Jayden's POV
I threw up right there in front of everyone.
The truth about Sheila being Amara's sister hit me like a truck. Everything I thought I knew about the last three years was a lie. Every choice I made, every time I hurt Amara, every moment I betrayed the girl I loved - it was all based on lies.
"Are you okay?" Agent Thompson asked, giving me a bottle of water.
"No," I said, wiping my mouth. "I'm not okay. I don't think I'll ever be okay again."
Amara was standing with her father, crying tears of joy and anxiety. She kept looking at Sheila - her half-sister - with shock and hurt in her eyes.
"Jayden," James Kingston said, walking over to me. "I need to ask you something."
I looked up at him, expecting anger. Expecting him to hate me for helping to destroy his family.
Instead, he looked sad.
"How long have you been helping them?" he asked softly.
"Three years," I whispered. "Ever since Sheila showed me the photos."
"What photos?"
I pulled out my phone and opened the pictures that had changed everything for me. The pictures that made me believe Amara didn't really love me.
"Sheila showed me these," I said, giving him the phone.
James looked at the pictures and frowned.
"This is you and Amara at the school dance," he said.
"Look at her face in the last picture," I said. "Look how she's looking at that other boy while she's dancing with me."
James studied the picture more carefully.
"Jayden," he said slowly, "this picture has been changed."
"What do you mean?"
"Someone used a computer to change Amara's face," James stated. "In the real shot, she was looking at you with love. Someone made it look like she was looking at someone else."
My heart stopped beating.
"That's impossible," I said.
James called Agent Thompson over.
"Can your tech team look at this photo?" he asked. "I think it's been digitally altered."
Agent Thompson took my phone and made a quick call.
"My team can analyze this right now," he said. "Give me five minutes."
While we waited, I thought about all the other "evidence" Sheila had shown me over the years.
The fake text messages where Amara allegedly talked badly about me.
The fake tape of Amara laughing about how "stupid" I was.
The fake witness who said Amara was cheating on me with other boys.
If the pictures were fake, then everything else was probably fake too.
"The results are in," Agent Thompson said, giving me back my phone. "This picture has definitely been altered. Someone changed where the girl was looking and added a boy who wasn't even at your dance."
I felt like someone had hit me in the stomach.
"Three years," I whispered. "I believed lies for three years."
"It's not your fault," James said. "Sheila is very good at manipulation. She fooled everyone."
But it was my fault. I should have trusted Amara. I should have asked her about the things Sheila showed me instead of just believing them.
"There's something else you need to know," Agent Thompson said. "We've been listening to Chairman Crain's phone calls for weeks. We know about the threats he made against your family."
"What threats?" James asked.
I looked down at my hands, ashamed.
"Chairman Crain knew my dad owed money to dangerous people," I explained. "He said if I didn't help destroy Amara, those people would hurt my little sister."
"Your sister is safe," Agent Thompson said. "We moved your whole family to a secure spot two weeks ago. The men Crain hired to threaten them have been arrested."
"They're safe?" I asked, hardly daring to believe it.
"Completely safe," Agent Thompson assured.
I started crying then. Big, ugly sobs that I couldn't stop.
For three years, I had lived in fear that my family would be hurt if I didn't follow Chairman Crain. For three years, I had betrayed the girl I loved to protect the people I loved.
And now I found out my family had been safe for weeks, and I had been ruining Amara for nothing.
"I'm so sorry," I said to Amara, who was watching me with confused eyes. "I'm so, so sorry."
"Why?" she asked. "Why did you do all those terrible things to me if you didn't believe I was bad?"
"Because I was scared," I said. "Because I was a coward who chose to hurt you instead of risking my family."
"But you loved me," she said, her voice breaking. "You said you loved me."
"I did love you," I said. "I still love you. That's what made it so hard."
"Then why didn't you trust me?" she asked. "Why didn't you tell me the truth?"
I didn't have a good answer for that. The truth was, I had been weak. When Sheila showed me the fake proof, I had wanted to believe it because it was easier than fighting back.
"I don't know," I said honestly. "I wish I had been braver. I wish I had been the man you deserved."
James put his hand on my shoulder.
"The important thing is that you're telling the truth now," he said. "And you helped us catch them in the end."
"But it might be too late," I said. "Chairman Crain still has Amara's mother. And he wants to trade her life for both of his girls."
"We won't let that happen," Agent Thompson said.
"How can you stop him?" I asked. "He's been outsmarting everyone for twenty-five years."
That's when Sheila, who had been quiet in her handcuffs, started laughing.
"You still don't understand, do you?" she said to all of us.
"Understand what?" James asked.
"Chairman Crain isn't the real villain here," Sheila said, her eyes sparkling with something that looked like madness. "He's just a puppet, like the rest of us."
"What are you talking about?" Agent Thompson asked.
"There's someone else," Sheila said. "Someone who's been controlling everything from the beginning. Someone who wanted the Kingston family destroyed even more than Crain did."
"Who?" James asked.
"Someone you trust," Sheila said. "Someone you never suspected."
She looked directly at Agent Thompson.
"Tell him," she said. "Tell him who really hired you to investigate this case."
Agent Thompson's face went white.
"What is she talking about?" James asked.
"I..." Agent Thompson started, then stopped.
"Tell him!" Sheila screamed. "Tell him who's been pulling all our strings!"
Agent Thompson looked like he was going to be sick.
"The FBI didn't send me," he admitted quietly. "Someone else did. Someone who said they wanted to help catch Chairman Crain."
"Who?" James demanded.
"Your wife," Agent Thompson whispered.
The quiet that followed was so complete I could hear my own heartbeat.
"That's impossible," James said. "Sarah is dead. Or taken. Or..."
"Is she?" Sheila asked with a bad smile.
Agent Thompson pulled out his phone and made a call.
"Mrs. Kingston," he said when someone answered. "They know."
He put the phone on speaker.
"Hello, darling," Sarah Kingston's voice came through clearly.
She sounded perfectly calm. Perfectly healthy. And fully in control.
"Sarah?" James whispered.
"Hello, James," his wife said. "I suppose it's time we had that talk."
"Where are you?" James asked. "Are you hurt? Did Crain take you?"
Sarah laughed, and the sound made my blood turn cold.
"Oh, honey," she said. "I've been right here the whole time. In fact, I'm standing behind you."
We all turned around.
There, walking out of the woods with a gun in her hand, was Sarah Kingston.
Amara's mother.
The woman who was meant to be dead.
And she was pointing the gun straight at her own daughter.