Lewis raised one shoulder. “Semantics.”
“What was the purpose of calling us here?” Wes asked through gritted teeth. “For an audience to inform us of your supposed innocence?”
“I know you’re still looking into me, trying to tie me to what happened to Matthew. I hoped by explaining it plainly, you would no longer waste either of our time on my business. I will tell you what I know, and then you will leave with Matthew, and we’ll be done with each other. I did my time for the crime. I lost my wife and daughter. My reputation and my businesses. It is time for me to move on.”
This fucking asshole.
“What do you know then?” Matty asked, tone sharp. “What do you know about my birth dad?”
“I don’t know where he is now. As I told you when I hired you, Mr. Castellano, Bradley was blackmailing and threatening me for some time. He wasn’t the only one with information, however. I had strong suspicions he was going to kill Marshall, so the plan was to allow him to do it and then blackmail him so he would step away from the family. He disappeared after that, though, and then I couldn’t find you and Larsen, and well, we know what happened after that. I had my own people looking for him, but I had to divert my resources elsewhere after my arrest.”
“Do you care at all?” Matty blurted out. He stood, hands in fists at his sides. Wes stood as well but didn’t touch him. “Do youcare what happened to me? What you did to me by sending me away like some fucking inconvenience?”
“Matthew,” Lewis warned.
“No! Answer me, Lewis. You may not have known what Damien was going to do, but you’re still responsible. You took me out of school and threw me with some stranger halfway across the world so I couldn’t cause a scandal because you decided it was better to hide the fact that my mother was raped than deal with it. Everything was always about protecting the family name to you. You didn’t care what you had to do, who you had to hurt as long as you kept making money and looked good to the public. And now you’re going to sit here and act like you didn’t hurt me? Like being sold was no big deal? Fuck you. I don’t want to talk to you ever again!”
Matty whirled around, his eyes wet with unshed tears, his face red. “Can we leave?”
“Yes,” I said immediately, no hesitation.
Wes wrapped his arms around Matty and led him out of the room, not even glancing at Covington. I found Sarah, my lawyer. She was standing unobtrusively near the entrance. I had nearly forgotten about her presence, but now I was glad she was here. I needed to take care of Matty.
She understood right away. “I’ll finish up here. Go.”
“Thank you, Sarah.”
She acknowledged it and turned to Covington. I could hear his spluttering, complaining, but I didn’t give a fuck. Anything else he wanted to say, he could say to Sarah. My only concern was our son.
CHAPTER 24
SKYE
Brooks snored lightlyat my side. He was all propped up on pillows and wedges, his other shoulder wrapped in a sling. It had needed fucking surgery because of that asshole. He’d make a full recovery, but I’d had my shoulder repaired before and it fucking sucked. And Brooks hated being sidelined. It would be a rough few months for him, but we’d get him through it.
Thankfully, his concussion was mild and the bruising on his face and body was all going down with over a week of healing. I hated seeing him like that. We’d been taking turns lying with him as he slept off the pain pills from the surgery since our boy didn’t like being alone. There was always at least one or two of us hanging in his room or hovering nearby. Even now, Diego was sitting on a giant beanbag he brought into the center of the room, working on his laptop with his headphones on.
I turned toward Diego, feeling a little restless now that I was awake. Since we’d returned, things had been focused on Brooks getting better and picking up the pieces of the emotional ruin that that fuck nugget Covington had left Matty in. Any jobs we’d had, besides Everett obviously, had either been called off or given to Leo and his team. We needed a reset.
I absolutely agreed with that call, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t starting to get stir crazy waiting around. “Whatcha working on?” I asked Diego.
He pushed out his lower lip. “Still trying to get to the bottom of who hired the brothers. I thought I had a lead, but it fell through. There are too many false starts.”
“Do you need help with anything?”
He shook his head. “Not right now. I’m trying to adjust the parameters in my search. I must not be looking at the right thing.”
Diego seemed so tense. He had really taken Ramirez’s death hard. It didn’t matter that he’d never met the man, he still felt responsible, and no matter how many times we told him he wasn’t, it didn’t ease the guilt he was trying to hide. I swung my legs off the side of the bed and got up, taking a seat cross-legged in front of Diego. His eyes flicked over at me before concentrating again, but he didn’t tell me to move so I didn’t.
I shifted so that my knees were nearly touching Diego’s legs. He didn’t react, but he did move them that fraction of space so that we were touching. His breath hitched like he was surprised by his own actions. I stayed completely still.
He went back to work, and I got lost in my thoughts, trying to figure out a way to get Diego to relax. I was tempted to text Wes, but I disregarded the thought. He was finally resting, and I wasn’t going to interrupt that unless I had to. He had been holding down the fort the last week or so, keeping Diego stable, Luca from burying himself in work, and helping Matty while he struggled with processing the visit with Covington. Matty was trying to act like everything was fine, pushing us away whenever we asked how he was and devoting himself to Everett’s comfort and education on how to be a regular teenager. Only Wes got him to talk at all, and it was clipped and defensive.
“Mornin’.” I turned toward the bed, kind of surprised to see Brooks up and blinking drowsily at us. I thought he would’ve been asleep for longer.
“More like good afternoon, sunshine.” I stood up and headed over to the side of the bed and leaned down to kiss the top of his head.
“How’re you feeling?”
