Daphne pulls hard on my elbow. “Don’t lie to them, Leo.”
“I’m telling the truth. God as my witness. I held Haley Constantine hostage.”
“You didn’t.” Daphne sounds horrified. “You didn’t hold her hostage. She wanted to be here. What are you talking about?”
“I held her hostage. She wasn’t free to leave. Or would you prefer if I called her a prisoner?” I’m talking to Daphne. I’m talking to all of them.
“It’s not true.” Silent tears streak down Daphne’s cheeks. “Stop lying. Stop, stop, stop.”
“Sorry, sister mine. I’m not the man you think I am. I’m as bad as your collector. Worse. Dry your tears. They’re not worth crying for me.”
Daphne sucks in a breath and holds it. She swipes at her face with the back of her hand, and through the pain, through the hangover, through the despair, I hate myself. I hate that here, in my house, she has to put on that mask. It’s not what I meant. I just meant that it’s worthless to cry for a sinner. A ruined man. A hell-bound soul.
“Anything else you’d like to confess?” The police captain is having the best day of his fucking life. His people are coming down my stairs with boxes of evidence. They’ve turned the house upside down in ten minutes flat. I have no doubt it’s because someone is guiding their search. Caroline’s never been in my house. She’ll never see a blueprint. There are no public records of the inside of my home. But she’ll have planted ideas in their heads about where Haley might have spent her time. It’s too large a space to search it all this quickly.
They appear to have enough.
“They’re already in the house,” Gerard is saying. “I couldn’t get him to stop talking. He confessed everything. No. No. The lawyer isn’t here. There was nobody except the security detail.”
“Leave her alone, Gerard,” I tell him.
He ignores me. Keeps hovering around. Barking orders at the security team to stay back by the walls. It’s so fucking loud in here. My home has never been invaded like this. I can’t summon the will to be shocked. Caroline will do anything to fuck with me. Anything. It doesn’t matter that she has Haley back.
I laugh out loud, and the police captain’s lip curls. “Is this funny to you?”
“I’m entertained. Of course I am. You and thirty of your buddies are in my house, rifling through my things because you’re so fucking convinced I kidnapped a woman. Fine. I agree. I kidnapped her. It doesn’t matter that she came here by herself, does it? Or that she’s home with her family as we speak.”
They’re filing out the door. Boxes and boxes. I don’t know what the fuck they could have taken that would be proof Haley was here. Her clothes, probably. That’s most of what she left behind. All the clothes I bought for her. The clothes I wanted to see her in. I want to see her every day of my fucking life. And if I can’t see her, then I don’t want a life.
Not that I’m going to mention that on the record. They have what they need.
The police leave, several of them taking the time to jostle me on the way out. Daphne lets her hands fall to her sides and stares up at the police captain, who wants to savor every moment on the job. He waits until all of his men have gone. Then he straightens his tie. The motherfucker didn’t lift a finger throughout this little raid, but now he’s putting himself back together.
“Charges are pending investigation, Mr. Morelli.” He makes a show of looking around the foyer. “I bet you’ll miss this place when we put you away.”
I let a grin creep over my face. Show him my teeth. I watch the realization dawn that he’s standing in my foyer alone, with none of his men around him.
Daphne moves to stand in front of me, brave in the face of uniforms and guns and search warrants. “Stop trying to scare us. You’ve done your job.”
The police gives her an interested look, a very male look, and I growl low in my throat. “Get the hell out of here.”
He leaves, and then it’s only me. And my sister.
“Why did you say that?” she says, turning on me, her eyes alight with frustration. “Why did you say that you kidnapped Haley when you didn’t? They’re going to use that against you.”
“Because it’s true.” I am fucking exhausted. I have had enough. “So close to the truth, it might as well be true. I forced her to be with me. Did you think your brother was kind and noble? No, sister mine. I made her trade her body to save her father.”
I deserve the shock in her eyes. The condemnation. And I deserve for her to walk away, to run up the stairs and leave me standing here, alone.
* * *
I’m entirely unsurprised when Gerard comes into my office an hour later with his phone in his hand and his jaw set. “The Constantines aren’t done yet.”
“Who are they sending now?”
“Rick Joseph is looking for you. He’s on his way over.”
The last time Caroline sent someone to my house, I made Gerard and the rest of the staff leave. Haley was the only one in the house when Ronan shot me. “Fine.”
“I can stop him at the gates.”
“No. Let him come. I’ve waited too long to kill that motherfucker.” I let Haley live with the knowledge of him in the world for too long.
“Don’t, Leo. Don’t do it tonight. You’re not thinking clearly.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “If you don’t want to be a witness, you can leave.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Guard Daphne’s door, then. Show that bastard in and make sure my sister doesn’t come out until it’s over.”
It used to be me telling Daphne to stay in her room until a nightmare had passed her by. Gerard will have to do it now, though he’d rather play his old part. He’d rather put a bullet through Rick’s head before he could step into my foyer. It’s what my father would have ordered him to do without a second thought. He’s fielded similar orders many times, I’m sure.
It’s different now. Both of us know it’s not Rick he’ll be protecting Daphne from. It’s me. It’s the sight of me keeping a promise to Rick on a knife’s edge.
He makes up his mind. Stands up tall. “You don’t need more blood on your hands.”
“And if I want it?”
“Let me do my job.”
“Your job is to stand in front of my sister’s door and guarantee her safety. We can make it an order, Gerard. I don’t fucking care. I want everyone off the first floor and on the second, with you. Anyone who wants to leave can go. When is Rick arriving?”
Gerard sighs. “He’ll be here within the hour.”
I send him away, though not out of the house, and return to the master bedroom. My favorite knife waits for me in the weapons safe in the corner of my closet. A pistol. I bring both back to my office.
All the lights should stay on for this, but in addition to the clawing pain in my back, I have a splitting headache. I don’t get headaches. Having one now gives the sweet release of death an added appeal. The drilling in my skull tugs at a memory I can’t reach. Something nonsensical about someone else’s headaches.
I don’t know. I don’t care. This is why I don’t drink, except when I need to be seen drinking for a social event.