Page 42 of Secret Revenge

“Why didn’t you stop her?” Brendan’s voice was furious.

“Permission glitch, my ass,” Jackson scowled. “She didn’t get in with her key card, Travis. She got in withyourfingerprints.”

The world stopped.

“My fingerprints? How…”

Of course. She’d been in my apartment. She’d been in my bed more than once. Of course.

No wonder she had slept with me.

“How indeed?” Brendan stared at me.

I closed my eyes, my face burning with shame. “I…may have let her into my apartment. Before her assignment with us started. We met at a club.

“Fuck. She took your fingerprints.” Jackson massaged his forehead tiredly.

How could I have been so stupid as to get betrayed like this? She hadn’t just gotten my fingerprints: she’d gotten much more than that from me. More than I had given anyone since Barbara. Maybe even more than I had given her.

“There is something else.” Jackson’s voice filled me with dread. “A lot more actually.”

He came over with a tablet and showed us a file. “Since I saw her in the security camera, I already sent people to look into her and they have come back with some findings. This is her, she works for a publishing company owned by Blackwell.”

I felt my legs go weak. There was no way that this was possible. This meant that she had been working for Blackwell all this time. And I’d been nothing more than a pawn to her. Maybe that was why she’d seemed so alluringly distant.

“Huh, that’s strange.” Brendan’s sudden words drew everyone’s attention to him again. “I can’t find anything about her. There’s nothing about her save for her getting into NYU. That is all I could find. There was nothing on her high school education or where she went. It’s like she just vanishes once you go too far back. Is she so important to Blackwell that he would scrub her background so she’d pass our security checks? That’s expensive. Let me see if I can find a relative to get more information on her.”

My heart was pounding in my chest as my brother worked.

“Okay, I found her mother. There is not much on her save for the fact that she was once married to a Jacob Anderson.” His eyes moved as he perused the details in front of him. I watched as his eyes widened. “Oh fuck!”

“What? What is it?” I asked him, feeling lost, confused and so many other emotions I was not willing to get into yet.

“Her name isn’t Emily Skye. It is Emily Anderson.”

I blinked at the fact that I didn’t even know her name, but I didn’t understand why Brendan said it like that. “So?”

“She’s the daughter of Jacob Anderson and Maria Anderson. Maria remarried after Anderson died. Jacob Anderson was one of the people that dad screwed over. It looks like he died just a few years after his company went under.”

All the feelings of hurt and betrayal that had been going through my head came to a grinding halt at that piece of information.

If she was one of the people that his dad screwed over… knowing her and her crazy sense of justice, then maybe she was only doing this to get revenge for her dad.

That I could forgive. I could even reconcile it with the image of her as a good person. This wasn’t just a paid hit piece for Emily Skye: this was justice for her family and countless others. Or at least, she thought it was.

“We need to call the police and have her arrested as soon as possible,” Jackson said suddenly, causing me to panic.

“No!” I shouted instinctively, causing everyone to look my way. “I…just give me one day. I need to speak with her.”

“What are you talking about?” Brendan asked, staring at me as if I had grown two heads.

“Just one day,” I reiterated. “Do you really want to arrest a woman whose life dad destroyed? I don’t think she will do anything to harm us. If I’m right… this is just an unfortunate misjudgment on her part, and she’s just looking for justice.”

Brendan looked like he wanted to cuss me out, and Jackson had a brow raised.

“Do you know how stupid you sound right now? She already stole the data right under your nose!” Brendan began.

I winced. It was true. Still…