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One of those jobs had been the reason for Michael’s murder.
Guilt and nausea slammed into his stomach so hard, he groaned and staggered back into the stone wall. Memories of that slim body covered in blood played through his head, and he gritted his teeth, because they came as fresh as they had in the beginning. And he knew why. Being with Marc had felt similar. Not the same, no, but the strength of his reaction to the man—that was close. Too fucking close for his peace of mind.
Cursing under his breath, he stalked back into the house, grabbed a glass out of the cabinet, and filled it with water. It took two full glasses to kill the dryness in his mouth and throat.
He took a third with him to the couch and booted up his laptop. The dark room smelled like vanilla. He’d noticed Marc liked the scent because the house was full of candles, potpourri, and other vanilla-scented things. Sometimes, it seeped into his hair, filling Royce’s senses when he nuzzled into it for the benefit of Lilah.
Royce snorted. Yeah, he nuzzled because of Marc’s sister. He could keep telling himself that all he wanted, but it wasn’t going to make it true. He couldn’t keep his nose, nor his hands, off the man. And now that he’d tasted him, and had his dick inside him, it was going to be even harder not to cart him off to the bedroom every chance he could.
He hadn’t wanted anyone this badly since Michael.
Quinn’s software loaded, and he propped the laptop on his legs, determined to focus on his damn job. He pulled up the recordings from the cameras in the house. He watched Gabriel, Richard, and Lilah walking through Marc’s home like they owned it. Saw Richard poking around the library. Royce’s hands curled into fists. He didn’t understand their proprietary attitudes toward their baby brother. They gathered in the kitchen, and he wished they’d set up cameras with sound. They were at angles that made it impossible to lip-read more than the occasional word here and there. Lilah talked with her hands a lot, and when she disappeared through the door to the wine cellar, he wished they’d set up a camera down there as well.
That would be remedied tomorrow. He shot off a quick note to Quinn.
Luckily, she wasn’t down there long enough to have done anything to the other bottles—not that he could imagine. Could someone poison a closed wine bottle? Maybe with needles through the cork? He’d have to look that up.
But why do that? It wouldn’t be a guarantee of someone’s death. A bottle of wine could go unopened on a rack for years. Or so he thought. He’d never been much of a wine drinker.
While Lilah talked and opened the wine, Gabriel walked out of the camera’s view. Royce switched to the hall one and watched him go into the formal living room and start the gas fireplace. Watched him go through the magazines on the end tables. He left the room, and when Gabriel went back to the kitchen, he didn’t show, so Royce flipped through the different cameras until he saw that the hall bathroom door was shut, with the light showing underneath.
Back in the kitchen, Richard and Lilah were cutting into cheese and eating it with crackers.
Around this time, he and Marc had been riding around the city with Rowe and Noah. They’d maybe killed half an hour or so—certainly not long enough to warrant the yelling that had gone on upon their arrival.
His chat notification popped up and he smiled when he saw it was Quinn.
Q: What are you doing up?
R: What are YOU doing up? Not with the dick tonight?
Q: Ha ha. Regrettably no. He’s out there somewhere in their jacked-up stakeout van with Hollis.
Hollis Banner was another private investigator, a former cop. One Royce saw often because he was with one of Rowe’s closest friends, Ian Pierce.
R: Let me guess…you’re at the office?
Q: What of it?
Royce chuckled and glanced over his shoulder when he heard a noise.
R: Hold on. Need to check something. BRB.
He padded through the kitchen and the rest of the house and found nothing but a closed master bathroom door in Marc’s room. That would explain the sound, so he went back to his computer and the couch. He pulled a soft throw blanket off the back and wrapped it around his shoulders.
R: Have you found anything on Marc’s brothers or sister yet?
Q: There’s suspicious activity on all three.
R: ?
Q: Richard recently sold his lake house, but I haven’t found where the money went. Gabriel takes more vacations than I knew a doctor could. Expensive ones, too. And Lilah’s in debt.
R: That’s not what Marc thinks. Even with her inheritance?
Q: She spent most of that educating her loser of a husband. He’s a piece of work.
