Page 1

CHAPTER 1

Jayce walked into Luke's office with a scowl. It wasn't like his friend to summon one of them. They all saw Luke as their unofficial leader, but he never acted like it.

Until today.

Until this morning.

Not exactly how he wanted to start his workday.

"You rang?" Jayce didn't bother to keep the annoyance out of his tone. They were used to his surly attitude at this point. No one even commented about it anymore.

"Close the door."

This couldn't be good. Luke never did anything behind closed doors. They had an open-door policy, and Luke was the biggest stickler about it. They all had an equal stake in Kringle Security, and as such, everything was discussed between all of them.

Jayce closed the door with a soft click and took the seat opposite Luke's desk. The space was meticulously clean, due to the fact that Luke rarely used it. But it was the look on his friend's face that put him on edge. Something big was about to go down.

"I just got off the phone with Shaun."

Jayce instantly tensed up. There was only one Shaun he knew and he hadn't seen the man in fifteen years. Not after the bullshit with his ex. The last thing he wanted to hear about was how the man was doing.

"I didn't know the two of you still talked."

Shaun had been in the same unit as them, but he did his four years and got out, taking Jayce's wife with him.

"We don't, but he needed to get in touch with you and figured I was the best person to do it."

"I've got nothing to say to him." He was grinding his teeth so much, it was any wonder they weren't completely gone.

"I told him as much but then he informed me Jasmine passed away this week."

The mention of his ex-wife's name only further put him on edge. He hadn't uttered that name in the fifteen years since he found out she was cheating on him with one of his best friends.

"I would say send my condolences, but we both know that would be a lie. I don't care what happened to her. She lost that right when she ripped my heart out."

"Any other time I would agree with you, but Jasmine left a note when she died and Shaun thought it was imperative that you knew what it said."

A bright danger sign flashed in his head. It was never good when someone confessed something on their deathbed. It usually meant that whatever they had to say was bad enough they couldn't do it while they were alive.

It turned out this was no different.

"Jasmine confessed that Michael isn't Shaun's son. He's yours."

Motherfucker.

Rage poured out of him in waves. "Are you fucking kidding me? She expects me to believe her bullshit all these years later?" No fucking way was he falling for that.

"Shaun had a DNA test done before he called. Michael isn't his."

His hackles rose. This couldn't be happening, not after everything that went down.

"So then he must be someone else's. I doubt Shaun was the only guy she cheated on me with. He doesn't have to me mine."

"Her letter said otherwise. Shaun insists you read it."

"Yeah, well, Shaun can go fuck himself. He stopped getting a say when he fucked my wife behind my back."

Jayce stormed out of Luke's office and didn't bother to look back. In fact, he didn't bother to stay at work. He climbed into his beat-up truck and drove the long distance to his crappy one-bedroom apartment in a shitty part of town. Unlike his friends, he wasn't living it up in some nice house or luxury apartment. He didn't want anything to do with that nonsense after he divorced Jasmine.

She was the one who wanted the high life. The one who cared about money and how the world viewed every decision she made. Jasmine was sure he would amount to nothing, so that was exactly how he made sure people saw him. No one knew the kind of money he had sitting in the bank because he never flashed it.

He drove a vehicle that was ten years past its due date. The old pickup belonged in a junkyard, but until it actually died, he would continue to love it.

The rent for his apartment was minimal, thanks to the million things that were wrong with the building. It was one step away from being condemned, but considering it was only a place to rest his head at night, it worked just fine. His apartment was by far the cleanest, which wasn't saying much; he lived amongst druggies and criminals who didn't care about the building’s mold problems.

Jayce unlocked the door of his apartment and stepped inside. He didn't have a clue why he chose to come home. He hated this place. He never spent time here and yet he didn't want to be at work. It was too early to go to the bar or to his usual hangout places. Basically, he was screwed.

He dropped his chin to his chest with a long exaggerated sigh. Running away wouldn't do any good and he would always wonder if Jasmine was screwing with him again.

"Fuck it," he said out loud to no one. He needed to at least know if there was even a hint of truth to Jasmine's dying declaration.

He sent out a quick message to Luke asking for the address, then mentally made a list of what he needed to pack depending on how far away they lived.

Luke got back to him immediately and Jayce grew even more agitated when he read the address.

This whole time Jasmine was barely an hour away.

It looked like he didn't need to pack much at all. The trip could be made in a day, and then when he found out Michael wasn't his, he could come back to his shitty apartment and continue to hate his life, like he’d done every other day for the past fifteen years.