James POV
I read the message three times.
I still didn't know what was true.
Four years of proximity and I was standing in my kitchen holding a phone and genuinely unable to tell whether the fear on her face was real.
What kind of fool did that make me.
"She's scared," Rose said.
"Or she wants us to think she is."
Rose looked at me, "Those aren't the same thing and you know it."
I put the phone down on the counter.
Outside Lilly was finishing her cereal in the pantry doorway, completely unbothered.
"She put her hands on you," I said.
"I know what she did."
"Then how are you this calm about it?"
"I'm not calm," she said. "I just know that being angry at her right now doesn't actually help us right now," She looked up, "Tony knows where we live, James. That's not a metaphor. We
