‘What else?’
‘I can tell you about your father,’ Riley says with returning confidence after thinking for a minute.‘The shit Tanner doesn’t even know.’
‘Does that matter?’
‘Absolutely itmatters.It’s why I was so scared of Penhalyx knowing y—that his son is still alive.’
‘You’re not scared of anything.’
Riley squeezes his hand, eyes so blue.‘Yes, I am.’
‘What if you’re lying?’
He brings Kade’s hand to his heart, settles his palm there and says, ‘A lie makes a double beat,’ with a faint smile as if remembering something.
‘Tell me then.’
‘OK.’They sit cross-legged on the bed opposite one another.
They won’t be interrupted up here, no one would dare.
‘You ready?’
‘I’m ready.’
‘It wasn’t Tanner who arranged for the kidnap and extraction,’ Riley tells him, heart level beneath Kade’s palm.‘It was Jules Penhalyx.He contacted Troy, organised the whole thing.’
Kade reels.‘What?’
‘Jules was trying to get them both free without Tanner knowing.He knew what Alistair was planning for your—fucking hell,“his” twenty-first birthday.’
Riley’s heart is solid, strong, no skips.
‘What was he planning?’
‘It’s why Jules had abodyguard,’ Riley says, still exceptionally pale.Kade’s knuckles are fully healed now whereas Riley’s are painted with ugly, dark bruises, visibly broken.He never threw the punches, but he wears the wounds.‘It’s why it was in Tanner’s contract that he was never allowed to make him bleed or let anything scar.’
Kade waits as some long dormant horror begins to unfurl inside.
‘Please,tell me.’
Lies are the bricks of any prison.
And truth is the violence that breaks them.
Riley takes a fortifying breath, bracing for pain.
‘He wantedyourbody for himself.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Eight Years Ago
It’s raining the day he gets Margot’s postcard from Canada.
Lachlan adds it to his littlemagpiecollection beside his bed in his new room inside the Cove.What was once the childminder’s room is now his.It connects with the shared ensuite, and although it’s more of a downgrade in space, he never needed much anyway.He’s only waited this long to take the room to ensure Mimi had no lasting negative associations with Belkin’s occasional residence there, but when he suggested it, she was thrilled, especially when he agreed to let her decorate it however she wanted.
Lachlan’s room is cosy and small.Sometimes when he wakes, he has an armful of Jessamine Penhalyx.He never did find out how she got the code to his old room, but he’s fairly certain it was Jules’ technical prowess and Lachlan doesn’t care anyway.He likes this new set-up.
