I smiled. “I love him and Donny so much.”
“We all do,” Ruby said.
“I suppose we should get back to the ranch,” I said. “Those little boys will be hungry, and Jade isn’t much of a cook.”
Ruby stood and gave Melanie a quick kiss on the cheek. “Call if you need anything.”
“I will. Keep me posted on what’s going on. Joe tries too hard to protect me from everything right now.”
I nodded.
Boy, did I understand where she was coming from.
Chapter Forty-Three
Bryce
“I’ve looked myself.”
I turned and jerked backward.
“Brad,” I said as calmly as I could.
“Now that you know I’m not dead, I didn’t think it would hurt to follow you out here.”
“This isn’t any of your business,” I said. “It’s my father’s place.”
“Actually”—he cleared his throat—“it isn’t.”
My brows nearly jumped off my forehead. “Say what?”
“It’s owned by a corporation,” he said.
“Oh, yeah. I know that. But he left it to me specifically in his will. I just assumed my fa—”
“Tamajor Corporation,” Brad interrupted. Then, slowly, “Ta-ma-jo-r.”
“Brad, I don’t— Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
How could I not have seen it? Easy. I wasn’t looking. Brad Steel was supposed to be a damned corpse.
“Talon, Marjorie, Jonah, Ryan.” I shook my head. “When the hell did you buy my father’s cabin?”
“The corporation bought it shortly before your father killed himself. He was low on cash, Bryce. He’d just paid a fortune for—”
“Colin Morse,” I finished for him, my stomach turning over inside my abdomen. “Did my father know it was you?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Brad said.
“Why did he still leave it to me in his will?”
“He probably didn’t get around to changing his will before he died.”
“Why? Why would you want this stupid place?”
“Why do you think? Evidence, Bryce. This place is full of evidence.”
“But my father and the others are dead,” I said. “What good is any of the evidence now?”
“For putting your father and the others away? No good at all. But it has other uses. For example, you got your mother’s inheritance back, right?”
The gems now resided inside the safe at the guesthouse.
“You know about that?”
“I know pretty much everything your father has done over the decades. I’ve kept close tabs on him.”
I shook my head. “I’ll never understand you. Why didn’t you have him put away long ago? All of them?”
“It wasn’t that simple,” he said. “You know that. They had a lot of power, and Wendy had the most power of all. She’d threatened me with a fail-safe if anything happened to her and the other three—a fail-safe that turned out to be a hoax, but I didn’t know that at the time. She was a loaded gun, and I had to protect my family—especially my wife, who couldn’t protect herself.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’d heard it all before. I even understood it, for the most part.
“So you know about everything hidden here.”
“Not everything. Just what you’ve dug up so far.”
That rustling in the trees. I’d been sure we were being watched.
“I never thought it was you,” I said.
“It wasn’t actually me. I had Dominic and several others watching this place.”
That eerie feeling that I was being watched. Turned out it wasn’t just an eerie feeling. Never in a million years would I have thought it was my best friend’s supposedly dead father.
“Are you the ones who bugged our phones, as well?”
He shook his head. “As far as I know—and I keep apprised on all of my children and you—your homes and phones are not bugged.”
I sighed. “Ruby said she didn’t see any evidence of surveillance. I should have believed her.”
“Sometimes, the threat of being watched is worse than actually being surveilled. It’s a mindfuck, Bryce, and your father was the best at that.”
“My father’s dead,” I reminded him.
“He is, but in some ways, his legacy lives on.”
“Legacy?” I scoffed. “They broke up the ring, Brad. What’s left?”
“The mysterious phone calls you and Joe have been getting, for one thing.”
“They’re from Cade,” I said. “They have to be. Though it’s always a different number.”
“An easy tactic.”
I couldn’t help an eye roll. “Why are you here, Brad? Why didn’t you dig up this stuff yourself?”
“I had every intention of doing so. Just hadn’t gotten around to it. Believe it or not, faking your own death is kind of a full-time job.”
“Am I supposed to sympathize with you?” I shook my head. “Unbelievable.”
“I don’t want your sympathy. I want only your discretion. You and my sons went after Marjorie, Daphne, and Colin when I had them put away safely in a safe house. Now they’re walking targets, and Cade Booker is a ticking time bomb.”
“He disappeared,” I said.
“He disappears from time to time, but he’ll be back. He has a score to settle.”
“With Joe and me? We were kids.”
“That’s not how he sees it.”
“Then why not come after us? He pepper-sprayed us in his office. Why not just kill us then?”
“First of all, you took all his weapons.”
“So? We were indisposed. He could have left us there and gone and gotten another weapon.”
“He was in his place of business.”
“Again…so?”
“I’m only guessing, but he has a certain image to maintain.”
“He was the only one in the office with Joe and me. Everyone in his office knows that.”
“But you and Joe didn’t file charges. Why?”
Did Brad know about Joe’s past dalliances at the leather club? He seemed to know a lot. If he knew, he’d have to be the one to bring it up. I sure as hell wouldn’t.
“What good would that do? He already got away with offing his parents. He’d weasel out of a tiny assault charge. He’s a lawyer, for God’s sake.”
“True. And a good one. Too bad he never actually went to law school.”
My eyes widened into circles. “Talon was right. The records were forged.”
“You already had that figured out?”
“It was a hunch. Was he ever with the FBI?”
“No, he wasn’t. That was another cover story. But he is trained in FBI tactics.”
“Then who trained him?”
“Your father, Bryce. Your father trained him.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Marjorie