Page 3

“You looked up my birth certificate?” I ask dryly, trying to find it in me to be surprised. At this point nothing seems to shock me when it comes to the Gideon family. “I’m married, or did you already forget that?”
He groans and leans back, tossing aside his pen. The years have done Sterling Gideon well, and he’s a man in place of the gangly boy I knew when I was eighteen. He was a few years older than me, going to school for journalism and investigative reporting back then, but he’s filled out in his arms and let age turn him into a handsome man instead of some pesky reporter.
He has imperfections too, which I kind of like since he walked in here like the son of God. The slope of his nose is slightly crooked, probably from a break at some point in time. His dark hair is more of a deep brown than the auburn it used to be, and he has a beard. That feature threw me off when he walked into the room, causing me to do a double take.
His dark brown eyes sweep over me, and I wonder what he sees. After what happened, I only saw Sterling a few times trying to get in at the hospital, and loitering in the background during my one statement on the ordeal. He was there in court watching the trial, but that’s it. We didn’t speak again. I got the displeasure of seeing his father far too much, but since Sterling wasn’t working with the FBI back then our paths never truly crossed.
“You’re married with no name change, Joelle,” he argues, his voice cutting through the mess in my head. I try to meet his gaze but drag my eyes away again, unable to hold the intensity of his stare. It feels far too real, like getting sucked back in time. “Just state your full name for the record. Let’s not make this anymore difficult than it has to be.”
Cringing at the use of my birth name, I glare stubbornly down at the table. This is why I like my life in Colorado. People never ask me these questions. “Jo Surwright.”
“Full first name.”
My teeth grind together, and finally his partner speaks. The tension between the two of us made me forget there’s a third person in here. “Sterling, I don’t think this partially matters. We called her in. We know her name.”
“Jensen, shut it. Say your full first name please, Jo.”
I’ve already forgotten if Jensen is this guy’s first or last name, but he’s been relatively quiet and easygoing since we walked into the visitation room at the penitentiary. It makes my skin crawl imagining Alastair sitting in here to receive visits from anyone. I’m pretty sure this was a power play by Sterling, having me meet him here instead of the police station, but then again, Sterling hasn’t always made the smartest moves when it comes to me.
I’m having a hard time focusing. I arrived in Florida two days ago with my husband Vinny, and we managed to go to our longtime friend’s home to rest before we had to come here. We might not be charged with the crimes of the CGS, but people still think we know something. When I was fresh out of high school Special Agent Edwin Gideon believed much the same thing because Alastair didn’t kill me in that cellar. His son Sterling may be a little more tolerable, but he’s back to believing there’s some special nugget of information that I’ve kept to myself all these years. This new murder has nothing to do with the old ones as far as I’m concerned, so this thinly veiled blackmail tactic just pisses me off. The FBI could find better means than threatening the club I co-own with Vinny, challenging the sanctity of the experience we handcrafted that gives people the freedom to be themselves.
If our club is destroyed, I don’t know what’s left in Denver for me. Coming here was done out of sheer desperation to get Sterling to look at another angle. Alastair cut ties with me years ago when he destroyed my life. We didn’t exactly stay in contact upon his arrest, even if I occasionally received letters from him. Twelve letters to be exact.
I make them wait for my answer to Sterling’s demand because frankly, I’m already sick of being here. “Joelle. Joelle Surwright.”
Finally, Sterling nods his approval and leans back. He reminds me a bit of his father back when the initial investigation started, but Edwin was more of a perv, and less insistent on the fine details of what happened. Almost sixteen years later the details aren’t as dim as I wish they were. Only certain moments in time remain hard for me to decipher.
“Now then,” Sterling continues, back to business. “Tell me about Alastair.”
I flinch at the name, and both agents notice. Ignoring his existence for the past fifteen years gave his memory less power over me, but being back in my hometown where tragedy waits around every corner makes the old wounds feel raw and flayed open again. For a while before we flew back Vinny started saying Constantine around our house, forcing me to get used to hearing him in casual conversation again if we needed to come back and face this. He started calling him by his first name two weeks ago and I still don’t like it.
Alastair Constatine is responsible for the best and worst moments of my life.
“Focus, Joelle,” Sterling says, snapping me from my thoughts. Agent Jensen looks on curiously, and without meaning to I reach beneath the table and to one side of me for a hand.
Except there’s no one there. Sterling and Jensen plan on questioning me and Vinny separately. I don’t know if someone’s questioning Vinny now, or if we get to spend twice as much time going through the process so they can do back-to-back interviews.
I clear my throat, dragging my hand back to fist in my lap. “Right. Constantine.”
Sterling nods, leaning forward. “Alastair.”
“Everything I know about the bastard is in the file,” I continue, ignoring the way Sterling tries to correct me. Constantine betrayed my trust, and I refuse to acknowledge him more than I have to these days.Alastairwas dear to me and he destroyed everything we had. In my head they are two distinctly different people, because they mean two entirely different things to me even if they are trapped inside the same person.
Reaching out I tap the manila folder laying on the table with a finger. It can’t possibly be the only folder on him, but it’s the only one sitting in here. Both agents follow the movement with their eyes, and I don’t miss the way their gazes lock on my hand.
It’s the scars. People are always staring at them. The ones that extend to my fingers are faded, and only on the pointer and middle fingers. The thin white lines disappear beneath the billowy sleeve of my top, and I snatch my hand back to tug the sleeve down until my fingertips can fold over the fabric and hold it against my palm.
Then I glare at them, because I hate all the stares. The scars are a part of me now, but being home where I first got them makes me uncomfortable. Here, it’s not speculation. Everyone knows who put them on me.
Sterling clears his throat. “We need details, Joelle-”
“Jo,” I snap, glaring at Sterling. “I’m not Joelle anymore. You can call me Josephine if you absolutely must.”
He purses his lips, and I can feel the fight building between us. We’ll never get through this interview if we can’t get past this. Josephine is the name I chose when we went to Colorado, creating another version of myself with a tragic past and a shiny future that I could mold into anything. Josephine is a BDSM club owner who’s confident and passionate and married to a man who would killforher, not killher.
Joelle is a broken girl whose mother died to save her. She fell for a man who betrayed her in the worst possible way, and he shattered his love with Vinny, too. Joelle is broken, weak, and ignorant. Josephine is who I want to be.
Jensen clears his throat, interrupting the glaring contest I’m having with Sterling. The agent nods to the pad of paper Sterling is writing on, and I can’t help wondering why he isn’t inputting everything into a tablet as we speak. Sure, we’re currently sitting in one of the visitation rooms of a penitentiary, butI’mnot an inmate here.