I just stood there staring at those initials like an idiot. J.H. My brain kept saying it’s nothing, just letters, but it already knew. Jason Hale.
My sister’s perfect fiancé downstairs, shaking hands, smiling for photos. I flipped a few more pages — numbers, dates, meetings, stuff I didn’t fully get, but it all felt wrong. And then one line, underlined like he pressed the pen too hard: “If anything happens to me, it wasn’t natural.” Yeah… great timing.
I heard steps in the hallway and barely shoved the journal back into the safe. Door opens — it’s him. Jason. Same calm face, like always. “They’re waiting for you,” he says, all casual. But his eyes flick to the safe for half a second. Just a glance. Too quick if you weren’t looking. I was.
I nodded like everything’s fine, walked past him, heart going crazy. Downstairs it’s loud, people laughing, music, my sister glowing like this is the best day of her life.
And I’m standing there thinking — do I ruin this right now with something I can’t even prove, or do I smile and let her marry a guy my dad was clearly afraid of?
