Oh, Pineapples.

34:Humour me.

🦋_________________
"If I can't love you then I guess I'll just drown,"

–jaden, 'photograph'

__________________🦋

I could recognize that burgundy painted smile anywhere. And her blue eyes only took me back to the first night we met.

"Mia?" I questioned audibly.

As much as I wasn't surprised to see him there, I still couldn't ignore his presence, or the way the butterflies in my stomach woke up, reminding me that I was alive.

Javadd.

He stood at the bottom of the stairs—his facial expressions stoic—next to Mia, whereas Collin and Travis stood shocked. Mrs O'Brien was completely indifferent to the situation as her face remained still.

"Oh, so you two have met each other, then? Scarlett, I didn't know you had a third name," Travis wondered out loud, breaking the tension in the room.

Scarlett? I wondered if that was her real name. Why did she tell me her name was Mia?

I connected the dots.

The night I met her she had immediately said my name, even though I hadn't told her. How could I have been so stupid? The night when I left Javadd with her, she instantly recognised him.

She was also tracking me down. But why did she not kidnap me as soon as she met me, Even though I let her into my house?

My eyes wander to Javadd again, and I could tell he was avoiding my gaze. He felt guilty about the fact that he hadn't been honest with me.

I'm not mad at you, Javadd. I wanted to say. None of this is your fault.

"Okay, I'm just gonna ignore whatever that was about. Anyway...we don't have all day,"

"Wait. Before any of that, mother, humour me this," he took a step forward, and I couldn't predict what he would say next. "Why do you trust this guy, Travis so much?" He said the name in spite.

Her eyebrows pinched into a frown before she said, "Well maybe its because he was doing a better job than all of you here combined to catch the guy who killed your father," she spoke calmly, as though she was not being confronted by her son.

"Alright. But don't you think it's a little too convenient that he appeared out of nowhere, ready to help you catch the killer? Because, really, what does he get out of all this?"Javadd paced in front of his mother.

Where was he going with this?

"If this is some tactic for you to justify the fact that you couldn't even track down this girl, and Travis could, save it." She lifted her palm.

"Okay, yeah maybe we were a little sloppy. But have you once stopped to think that maybe it's not really as it seems. That maybe...maybe Travis actually killed dad?" He bargains, leaving everyone silent and my eyes widened.

He knows.

And as though he knew what I was thinking he shot a reassuring look my way that said 'it's all gonna be okay, I'm here, Jasmine.'

I didn't know why that made me want to cry.

"Wow. Clearly someone is dillusional. Love does that sometimes. Tabitha, do you know that your son right here tracked Jacob Wilson's daughter a while back and didn't tell you because he is in love with her?" He started.

"Javadd, is this true?" Mrs O'Brien implored.

"Yes, but—"

My heart warmed. He was in love with me.

Travis cut him short."Uh huh. We can't really trust you Javadd. For all we know, Jasmine could be fooling you because her father told her to,"

"We can't really trust you either, because a few months before meeting my mother, you were in jail—" Javadd raised his phone to show all of us the contents. An article titled 'Wilson and Co. Sue Travis Parker for defamation of daughter'. He slid to the next picture which was another article titled ' Travis Parker faces up to six years jail time' "—because you harrassed Jasmine. Not harrassed—traumatised her." He clenches his jaw as though he's trying as hard as possible to not punch Travis.

Collin raises his eyebrows in surprise as soon as his eyes scan the words bolded on the phone. Mia—or Scarlett remains stoic, as though she was expecting all this to happen. Javadd's mother, on the other hand, remains unconvinced.

"You have no proof that that's actually real," he chuckled nervously," you could have made up those headlines,"

We were all quiet as we all anticipated a response from Javadd.

"You want proof? I'll give you proof," Javadd said with a calm anger.

He took a black miniature cylinder out of his pocket, a voice recorder I assumed. He clicked on a red button below it and then it started playing.

'So I just got instruction from an anonymous contractor on this dark web to kill Robert O'Brien...yes you guessed it, Javadd's daddy!'

My eyes widened in realisation. Javadd had overheard our conversation and had recorded it.

'so I did it, I shot him right in the head. I knew playing Call of Duty would pay off some day. And when I was sure he was dead, I reached into my pocket and then dropped the Wilson and Co. Law Firm card right at the scene.' The recording played loud enough for all of to hear.

"Stop that recording, right now!" Travis lunged forward, towards Javadd, but was held back by Collin.

'... would track him down with the details on the card, and so all I had to do was be the shoulder that Mrs. O'Brien could cry on. I found a way to get her to trust me. That was the easiest part of it all. Within that short time, she told me she considered me the second son she never had, even though well, you know, I'm the one who killed her husband,"

Silence.

"Scarlett," Mrs O'Brien began, her face unreadable, "untie Jasmine." And then I heaved out a sigh I didn't even know I was holding, and as she did as she was told, she avoided eye contact with me.

Finally.

"Really? You don't have the guts to look at me after you shoved your tongue down my throat?" I said low enough for her only her to hear. She ignored me.

I stood up and after I stretched my arm, which was a little sore, I glanced over at Javadd, and I could have passed out because of the way he looked at me. As though it was taking him his all to not run over to my side of the room and kiss, right there and there. He looked at me as though he wanted us to be alone.

Travis had a defeated look on his face. He had lost at his own game. Mrs O'Brien walked over to him. "I really...I really trusted you," a tear slipped from her eye, the first time I had seen her display emotion in all thirty minutes of knowing her.

"Tell me why I shouldn't shoot you right now," she tried to hide her sadness behind her commanding voice. Almost as though she didn't want to believe Travis was really responsible for killing her husband.

A glint returned to Travis's eye when he said, "Because I have your gun," he stepped back, pulling a from the back of his shirt, pointing it her. " In fact, I'm the only one with a gun in here,"

He cocked his gun.

"So maybe you should all tell me why I shouldn't shoot any of you," he aimed his gun at everyone and no one in particular.

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A/N

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kisses and pineapples
–nicole <3