Page 78 of Cocky Brutal Sinner

“Huh.” I examine the bottle. “Well, you got me something weird. I’ll give you that. How much?”

“You really wanna pay for this?” he asks, eyes widening the smallest amount.

“Yup.”

“You gonna drink it?”

I shrug. “Not sure yet. It kind of depends.”

This whiskey bottle is my Hail Mary. My single chance to possibly disarm the wrath of Luke Windsor after I tell him I’ve been seeing Brinley for years. Luke loves whiskey, especially the kind of weird stuff he can’t just get at any store. After all the texts this afternoon, I got right in my car to drive to the liquor store my wine distributor recommended to me.

After I pay the disbelieving clerk $150 for the reindeer whiskey, I head out to my car in the parking lot. I open my phone and scroll back up through the group chat, looking for any loophole that will keep me from having to actually use the whiskey.

Ryan

Lisa Barnes has officially been ruled out. She was in Thailand during all the July posts from the Canadian IP address. Unless she had a proxy hitting the publish button for her, and I don’t know why she would, she’s out.

Damn it. Lisa Barnes was a former coworker of Pippa’s at Belladonna, and one of my favorite red herrings. I theorized that she could have hacked into Pippa’s computer, gotten access to her phone, and pulled details from there. Ryan has been crossing names off his list faster than I could prop them back up.

Luke

Hell yeah. How many people are left on your list?

Ryan

Only four. Working on clearing Nate’s old housekeeper as we speak.

Luke

We are so close to catching Peppermint, I can taste it.

Ryan

That might just be your gum.

Nate

My PI has almost finished his report. We can expect it in the next two days.

Luke

Oh man, how great would it be if we could toast to catching Peppermint at poker tonight?

Ryan

Beau, if that happens, we’re opening every fucking bottle of champagne you’ve got at Velvet & Vice.

Shit. Nate’s PI has delivered reports early a few times now, which means two days is the maximum amount of time I have left. I don’t know how I can steer this investigation away, short of magically inventing a time machine to undo the last ten years.

I have to tell Luke about me and Brinley tonight. Before the PI report drops, before James runs out of patience, before the whole thing detonates without me in the room. If Luke is going to hear the truth, it should be from me. I owe him at least that much.

I already bailed on poker tonight. I can’t just sit across the table from Luke, playing poker and shooting the shit for hours, pretending everything’s fine. I’ll show up right after the game ends and convince Luke to hang around with my bottle of reindeer whiskey. Maybe if I’m lucky, he’ll win big against Ryan, and that’ll put him in a forgiving kind of mood.

Okay, so I’m not holding my breath on Luke forgiving me. Unfortunately, that shitty plan is all I have to hold onto.

There’s only one thing left to do—warn Brinley. I wish I’d had time to discuss things with her, maybe even come up with some kind of plan to keep Luke from losing his mind. Normally, she’d be my sounding board for this, but she hasn’t been reachable for days. She’s keeping a pane of shatterproof glass between us, and no matter how hard I hit it, I can’t even get it to crack.

It’s not a surprise when she lets my call go to voicemail. I’m almost positive she’s screening my calls, but just in case she’s actually busy, I text her.