Proof (Targes Executive Protection Book 1)

From the moment JJ reminded me about my promise to tell him the truth when he asked me a question, I knew that the peace I’d found on that log was gone.

JJ was gone.

My JJ.

“James Joyce,” he repeated, his voice hoarse. “How do you know about that?”

It was all I could do to raise my head and face JJ man to man. His expression and body language matched the despair in his voice.

“You told me,” I responded.

“I never told anyone about that. Not even Sully,” JJ choked out.

“Your mother wanted to name you James Joyce because he was her favorite author, so that was what your parents named you. After your mom died and you got older, you were afraid of other kids teasing you because your middle name was a girl’s. You started calling yourself JJ and told your dad and brother that you wanted a nickname like Sully had. Sully was short for Sullivan, so you wanted to be JJ. By the time you found out why you’d been given that name, people had already been calling you JJ for years. You felt like you’d betrayed your mother somehow.”

I could feel daggers slicing me open one by one as the color leached from JJ’s face.

“When? How?” he asked in disbelief. “My coffee—you know how I take it. This morning, you said you missed me. You called me ‘my’ JJ.”

“I did,” I agreed because I was too much of a fucking coward to do anything else.

JJ shook his head violently. I wanted to go to him, but I knew my touch was the last thing he wanted.

“The kiss,” he whispered. “The day you kissed me for the first time… on that canyon road… the day I thought you kissed me for the first time… it wasn’t, was it? It wasn’t our first kiss. It wasn’t my first kiss.”

I wanted to lie. I wanted to say whatever words would make him hurt even a little bit less. I could tell that none of what he was saying was because he was remembering the events for himself. This wasn’t some miraculous moment where his memory was returning.

“No, it wasn’t,” I reluctantly responded.

JJ was breathing heavily. I could see him shaking even from where I stood, and there was no missing the sweat that was dotting his brow. My gut was telling me he wasn’t just suffering from the emotional pain I was causing; from the way he kept closing his right eye and holding it shut for a few seconds longer than his other eye, I suspected his head was hurting again.

“JJ, I’m sorry, I just wanted you to discover the truth⁠—”

“On my own?” he spat. “You wanted me to prove to myself that you weren’t the one who shot me, right? I already figured that out, you fucking piece of shit! I don’t need files or reports to tell me that. Not with the way you kept coming back for me… the way you kept protecting me—saving me! Well, you did it, Cass. You got what you needed. The one living witness, the most important witness, can now testify on your behalf… the former cop who barely survived being shot in the head telling a jury that he doesn’t believe you shot him or those other people. Even if it isn’t hard evidence, no jury is going to convict a guy whose supposed victim said he didn’t do it⁠—”

“That’s not what this was about,” I snapped. Anger seeped out of me. “I just wanted⁠—”

“To get your JJ back,” he cut in. “You wanted your precious fucking JJ back.”

“Damn it, JJ.”

“Shut the fuck up, Cass,” he shouted. He fell silent for a moment as if he was waiting for me to defy the order. I kept my mouth shut because nothing I said was going to get through to him. Not like this.

“I just want to make sure I have this straight in my head—in my broken, useless, piece-of-shit head. You were telling the truth about the night someone else shot me in the head but the second you get out of prison, you don’t explain any of it to me? You let me keep living the lie. What was the fucking point?” JJ asked. He spread out his arms as if he was expecting someone else, anyone else, to answer the question.

“JJ—”

“Truth, Cass,” he said softly. His anger had been snuffed out like a candle only to be replaced with heart-wrenching despair. He didn’t wait for me to respond. “So everything from the moment you got out… that was all a lie?”

I began shaking my head violently because I knew what JJ was really asking. “No! The things that happened between us, they were⁠—”

“Real?” he asked with a little laugh. “How can something be real if someone is living in the dark and no one tells him he needs to turn on the goddamn lights? Tell yourself you did all this for me, Cass, if that’s what makes it easier for you to sleep at night. But we both know you didn’t do this for me. You did this because you wanted your JJ back. The JJ who exists in your memories.”

He didn’t give me a chance to respond. Instead, he turned on his heel and strode back in the direction of the cabin. I stayed where I was as I tried to make sense of JJ’s words. Was he right? Was that why I’d done what I had? Deep down, had I convinced myself that if I just said or did the right thing, I’d get the JJ I’d lost back?

“No,” I said with a shake of my head.

I began walking back to the cabin but concern for JJ had me picking up the pace. His head had been hurting him. What if it kept him from getting safely back to the cabin? Even if he did, his emotional anguish was off the charts.

Thoughts of JJ inadvertently veering off the path or taking one wrong step that would send him rolling down one of the many steep embankments that surrounded the cabin got me running. I was surprised when I didn’t catch up to him before getting back to the cabin. Since he’d been hurting, I hadn’t expected him to be able to put too much distance between us.

The now very real possibility that JJ had gotten hurt somewhere along the trail had me turning around so I could scour it. In the process, my eyes caught on something.

The back door of the cabin was wide open.

I’d closed it behind me when JJ and I had left to go on our walk.

I sprinted to the cabin and rushed inside, fully expecting to find a pain-ridden JJ lying on the floor in one of the rooms.

He was in one of the rooms. The living room, to be specific. And he most definitely wasn’t on the floor.

JJ was standing calmly next to the now open wall safe. He had my gun in his hand and, just like the day he’d confronted me on the canyon road, he had it aimed directly at me. But he wasn’t the same as he’d been that day. He wasn’t afraid now. He wasn’t going off an adrenaline rush.

Despite the sweat dotting his brow and the slight tremble in his free hand, JJ kept the gun pointed at me. I knew he had to be in terrible pain, but he refused to let it show.

“My birthday,” JJ said with disgust as he motioned toward the safe. “Not your birthday, not your grandmother’s, not your mother’s, not even the day you got your fucking car. You used my birthday as the code.” He laughed dryly. “You did say it would be in the files.”

“JJ—”

“JJ what?” he barked. “JJ, I can explain. JJ, it’s not what it looks like. JJ, I’m sorry.” His voice cracked a bit at the end, but he didn’t break.

“Whose idea was it?” he snapped as he reached into the safe with his free hand and pulled out the satellite phone. “To follow me. Whose idea was it? Yours or my brother’s?”

I didn’t want to lie to him, but I couldn’t throw Sully under the bus.

“JJ—”

“Stop saying my fucking name!” JJ yelled. He hurled the satellite phone at me. I only caught it out of pure instinct.

“Let’s get my big brother on the phone,” he continued, his voice cold.

I dropped the phone on the floor. Frustration, fear, anger, and pain swirled inside of me, building upon itself like a tornado. I couldn’t keep myself from striding forward, but I abruptly stopped when JJ put the gun to his own head.

“It’s a different game now, Cass,” JJ said softly. His hand was shaking more now. “You know I won’t shoot you, but you’re not so sure about this, are you?”

I was too afraid to open my mouth to respond. If I made even the slightest wrong move…

“Are you?” JJ demanded.

“No,” I admitted.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it? You wanted vengeance. You wanted to fuck with my head. You wanted⁠—”

“I wanted you!” I shouted without thought. Thankfully, the finger he had resting against the trigger didn’t jump. It would take next to nothing for the gun to go off. “I wanted you, JJ! I wanted you back. I⁠—”

All the days I’d been locked in the room where no one could or would hear me bled together until this ugly darkness rose up inside me. “No one fucking told me, okay?” I raged. “Two days,” I ground out. “Two days of not knowing if you were alive or dead. Two days of staring at the only thing I had left of you… your blood beneath one of my fingernails. Your fucking blood. I couldn’t stop it. No one came when I screamed for help. No one came.”

I sucked in a much-needed breath as I tried to tamp down my fury. “I watched you die, JJ. I saw it when you were walking toward me one second and then crumpling to the ground the next. I saw it when your eyes slid shut as I held you in my arms and begged… fucking begged you not to close them. I saw it when the cops slapped cuffs on me and dragged me away from your lifeless body. The last fucking image I had of you that night was watching the paramedics doing CPR on you. I tried to get back to you but there were too many of them. The cops shoved me into one of the police cars and that was it. They just drove off and I never saw you again. You died in my arms, JJ, and no one told me any different for two fucking days!”

My entire body was shaking violently as everything went cold inside of me. “Sully didn’t come. My grandmother didn’t come. My father didn’t come. Not one of the all-so-important Ashbys came. I had to hear that you were alive from that fucking excuse of a lawyer they assigned to defend me! I would have traded a thousand lifetimes in prison for those two days.”

I was panting like I’d just run a marathon, and at some point, I’d unknowingly dropped my eyes to the floor. I jerked my head up. The rush of relief when I saw that JJ had lowered the gun to his side nearly sent me to my knees. I ran my fingers through my hair in an effort to gain control of my runaway mouth.

“Yes, JJ,” I admitted. “For about five seconds after I walked out of that place, I wanted you to hurt like I hurt. I wanted answers. I wanted to know why you never came to see me. I wanted to know why you weren’t at my trial. I wanted… I wanted you to know that I died that night too. I had no idea that you… that you…”

“Didn’t remember,” JJ softly supplied.

I managed a nod. “Sully told me about it after that day on the canyon road. The day I kissed you for the second time.”

JJ looked lost as he stared at the ugly lime green carpet beneath our feet. “Why couldn’t you just let me keep living the lie, Cass? I knew who I was there. I knew what I was. All those men… they knew what I was. I didn’t hurt in that place.”

“All you did was hurt in that place,” I countered. I slowly made my way to him. He didn’t step back, and he didn’t raise the gun. He didn’t even flinch when I removed the weapon from his hand.

“See, Cass, that’s the truth. Right there,” JJ whispered.

I shook my head in confusion.

“You want to believe that I’m still whatever version of myself I used to be. Your JJ didn’t drink all night, every night. Your JJ didn’t let random guys fuck him. Your JJ didn’t get on his hands and knees in a shitty alley so whoever wanted a piece of him could have it. Your JJ wouldn’t have pretended that everything was okay… that he was okay.” His voice cracked on the last word.

I reached my free hand out, but he stepped back.

“Your JJ did die that night, Cass. Now this version of JJ—this incredibly fucked up, selfish, ugly version, has to live with knowing he will never be what you want him to be, what you need him to be. He… I can’t be someone I don’t remember. I deserve this,” he said as he motioned to the empty room. “I know that. I know I deserve every second of what’s happened and so much more. I know I have to find a way to live with the knowledge that you spent two years in that fucking hellhole because of me. I deserve that. I did that. Me. This version of JJ,” he continued, placing his hand over his heart.

I shook my head because none of it was true. I needed him to know that. I needed him to understand. “JJ⁠—”

He caught me off guard when he stepped forward and captured my mouth with his. The kiss was slow and deep.

Desperate.

JJ’s hands framed my cheeks as his tongue slid against mine. I quickly caught up and kissed him back.

“You said you missed me. This morning in the shower. Do you remember, Cass?” His words were dotted with soft kisses that filled me with fear.

JJ wasn’t kissing me because he knew deep down that we’d be okay.

He was kissing me because he knew we wouldn’t.

I shook my head but with JJ’s hands holding my face, my denial was muted at best. His mouth captured mine again, but it still wasn’t the kind of kiss I wanted… needed. It wasn’t the kiss that promised me a future with him.

“JJ, don’t do this,” I breathed against his mouth. I kissed him hard. The need for oxygen was the only thing that allowed him to end the kiss.

“Who was I this morning? Who did you miss this morning?” he pressed.

“You—”

JJ was the one to shake his head this time. I could feel my heart being ripped apart bit by bit.

This was supposed to be okay.

This was all supposed to have been okay.

We’d been punished enough.

We’d suffered enough.

We’d lost enough.

“He was lucky,” JJ said with a sad smile. His cheeks were damp, and his voice was so rough it was hard to hear him. “Your JJ. He was so lucky to have had you for as long as he did, Cass.”

I’d called him that the night before. I’d called him “my” JJ.

“No,” I ground out when JJ tried to step back. I kissed him with everything I was. All my passion, love, hate, rage… I put it all into the kiss.

Our last kiss.

“No,” I whispered against his lips.

“Shhhh,” JJ returned. “Close your eyes, Cass.”

“No,” I responded, though it came out sounding like the plea it was rather than the demand I wanted it to be.

“Close your eyes, Cass. Please. For me.”

I felt like I’d swallowed a mouthful of cotton. I couldn’t deny him. As much as it fucking hurt, I couldn’t deny him.

I closed my eyes.

“You have to let me go, Cass,” JJ pleaded as his arms went around my neck. I pulled him against my body and held him for as long as I could.

It wasn’t long enough.

I was losing him all over again. As much as it hurt, deep down I knew what I wanted wasn’t fair. I wanted him to go back to a life he didn’t remember. I had absolutely no doubt that I loved JJ—all of him—with my entire being, but I couldn’t expect him to look in the abyss of his past and see something, feel something that wasn’t there.

“Let me go, Cass,” JJ choked out.

“Never, JJ,” I whispered in his ear even as I released him. “Never,” I said simply because I needed him to know that even if we couldn’t be what we’d once been, I would never let him go. He would always be a part of me even if I couldn’t be that for him.

He slipped from my hold and moved past me. I was relieved when I heard his footsteps above my head. He was going to the bedroom, not leaving the cabin. He was safe.

JJ was safe.

That was all that mattered.

I’d keep him safe while I searched for the person or people who’d tried to take him from me, then I’d do what I should have done all along. I’d do what JJ needed me to do so he could move forward with his life.

I’d let him go.