Madison looked like a wreck. She threw her arms around Jesse and began to cry. “Oh my God, oh my God, Jesse, are you okay?” She held him at arm’s length, brushed the hair away from his face, then hugged him again.
“I’m okay, Mom. Mom, I can’t breathe.”
“You can’t breathe? Do you need a doctor?”
“You’re squeezing me.”
She let go. But she couldn’t stop touching him. His face. His hair.
“You’re okay.” She took a deep breath. Then she turned to Sean and slapped him. “I told you not to go!”
Sean stared at her and controlled his anger. “Don’t.”
“I told you they were okay. You put my son’s life in danger!”
Sean stepped into the hotel room. Kane was outside the door. He gave Sean a look of confidence before Sean closed the door.
“Jesse was in a house owned by a crime family.”
“There’s no proof of that. You’re making it up to make me look bad.”
“You? No. Carson? Yes. The FBI has plenty on him. He’s not getting out of this.”
“No. You did this, somehow. When I came to you, you found a way to discredit me…” As she spoke she realized how idiotic she sounded, so Sean didn’t say a word.
“How could this have happened?” she said, wiping tears from her face.
“Carson wanted to give you everything you wanted,” Jesse said.
Madison stared at her son as if he were a stranger. “What? You mean your father.”
“He’s not my father,” Jesse said.
Madison turned to Sean. “You promised you wouldn’t tell him!”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Carson raised you, Jesse. He loves you. He loves us. He wanted us.”
“Mom, he’s a criminal. He launders money for the drug cartels.”
“You can’t believe what Sean tells you. He’ll say anything to hurt me. I’m sorry, Jesse, but Sean and I were very young when we met. He was wild, he’d been expelled from Stanford and was almost put in prison for computer hacking! I didn’t want you around that. I wanted to protect you.”
Sean wanted to hit her. How dare she bring that up—here, now. Like this.
“There are two sides to every story,” Sean said, his voice low. He caught Madison’s eye. She was in full panic. She was afraid of losing everything, of losing her son.
Jesse said, “Mom, stop. Sean didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.”
Madison looked like she was going to faint. Or puke. Or both. Sean still had no sympathy for her.
“Honey, this is just mixed up in your head. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for everything, and when Carson gets here, he’ll explain.”
“They arrested him at the airport.”
“What? No!” She grabbed her purse. “I have to go see him. Come on, Jesse.”
“I don’t want to go. I don’t want to see him right now.”
“I’ll stay with him,” Sean said. He didn’t want to stay. He wanted to go home and see Lucy. But he could bring Jesse with him. “He can come home with me.”
“No way. Absolutely not.”
“Why not, Mom?”
“Because! He’s not your father!”
Jesse looked from Sean to his mom. “But—what?”
“Madison!” Sean snapped. “Tell him the truth. Now, or dammit, I will get a paternity test and prove it.”
“I mean to say, he’s your biological father, but he didn’t raise you.”
“Because you didn’t tell him about me. Right, Mom? You kept it a secret.”
“I—” She was going to lie again, Sean could see it in her eyes. “We were young. He wasn’t ready to be a father.”
“That might have been the case then,” Sean said, “but I’m not a teenager anymore. And you didn’t give me a chance to prove myself to you, or to Jesse.”
“We’ll talk about this later. I need to see my husband.”
Jesse sat down on the bed. “I’m not going.”
Sean didn’t want to see Jesse start taking this whole thing out on his mother—no matter how much she deserved it. He said to Madison, “It’s been a long couple of days. And the FBI isn’t going to let you see Carson, not yet. My advice? Find him a good lawyer.”
“He already has one.”
“Maybe find him a lawyer who doesn’t also work for the drug cartels. They’re known to eat their own when threatened.”
She paled, and Sean felt guilty for being so blunt. But the truth was, Madison had to grow up and face the music. Her husband was a money launderer for some very nasty people. He was going to prison. There was no way around it.
“I’ll find him a lawyer,” she said.
Sean turned to Jesse. “I’ll see you later.”
Jesse ran over and hugged him. He whispered, “I was really scared the whole time.”
Sean’s heart tightened. “You know what?” he whispered back. “So was I.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
It was Thursday afternoon before Sean made it home. He walked into his house and Lucy was there, in the living room, curled up on the couch. His heart quickened.