“Something has come to my attention, I thought you might like to know.” He looked from Caleb to Aleki.
Caleb narrowed his gaze. “What is it? Never known you to be reluctant to talk about something.”
“Yeah, even when you really should be,” Aleki said. “Like that time you got food poisoning and—”
Caleb held up a hand. “Okay, I don’t think we need to relive that particular incident.”
“Not my fault you’re squeamish,” Wolfe commented.
“Dude, that sort of thing is not something you share with your friends,” Aleki complained. “What comes out of you is your own private business.”
“If I fell unconscious, I thought you might need to explain to the doctor what was going on.”
“Yeah, I’d have told him you were exploding out of both ends. No need for anything more—”
“Enough,” Caleb said in a louder voice. He gave them both a stern look. “Sometimes it feels like I’m a kindergarten teacher. Wolfe, what is going on?”
“It’s about Genevieve.”
Caleb immediately straightened, narrowing his gaze while Aleki froze. “Vivi? What about her?”
“Her husband was found dead this morning.”
“Dead? What? Murdered?” Aleki asked.
Wolfe shrugged. “Don’t know yet. Cops aren’t saying.”
Caleb frowned. “What about Vivi? Have they said anything about her?”
“Not a word.”
“Hell,” Caleb muttered.
“So why’d you tell us?” Aleki asked in a bored voice.
Yeah, he didn’t fool Wolfe. He could see the tense way Aleki held himself. He cared.
“Thought you’d be mad if I didn’t. It’s not like I care what happens to her. Not after what she did.”
Caleb frowned at him. “Wolfe, we were kids.”
“She abandoned Aleki.” Us. He couldn’t say it, but it’s what he was thinking.
Caleb shot a look at Aleki, as though expecting him to say something. But he was silent, staring at the screen.
“She didn’t abandon Aleki. She broke up with him. She was offered a place at Yale and we were going into BUD/s training. She didn’t think a relationship would work long distance.”
“It could have worked,” Wolfe stated stubbornly. “We would have made it work.”
“It was their relationship. We weren’t part of it.”
“Yes. We were. When she left him. She left all of us. Aleki was devastated. She was the love of his life.”
“She wasn’t the love of my life.” Aleki frowned.
“You said she was. You drank every night for three weeks. You hardly spoke for days. You didn’t even smile.”
Aleki shrugged.
“You’ve barely even looked at another woman since.”
“You can talk,” Aleki muttered darkly.
Wolfe shrugged. “I have little interest in women.”
If he needed release, he had a hand. A hand didn’t want to talk about his feelings. A hand didn’t require him to be there for it emotionally. A hand didn’t want cuddles.
He didn’t do cuddles.
All right. That wasn’t quite true. On occasion, he’d embraced Caleb’s close friend, Arianna. She was the only person he considered to be his family other than the two men in this room. But those embraces were brief. A greeting. A goodbye. They weren’t cuddling. They weren’t intimate. They weren’t about comfort or love or any of those softer emotions that made him feel ill.
“It was eight years ago. We were all young. We can’t hold a grudge against her after all this time,” Caleb said sensibly. “Right?”
He looked at Wolfe who stubbornly glared back. He didn’t see it that way at all. She was theirs. She left them. She shouldn’t just be forgiven.
“Her leaving affected you too,” Wolfe pointed out.
Caleb nodded. “She was my friend. Of course it did. I miss her. I loved her. But we can’t stay angry at her.”
“I never loved her.”
Caleb snorted. “Of course not. You don’t believe in love.”
No, love was something people said. But they had no concept of loyalty. Of sticking by family no matter what. Genevieve had said she loved Aleki.
Then she’d left.
“What are we going to do about this?” Caleb waved his hand at the screen.
Aleki raised his eyebrows. “We don’t do anything. Vivi doesn’t need us. She never did.”
“That’s not true,” Caleb insisted.
“How would you know?” Aleki asked him, crossing his arms over his chest.
Caleb sighed. “I talked to her a few times after the two of you broke up.”
“Why? Were you hoping to get in there? Her father would have approved of you dating her. White and rich. Not a poor, brown-skinned kid.”
“Shit, Aleki. That wasn’t it at all.” Caleb looked shocked at his words.
“Maybe she wouldn’t have left if we’d shared her back then,” Wolfe mused.
“What?” Aleki snapped.
“Then she’d have had Caleb to take home to her father for approval.”
Aleki groaned, running his hand over his face. “Wolfe, I wasn’t gonna be her dirty little secret. Hiding in the background, while Caleb was taken home to Daddy and paraded around.”
“Like I would want that anyway,” Caleb said.
“I don’t care about being the dirty secret. No woman who’ll take on all three of us will want to take me home to her parents. Or probably be seen with me in public. I’ve always known I’ll be in the background.”
Both men gaped at him.
“That’s not the way it will work when we find our woman,” Caleb told him.
“Why not?” Wolfe asked.
“Because you deserve better than that, Wolfie,” Aleki said with sad eyes. “You deserve a woman who wants all of you. Who is proud to be with you.”
“We’ll never find a woman like that.” He’d once thought Genevieve . . . but no.
“We will,” Caleb told him firmly. “We’re not settling for less. I could try to email her, but I’d rather call her. Aleki, could you find her phone number?”
Aleki shrugged. “If I wanted to.”
Caleb sighed. “Come on, guys. All I want to do is make sure she’s all right.”
“I have a basketball game to get to.” Aleki stood up and slammed his way out the door.
“Shit.” Caleb ran his hand over his face.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything,” Wolfe mused.
“No.” Caleb shook his head. “I’m going to email her. I need to make sure she’s all right.”
2
Where was he?
Vivi paced back and forth in the dark, underground parking lot.
William was dead.
Her breath grew choppy. It could have been a heart attack. But if it wasn’t a heart attack . . . well, she could be next.
Grasping hold of her locket, she breathed in and out slowly.
She’d had the taxi meet her a few blocks away from her house. Thankfully, the driver hadn’t paid her much attention. She’d need to take another taxi to the airport as soon as she’d done this.