Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
He walks around the desk and notices the locks on the drawers. “Any idea what’s in there?”
“We’ll find out.” I unlock one of the two drawers. They’re deep and contain hanging folders.
Santos comes closer, leans over to have a look at the tabs. He shifts his gaze to me, and I know why. The folders are marked with names. Some I recognize, most I don’t.
But there’s one that catches my eye. That has me feeling that nausea again. I glance up at Santos, then back to it. This folder has my father’s name on the tab.
“You sure you want to look at these files, Madelena?” Santos asks.
My eyes are locked on that folder. I don’t answer Santos. Instead, I reach to pull it out. But before I can, he sets his hand over mine.
“Your uncle is dead and gone. He won’t be able to explain what you find in there, and it may be upsetting.”
“I need to do this.”
“Do you want me to look through it first?”
“I’m not sure you should be looking through anything at all,” Odin says to Santos from the doorway. “Our uncle was a very private man.”
“I mean no harm. Madelena knows that.”
Odin ignores him. “What is it?” he asks me.
I put the folder on the desk, so Odin sees the tab too. Santos’s phone rings and he excuses himself, leaving Odin and I alone.
“We don’t know what’s in here, Maddy,” he says, glancing at the door where we can hear Santos answer the call. “You and I should look at it first before anyone else sees.”
“You can trust him. I do.” I realize as I say it that it’s true.
Odin studies me but doesn’t say anything. Instead, he flips the folder open, and we read. I see Odin’s face pale in my peripheral vision and feel the blood drain from my own. I think about what Santos just said. Even as I turn the page over, my hand trembling, the temperature in the room seems to drop. Because I understand what the folders contain. What Santos once told me about Uncle Jax, about what he’d done, is all right here, in more detail than Santos had shared, than I’d wanted him to share, with full-color photos to back it up.
“Odin,” I mutter.
I finish reading before Odin does and put my hand to my forehead to feel the sheen of sweat there.
Odin’s eyes are wide as he closes the folder. “Jesus,” he says, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck. “Jesus Christ.” He looks at me.
“This is it. The thing that connects everything. It’s why it all happened.”
“Revenge. It’s all because of what our father did.”
I get to my feet, holding on to the edge of the desk to steady myself.
“Are you okay, Maddy?”
“I’m going to be sick,” I say and run from the room into the small, attached bathroom, just making it to the toilet before I throw up.
26
SANTOS
“What do you mean, she just left there?” I ask Val.
“You asked me to have them followed, remember?” Val asks me.
I do remember giving the order to have Caius and my mother both followed. I’d done it after finding the familiar stone on the catwalk when I’d suspected my brother of being up there. I’d never called them off. It had slipped my mind.
“Yeah, I remember,” I sigh. “Tell me again.”
“Your mother just left Dr. Fairweather’s office. I thought you should know, considering.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. Could he be your mother’s doctor?”
“I don’t know.” Will this be another coincidence? “Where is she now?”
“Looks like she’s headed home.”
“Let me know when she’s there. And station someone at the doctor’s office. Keep an eye on his movements until I say otherwise.” I disconnect and walk back into Jax’s office to find Madelena gone and Odin standing at the door of the bathroom. “What is it?” I rush to the bathroom, shoving him out of the way just as Madelena reaches up from her kneeling position on the floor to flush the toilet. She sits back, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and looking deathly pale. “What happened?” I crouch down to help her up.
She pushes me away once she’s at the sink and bends to rinse her mouth then washes her hands and splashes water on her face.
“Madelena?”
“I just need a minute.” She glances at Odin, who is standing behind me. He walks back into the office.
Beads of sweat dot her forehead, the skin around her eyes pink. Whatever she saw in that folder has upset her.
“Can we go?” she asks.
I nod, wrap an arm around her waist and when I walk into the office, I see Odin tucking a folder back into the drawer. I can guess which one. He looks up.
“You okay?” he asks her.
“I’m going to go home, actually. I don’t feel good.”