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She stumbled slightly, and I steadied her, gripping her shoulders. Had I gone too far?
Funny, this tiny kiss had me turned on all the way down to my toes. I was hard as a fucking rock for her. Just being near her. Just kissing her lightly. Man, what would happen when she let me slide my tongue between her lips?
Between her legs?
Just the thought had my dick pulsing inside my pants.
“I… I have to go in.”
I nodded and turned the doorknob. “Goodnight. The limo will be by for you at ten.”
“Thank you. And…goodnight.” She leaned toward me and brushed her lips over my cheek. “Goodnight,” she said again and then disappeared through her doorway like a flash.
The spot where she’d kissed my cheek stayed warm as I rode back to my hotel.
After dealing with the boner Zee had left me with, I sat down at my computer. It was nearly two a.m., but we had people working around the clock, and I wanted to see what Rock’s phone records showed.
First things first, though. I reserved a spot for brunch at ten thirty.
Then, onto business.
Sure enough, a phone call had gone into Rock’s Montana landline at the exact date and time Nieves had recorded.
And—
I gulped.
It had come from my business landline at the office.
I had not made that fucking call.
Which meant…
Someone who had access to my office had.
The call had come in during the day. Okay, easy enough. Where had I been that day? I traveled frequently, so there was a good chance I hadn’t even been in New York, in which case I could easily prove I hadn’t made the call.
I wrote a quick email to Terrence for him to check my whereabouts on the date and then rattled off another email to my siblings about the findings.
We hadn’t had any idea our father was about to be murdered. If we had? I don’t know what we would have done, but we hadn’t known, so the question wasn’t of any consequence.
Unfortunately, I still needed the rest of Nieves’s story. I’d asked Rock to contact her, as he knew her better than I did, but I hadn’t heard yet if he’d been successful. She was no doubt tending to her sister at the moment.
Who next?
Rock’s biker friends, Hoss and Manny, came to my mind. Rock had sworn they were good guys, but I wasn’t buying. They both skated between the lines of good ethics, especially Hoss. We’d already established that. I had a hunch they were involved in this mess more than we knew.
Then of course, there was Father Jim.
Disgusting and psychopathic Father Jim.
Obviously, he couldn’t be ruled out. Derek Wolfe had no doubt taken care of him over the years, but was the priest in a position to order a hit?
A hit cost money.
A lot of money.
Even more money to make sure several parties could be implicated, which had happened.
Father Jim might have had my father’s contacts, but would he have had the required money?
I didn’t know.
We’d already checked his financials. He made a modest income as the priest of St. Andrew’s, but we knew better than to take that at face value. He probably had money hidden somewhere. Our PIs were looking into it.
Did Father Jim even have a motive? Dad had taken care of him all those years. Why would he want to off his meal ticket? And his ticket to both of their repulsive appetites? Surely Jim couldn’t continue the “hunt” on his own.
Nausea crept up my throat.
How had we all been so blind to what our father was truly capable of?
Rock and Riley hadn’t been blind.
Molesting our sister was horrible enough. None of us had foreseen what he was ultimately capable of.
Zee.
Sweet and beautiful Zee.
One of my father’s many victims, and the only one—that we knew of—who had lived to tell the tale.
The tale we needed her to tell.
I’d said I wouldn’t push her, and I meant it. Oddly, my siblings, especially Riley, didn’t want me to push her either. I’d planned to seduce her and get what I wanted.
But those plans had gone to hell when I realized that…
I sighed.
That I liked her. I cared for her. I didn’t want to do anything to make her uncomfortable. My father had already done enough to her for ten lifetimes.
I wasn’t used to feeling this way. I loved women. Loved seducing women. Bedding women. But I’d never been in love. Women had always been playthings for me, and most of them were okay with that. I wined and dined them, and all was good.
Until Zee.
Zee, who refused my gift of expensive shoes.
Most women—at least the women in my circles—wouldn’t have.
Zee was clearly not most women.
And I liked that.
I liked that a lot.
I yawned as I shut down my computer. I didn’t need a lot of sleep, but it was time to call it a day. I had a meeting at eight with the contractor, and then I had brunch with Zee two hours later.
