Page 74 of Dearly Betrayed

My hands tremble.

I want Jayson to let go of my hand.

One of the bodyguards is holding the duffel bag I threw into the trash the day before.

“We should do this in private.” Adler’s expression is hard. “Bring your wife.”

“Sorry, wait a second.” Jayson pulls me against him. “What’s going on? Did you catch those Grady men?”

“Just come with me. We’ll talk in my office.”

“No, we’ll talk here. If this is about Fallon?—”

“Jayson,” I say, tears rolling down my cheeks. “Please, we should just go talk.”

He stares at me in surprise. His grip on my hand weakens as he looks from me to Adler. “What’s going on?”

“Please,” I whisper. “It isn’t what you think.”

“She stole from you,” Adler says. “How could you be so fucking careless, Jayson? All those fucking files just lying around where she could find them?”

His eyes widen. He stares at me, his grip loosening even more until we’re barely touching. He says nothing, only slowly shakes his head as I keep on crying, feeling pathetic, weak, worthless. I failed—I couldn’t even do one thing right, and now I’m going to lose him.

“It’s not like that,” I whisper.

“What did you do?” he asks and his hand slips from mine, leaving me alone.

Chapter33

Jayson

Fallon sits in a chair silently crying and it breaks my fucking heart.

All I want to do is comfort her. It kills me, letting her suffer like this. I want to wipe the tears away and wrap her in my arms, but once Adler starts talking, I can’t bring myself to touch her.

He explains it all, starting with the documents. “She tried to dump them yesterday, but we caught her on camera. Zach thought it was fishy, so we had someone grab the bag from the dumpster, and I found dozens of documents, all of them from your personal files. Incriminating documents. The sort of stuff that could sink you.”

Fallon releases an ugly sob but doesn’t contradict him.

“What else?” I say, forcing myself to harden, because if I don’t find some steel in my reserves then I am going to break.

“Once I saw what she had, we naturally checked your closet. It was locked, and it looked in good order, but I had my IT guys pull all the records for the copy machine. Sure enough, that’s how she did it.”

I stare at her. My soul crumbling to sand. “When?” I ask.

“About a week ago.”

“And she’s had it all this time?”

“I assume it’s been hidden.” Adler clears his throat and turns on his laptop. “We also have a recording. She had a conversation with her brother not long after making the copies where she admitted everything. You should listen.”

I don’t want to hear it. Fucking hell, I’d rather stab myself in the throat with a knife and bleed out on this rug than listen to that goddamn recording. She keeps crying, but quieter now, her knees pulled to her chest like she’s trying to hold herself together.

I feel the same way, like I’m going to fall to pieces.

The recording starts. It’s her voice, plain as day.“I found documents in our flat. A bunch of them hidden away in a locked room. I made copies.”

Then her brother:“That’s dangerous. Are you being safe?”

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