Page 74 of Behind These Four Walls

“What’s that supposed to mean? Kept me around?” There was an edge to him now. Isla itched to get out of there.

Brooke repeated, “Kept you around, just like before I married the man. You’re on my team. You’re here when I need you, and you like being right where you are, nothing more, nothing less.”

“That’s all I am to you? Like a servant?”

Brooke pouted. “You know what I mean. You’ve had my back from the very beginning. Don’t be like that. Let’s just get that damn bitch out of my house.”

Jackson hesitated a beat before slipping his arms around her waist, drawing her to him. “She’s a child,” he said. “You have nothing to worry about.”

“She’s probably a gold digger. I just can’t tell which she’s going for: Myles, with no personality, or—God forbid—Bennett.” She giggled as Jackson buried his face in her neck. “She’s a problem we need to take care of.”

Jackson groaned, pulling away. “What? I thought you were here for something else.” He tugged at her top, revealing a lacy black bra and an ample chest underneath.

Brooke pouted. “Jackson.”

“I will handle her.”

Isla’s stomach twisted. In her ear, Rey whistled low, hearing it as well. There was no time to think about how she was going to be handled. She was still in his closet, and if he found her there ... she didn’t want to imagine whathandlemeant.

Brooke asked, “It’s done, then, finalized? Victor’s revised will?”

“It’s done,” Jackson said, his voice clipped as he pushed past her, the sizzle between them dying down since she wanted to talk business rather than getting down to business.

“And he’ll get it all? And we will get more shares?” Isla heard as Brooke followed him, their voices ringing clear.

“Of course. He’s my goddamn son, isn’t he?”

Isla clamped her hand over her mouth. Bennett was Jackson’s son. How the hell had Brooke pulled this off for thirty years? What if Bennett had come out looking more like his true father than Victor? Would Brooke have claimed it was from the white side of her family, being biracial herself? And Jackson—was money important enough for him to have spent so long working for the man who was raising his son? And on top of it, they were conspiring to change Victor’s current will to an heir who wasn’t his biological child.

“If I push too hard, he’ll be suspicious. You know your husband. If you hadn’t coddled Bennett so much, he’d be better at handling issues on his own and wouldn’t require me to step in to clean up his messes. Maybe he’d even screw up less.”

“Don’t worry,” Brooke said. “We’ve waited this long. We just need to bide our time a little bit longer to pave the way for Bennett. He’s going to name him his successor anyway. Myles doesn’t want it.”

“There’s no guarantee Victor will. As for Myles, don’t easily believe he’s really as passive as he’s making himself out to be. Just don’t get too comfortable. I’ve waited my entire life for this, Brooke. I’ve sat by for thirty years because you said it would pay out in the end.” His frustration was reaching a boiling point.

“And it will,” she said coyly. Isla heard them kiss. “Let me start paying you back now, hmm?”

Isla heard a zipper and other sounds she’d rather have not. Where were they, and could she get out without alerting them?

“What do I do?” she whispered.

“Give them a sec,” Rey replied.

When it sounded like they were totally engrossed, Isla opened the door inch by inch, thankful that it didn’t squeak loudly enough for them to notice, not that those two would. She eased out of the closet, her movements as silent as possible, hitching the backpack up on her back. She crept to the door and checked to see if they were in her line of vision. She couldn’t see them, only hear them. She rushed past the doorway to the other side of the room, the sliding glass door just within her reach. She fumbled with the tiny latch. The tiny click as it unlocked sounded like a foghorn.

She only opened the door as much as her body could squeeze through, then closed it softly behind her. She moved as fast as she could, begging her sore body to not give out just yet. She pushed her way through his wall of hedges to come across on the other side.

She didn’t breathe normally until she made it back to the car she’d borrowed to get there, which was parked blocks away. She couldn’t move just yet. Her hands trembled, her mind unable to comprehend what she’d never imagined. That Jackson was Bennett’s father or that he’d have a recording of Eden that no one ever knew about locked away in a safe.

Chapter Fifty-Seven

“That’s some bullshit,” Rey said over the phone when Isla cut the recording off. She couldn’t agree with him more.

“How could they?” Nat whispered. “That’s so savage. And who’s the person that found her? What happened next?”

Isla said nothing, the sickening click at the end of Eden’s recording replaying in her mind. She could think of nothing else. As much as she wanted to believe Eden had made it out of those woods, chances were she had not.

After several moments of silence, Nat ventured, “What will you do, Isla?”