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Did she pull me into this because she knew he was going to try to kill her son, his father,myfather to inherit and pay off the mob? Of course, Gigi would know that I’d never save my father, so she’d need Harper to get me involved. That theory would assume that she knew about me and Harper, but again, there could have been cameras from the cottage. And Harper could have given off signs about me that she didn’t realize she gave off.
Gigi tried to save the family by using me to do it. Isaac thought it was Harper. He came at her and me. Maybe, and this is reaching, my father did come here for help. It’s far-fetched, but I have to set aside the personal baggage between me and my father and look objectively about all of this. If Isaac tried to end our father, he’ll try to finish him when he’s here. He’ll try to finish me and Harper.
I’ll finish him instead.
I slide the first message that I have yet to understand in front of me. I need to break the code before Isaac gets here.
Chapter ninety-seven
Eric
The pad of paper in front of me is filled with numbers and equations, pages deep, when I text Blake for a copy of my father’s will and other random documents he might not think are important, but I do. I set my phone aside and just as I reach for my pen again, Harper slides a steaming hot cup of coffee in front of me, right along with a bag of peanut M & M’s. “In case they help. I remember you said they’re part of your process.” She offers me a shy, beautiful smile, and I wonder how the hell I let her go for an entire six years. “How long have I been sitting here?”
“Two hours.” If the fact that I’ve ignored her for that time bothers her, she doesn’t show it. “I left Gigi three urgent messages,” she continues, “but Blake tells me she’s still in the air.”
“If Gigi was going to tell us what was going on, she would have told us before she left.”
“Or she left and put distance between whatever this is and herself before she tells us. If we believe she’s the source of the messages, then she clearly wants to tell you.”
We don’t know it’s Gigi, though the numerical odds sway heavily in her direction.
Harper motions to the pad I’ve been writing on. “Anything worth sharing? If it doesn’t disrupt your thoughts.” She glances at all the numbers and letters on the page.
“Assuming Gigi sent me the messages, and that she was warning me about Isaac, message number one should be easy to figure out. It should somehow tie to that warning. It should represent something that we both touched that has somehow come full circle.”
“But it doesn’t?”
My lips thin. “I don’t know yet.”
“Why didn’t she just tell us?” Harper asks. “These messages—”
“Must expose something she doesn’t wantanyone else to know.”
“But she hates you.”
“And yet she convinced me to come back to Denver through you. I assume the messages boil down to one of a few things. She hates me, she is not about to give me the satisfaction of gloating, therefore she remains invisible. More likely, she’ll somehow expose herself or my father in some way. Or, and this is not hard to believe, she’s trying to prove I’m not as smart as is claimed.”
“Why would she need to prove such a thing?”
“She’s a Kingston. Who fucking knows.”
“Maybe she told the mob you were smart enough to make them billions, too. And they said prove it.”
“The mob doesn’t test you. They just tell you to write a check.” I pick up my pencil and start writing, the numbers in my head driving me back in time, processing everything I know about Isaac and the company. Every deal he touched that I touched as well. I’m looking for something Gigi, assuming she sent the messages, wants me and only me to know. Something she thinks will make me protect her interests, and my father’s, which translates to hers. I lose myself in the numbers and when I finally come back to the present, I blink the room into view and find it shrouded in shadows, a lamp I don’t remember turning on, glowing on the end table, and Harper lying on the couch next to me with a blanket pulled over her. I don’t even remember her lying down.
I scrub a hand through my hair and grimace. And I ignored her for what? I don’t know what that fucking message is telling me. I squat down next to Harper and she doesn’t move. She’s that secure. She’s that safe with me, and unbidden, I’m back in the past, I’m in the trailer a few nights before my mother died—no—killed herself because of this damn family. We’d been watching a movie with the lights out when a shadow had passed the window.
I jolt with the large shadow. My mother grabs my leg. “Shh,” she murmurs and when I nod, she stands up and walks to the television, lowering the sound.
She then points at me and mouths “stay” before she walks to the cabinet in the corner and shocks me by pulling out a gun I didn’t know we had, ready to fight. I stand up. “What the hell is that?” I hiss in a low whisper.
“Survival and we’re survivors.”
“This is about that family you say I belong to, isn’t it?” I demand. “I don’t want—”
Someone bangs on the door. “It’s Richard. Openup.”
My mother’s lips thin. “Go away, Richard. We’re done.”
