Page 43 of Secret Revenge

Alexi came to my rescue, pulling my brothers aside for a moment.

I waited tensely. Hell, I wasn’t stupid, I knew that what I was doing was ridiculous. To my brothers, it would seem like I had screws loose.

When they turned back to me, I pressed my lips together, waiting for the verdict from their blank expressions.

“Fine,” Brendan ground out. “But at the end of the day, we are going to call the cops.”

With a heavy heart, I simply nodded, "Okay."My emotions were going haywire, but I knew that standing around was not going to help me find clarity. I grabbed my car keys.

I needed to speak with Emily.

20

EMILY

Itried to sleep. I failed.

I spent the first hour in bed tossing and turning, my mind replaying the discoveries, each one a reminder of the wrongs I had inflicted upon Travis.. I dreaded what would happen when he found out, as he surely would.

Restless, I got up and combed again through every inch of information that I could find on the flash drive. It didn’t turn up anything that would help

The sky was starting to brighten with dawn by the time I finally passed out from sheer exhaustion.

I groaned when the sun shone bright through my window, blinding me. I dragged my aching body out of bed and hurried into the kitchen to make a fresh pot of coffee. I had a quick shower and called a ride to take me to Jonathan’s office.

The thought of admitting to Jonathan that his investment in Michael and me had been for nothing filled me with dread.This wasn’t just about my money: this was about my reputation. I had been so sure of this story. I had reassured him so many times. Who could trust an independent journalist again after she made such a huge mistake?

Nevertheless, no matter how much I felt like burying my head in the sand, Jonathan needed to know and it needed to come from me.

I also needed to tell him about the reparations list. It was my hope that informing Jonathan with the list and letting him know that the brothers were making attempts at reparations would be enough to have him feeling better about all of this. Of course it would not give him back his daughter, but the Ross Brothers were innocent of their father’s crime and I hoped that made him feel even the tiniest but better.

Michael had relaxed now. I hadn’t told him that Travis caught me on the way out. He had no idea I was probably facing criminal prosecution.

I sighed and took a deep breath before knocking on the door of Jonathan’s office and pushing it open. My hands tightened painfully around my purse as I waited for him to look up from his papers.

“Good morning, Emily. I hope you have good news for me?” he said, a small smile on his face as he looked up. I watched the smile disappear and his face line with worry as his eyes traveled around my face, taking in my expression. He clocked my hand that was still tightly wound around the straps of my purse and looked back at me.

“What’s the matter, Emily? You don’t look very good this morning.”

“We finally got into the file,” I told him, wanting to get it out as soon as possible.

“Oh? Was what you found that bad?” he asked. I felt even worse as his eyes lit up in anticipation of what he believed he was about to get.

“No, Jonathan.” I expelled a breath before I continued, the words suddenly feeling heavy and tied down to my achingthroat. “That’s the thing. There was nothing on the files. Nothing we can use.”

“What? What do you mean?” his face was a model of confusion.

“There was nothing wrong, Jonathan. They didn’t do anything wrong. We checked everything but there was nothing to be found. He’s completely clean. They are all completely clean.”

“What do you mean they’re clean? Surely there has to be something,” he prodded, moving towards the edge of his seat as he stared at me intently.

“No, Jonathan. There is absolutely nothing. that the only notable thing is, they have a list where-”

“A list?” he cut me off, suddenly looking hungry for whatever information I was about to impact on him. I bit my lip, feeling even more terrible when I saw the hope in his eyes, knowing fully well that it was going to be crushed any moment now.

“They have a list of all the people who their father hurt. They’re planning to send the families financial reparations for his crimes. So that’s a kind of story” I smiled weakly.

The older man went silent.