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Charlotte hung up before he could refuse. She didn’t answer his calls as she drove. He would try to talk her out of it. A risk she couldn’t take.

When Charlotte turned up at Jayson’s apartment, she still had no idea what she was going to say. Or more specifically, how she was going to say it.

She knocked and waited the fraction of a second before Jayson cracked the door open and pulled her ins

ide. “What are you doing here? What’s going on?"

From the basketball shorts and T-shirt, she guessed he’d been sleeping when she called. The wine glass on the co ee table, probably from the night before, meant he hadn’t been alone. It was one of a thousand things for her to feel guilty about.

“I need you to call it o ,” she blurted, her voice hoarse and her body trembling.

“Call what o ?” Jayson furrowed his brow as he stared at her, as if looking at her more intently would help him make

sense of the mess standing in his living room.

“The investigation into Alex. You have to tell them to stop,” she explained, wrapping her arms around herself to ease the shaking.

He searched her face, his eyes wide and wild. “Stop ? What do you mean stop ? Charlotte, explain what’s happening because you’re not making sense.”

Jayson never called her Charlotte. The sound of her name was a glass shard slicing open her chest.

“I love her.” It was a simple and as complicated as that.

“I can’t let this happen.”

Jayson looked seasick before he let his body fall onto the couch. He dropped his head in his hands and was so quiet for so long that Charlotte wondered if she might pass out under the strain of waiting for his verdict.

“I need you to tell me everything,” he said. “I need you to tell me what you’ve done.”

Charlotte nodded. She would try her best to explain how she ended up in this place. In this miserable, impossible place where no road was without a disastrous end.

Without interrupting, Jayson listened to her story. She couldn’t pinpoint when, but somewhere along the way she’d fallen hard.

“She’s not hurting anyone, Jay.” Charlotte pleaded in the face of his silence. “I swear to you. She takes such good care of her sta . She protects them. This is consenting adults only. Please, you have to stop this.”

When Jayson looked up from the floor his eyes were wide and glossy. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier, Charlie?

You’ve been lying to me for months.”

Charlotte resisted the urge to defend herself. He was right. She’d been lying. “How could I tell you?” Her words vibrated as she tried to keep her pain from spilling out.

“What could I say?”

“You didn’t trust me?” Two fat tears leaked down his cheeks.

Darting forward from where she’d been standing unmoving by the door, Charlotte threw her body at him. “Of course, I trust you. You’re my brother. My only family.

That’s why I’m here.”

Charlotte wrapped her arms around his neck and sobbed.

Years of pent-up pain and sadness broke free from a place so deep, she was afraid the crying would never cease.

Jayson pulled her onto his lap and held her so tight it was hard to inhale. He rocked her slowly as she purged her fear and sadness, but he never whispered promises that it was going to be okay. Even now, he wouldn’t lie to her.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you what was going on,”

Charlotte cried between gasps for air. “I’ve never been so scared in my life. I didn’t know how to keep both of you. How to protect the only two people I love on the planet.”