubt you left it that way. And then another day…my room felt out of place, like someone was there, as if someone went through my things.”
I inhale, tension building in my shoulders.
“I check the cameras, you know that, right? I check them all the time. Zeke checks them, the security company checks them. They’re being monitored twenty-four-seven. No one has been at the house, and if someone has, I’d know about it. The securitycompany knows about it and watches for intrusions when I can’t.”
She looks up at me like she’s waiting for me to say more.
