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“Was Randall there?” he demands.
“Yes,” I say, a biting understanding coming over me. He sounds angry. It feels genuine, but he didn’t just randomly decide to ask if Randall was here. He knows he was here. And he expected my call, that didn’t come after my encounter with Randall. Maybe that’s what he’s angry about. As Savage said,there was an expected reaction. This is the reply to not getting it. “You didn’t know?” I ask.
“No, I didn’t know. Do you think I’d send Randall to deal with Jax North when Jax North is in my sister’s bed?”
“Inmy life, Chance. He really matters to me. Whatever is going on, I need you to know how much.”
“For now. He’s in your life for now. I don’t want you to get hurt. You know how I feel about his motives.”
“You don’t want me to get hurt?” I ask incredulously. “Well, that isn’t how Randall made it sound. He threatened me and Jax.”
“He’s abrasive. I’m sure he didn’t mean—”
“He said, and this is a quote: ‘I don’t want you to end up dead’ This, right before he threatened to ‘hurt’ Jax if I wasn’t back home in seventy-two hours. So please, Chance, tell me how to interpret that if not as a threat?”
“Holy hell. Randall.” He murmurs under his breath. “What else?”
His anger is palpable, and with it comes the relief I’ve been looking for, right along with my assumption that Randall has gone rogue.Thank God.“That and a whole lot more, Chance. He also claimed that Jax can destroy our family, that he knows things about us to make it happen. What things?”
“Did you ask Jax?”
“I’m asking you.”
“You know this is personal to Randall. You’re personal to Randall. He wants you. Jax not only has you but Randall’s certain he’s using you to hurt us over some made-up bullshit about our family and his brother.”
That’s not an answer, and I don’t let him off that easily. “What made-up bullshit?”
“You tell me. Why is our family even a problem for Jax?”
“Why do you want the castle?” I counter.
“I told you that directive was in the will. Buy the castle. Per dad. The end.”
There’s a lift to his voice that is only there when he lies. “Was dad blackmailing Hunter?”
“Is that what Jax told you?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I covered dad’s ass plenty, Emma, but not on this.”
“Still not an answer,” I say. “I know that dad visited Hunter. And now Hunter is dead.”
“Dad visited a lot of people. They aren’t dead. Hunter killed himself. Suicide was the official cause of death. And yes, I looked into it when Jax started sniffing at your heels.”
He looked into the official cause of death. I swear a chill goes down my spine. There are so many ways that feels problematic to me that I have to set them all aside to analyze them later. And to keep from yelling at him now.
“What was dad’s interest in Hunter?” I ask, setting a trap. His answer should be: his interest was in the property, not Hunter.
It’s not. Instead, he says, “Just let this go. Please fucking let this go.”
Please and fucking in the same sentence.
I know him. That combination is a sign of stress.
Not good.
In other words, there’s something there that he doesn’t want me to find. “I love you, Chance. You are my blood and my brother, but Randall took a plane, came here, gave me seventy-two hours to come home, or he’d hurt Jax in some way. Randall is your man. He speaks for you.”
