He huffed out a sound that was part scoff and part laughter, clearly impressed with his uncle. “Not a thing.”
“Well, if you happen to see him, would you ask him to give me a call?”
He narrowed his shimmering eyes and nodded. “I’ll get right on that. And since your other source is my sister, just how were you planning to protect her when the shit hit the fan?”
“Levi,” Sun said, aghast for the second time in five minutes.
“Sinister, sweetheart.”
She didn’t spare her mother a glance that time. Levi had just outed his own sister, exposing her part in a very dangerous game of cat and mouse. Sun had no idea how invested the Southern Mafia had become with Clay’s plans for the distillery. Were they in on the planned coup? According to Hailey, they wanted that business for the profits and the money laundering capabilities, and Clay wanted back inside their organization.
She had yet to figure out how Del Sol’s former sheriff, Baldwin Redding, played into it all, but Hailey assured her, they were planning something big together.
“Dangerous,” her mother said, drawing her attention away from Levi, “you are not understanding the point of this organization.”
“I guess I’m not, Mom.”
“Devilish, sweetheart,” she said, correcting her yet again.
“Devilish,” Sun said, feeling a little ridiculous. “I don’t care what the point of this organization is. I can’t share sensitive details about a case with you.”
“It’s okay,” Mayor Lomas said. She stood to address the masses. “I didn’t understand at first, either, Daughters and Sons. She’ll come around.”
“I doubt I will. I don’t get to break the law because it’s inconvenient.”
A tiny voice spoke up then, breathy and quivering. Myrtle was quite possibly older than Mrs. Fairborn. “We are the law, Dangerous. At least in this town. And we’ve been protecting it with our lives for decades.”
Sun released a lead-filled sigh. “I understand, but—”
“No,” her mother said. She stood and squared off against Sun, her face morphing into a mask of anger. “You don’t understand. You weren’t here when our fallen Son Savage died protecting a group of churchgoers from a maniacal gunman.”
Sun blinked, taken aback. “When the hell did that happen?”
“Or when our fallen Daughter Diabolical was killed trying to stop a fire from spreading into town.”
“Mom,” Sun whispered.
“Devilish,” she said, clearly fed up with her daughter’s impertinence. “What happens within these walls stays within these walls. No one talks about anything discussed here outside of this room. Ever. If two members want to discuss anything said here, they come back here to do so. We are Del Sol’s protectors. Her heroes. We will fight for her and the people she harbors to the death, and we will do it with or without your help.”
Sun forgot how to breathe as she watched her mother through blurred vision, unable to believe she’d just been taken down a visible notch by the woman who birthed her in front of a room chock full of Del Sol patriots.
Her father reached up and took her mother’s hand, coaxing her to sit down. She did, but she was not happy about it.
In the awkward silence that followed, Quince stood and walked over to Sun. Taking hold of her shoulders, he turned her to face him, looked into her eyes, and whispered, “I have never been more in love with your mother than I am right now.”
Sun almost smiled, which was his point entirely. “Get a grip, Sordid,” she said under her breath before addressing the room. She put her arm in his, holding him beside her as she spoke. “In response to your point about Wynn Ravinder, the test that implicated him as his brother Kubrick’s killer sixteen years ago was doctored.”
“It doesn’t matter,” her father said. “He wants to take the fall, Dangerous. Let him take the fall. The person who really killed Brick did it to save your life. Let the test stand.”
It took everything Sun had not to look at Levi, the real person who killed Kubrick. The real person who saved her life all those years ago, only to have her suffer from head trauma and forget the whole thing. Until recently, anyway.
“And my sister?” he asked from the back of the room, but she still didn’t look at him.
She had been thoroughly chastised by her mother and few things ripped her flesh open with more vigor. She stood in front of the room like a quivering mass of raw nerve endings, the slightest glance from her audience causing her pain.
“How were you planning on protecting her once you thrust her into Clay’s crosshairs?”
She refrained from telling him that it was actually Hailey who came to her. It wouldn’t have mattered to him either way. Even Quincy had been angry with her for putting Hailey in harm’s way.
Instead of answering, she looked at him at last and said, “I need to know you won’t go after Clay. I’m building a case against him.”
He scoffed. “Do you honestly think I didn’t know what my uncle was up to?”
“You knew?” Of course he knew. Her face burned under his blistering scrutiny.
“He’s wanted to take over Dark River for years.”
“I’m sure that’s true, but it’s escalating. From my intel, he has an actual plan in place.”
“Your intel being my sister.”
Once again, she refrained from answering. Was that the source of his anger? “Your sister’s a big girl, Levi. She’s worried about you. I guess she shouldn’t have bothered, what with you being so informed and all.”
He pushed off the table, his turn to be fighting mad.
But Sun wasn’t finished. “Is that why you’re so angry with me? Or is it something else?” she asked, practically daring to bring up the elephant in the room. The challenge hung heavy in the air. If this group was so open, so trustworthy, then he wouldn’t mind if they knew the truth about Auri. About his new status where she was concerned. It’s not every day one finds out he’s a father, and Levi was not handling it well. Then again, they had more issues than The Wall Street Journal. “Maybe you regret saving me all those years ago.”
He cast her a rueful smile before turning to leave.
Sun grabbed her nearly empty water bottle and threw it across the room at him.
He caught it with ease, the sound like a slap on the air, before placing it on the table he’d just vacated and walking out.
“Isn’t that assault?” Myrtle asked meekly.
It was indeed. Sun couldn’t fuck up her life more if someone paid her to do it.
She followed him out. Not to confront him but to get away from the League of Extraordinary Gossips. Mostly her mother. They got what they wanted. Sun’s confirmation on several sensitive facts that could get people killed. They wanted details Sun could not legally share, but even if she were willing, she simply wasn’t wired that way. Telling her mother and father what she could share was one thing. She trusted them to the depths of her soul. But a room full of Del Sol gossipmongers? No matter what oaths they took, it was going to take some time before she could trust them with the goings-on of her office.
She heard Levi’s truck roar to life on a side street and had no desire to look at him at the moment. Except she did, damn it, so she turned the opposite direction and went around to the front of the building.