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Ansley grabbed her purse. “Sit tight. I’ll be there in a jiffy. I’m going with you.”
“No. You’re not. After everything that’s happened to you and your sisters, the last thing I want is to place you in danger. Until we know who’s behind this, you stay put.”
“Is it safe for Mom to go with you?”
A heavy breath filled the line. “Why hell yes. I don’t let your mother out of my sight.”
“That’s an understatement,” Ansley muttered, her thoughts miles away. Her cousins had gone through so much over the last few years. Brianna and Gemma were buckwild, but who could blame them for their lack of discipline? They hadn’t exactly had a fine example to follow. “Daddy Kane, what can I do?”
“Stay by the phone. We’ll touch base as soon as we get there.”
“Who called you?”
“Alberto.”
“Where is that noble bastard?”
Tristan reentered the bar and dumped an armload of paperwork in front of her. He pretended to sort through bills and invoices so he could listen to the conversation.
“Alberto says he’s changed his ways.”
“Hmm, but of course he has. Let me guess. Drina is still keeping house and playing mommy to her sisters while Alberto courts women from Paris to Florence to God only knows where.”
“He’s had a tough time.”
“Since you’re my father, I won’t be disrespectful by telling you what kind of hard times Uncle Alberto has.” Uncle Alberto’s tough times were attributed to his own bad choices.
“I appreciate that, Ansley. Now get on the phone and call your cousins. See if you can find out what the hell is going on there. We may have only gotten half truths from Alberto. Still, he’s very concerned.”
“Imagine that,” Ansley drawled, sick of her three fathers and mother always defending him. She’d heard plenty of closed-door conversations about Alberto. He was a pathetic father and a mobster with a past full of enemies. “Daddy Kane, did he have something to do with this?”
“Of course not! He loves those girls, Ansley. Whether you want to believe it or not, he left them to save them.”
“Right.”
“Can you try to keep the sidebar comments to a minimum? Those girls don’t trust many people, but the older ones will talk to you.”
“The older ones have names. If you’re crossing the mountain to help, the least you can do is try to show some compassion by acting interested enough to call them by name.”
“Point made. Point taken. See what you can find out. We’ll be on the road in a few minutes.”
After they said their good-byes, Tristan asked, “What was that all about?”
Fiddling with her phone, Ansley muttered, “Old problems resurfacing if I had to guess.”
“I heard ‘noble bastard’ and ‘uncle’ in a short period of time. Want to talk about it?”
Ansley took a deep breath. “My fathers had a first cousin who grew up in East Tennessee. When we were kids, we called her Aunt Ann. I’m sure you’ve heard me talk about her. Anyway, when Daddy Kane and Aunt Ann were younger, they were close, more like brother and sister. As kids, we did everything with our Tennessee cousins. Then, one day, they just quit coming around.” Ansley’s heart grew heavy as she thought of the past and how drugs and scandal had separated families.
“Surely there was a reason. Did your dads have a falling out with her or something?”
“Ann married a drug lord. I mean, he was rotten to his very core, but I guess he loved Ann. I’d like to think he did anyway.” Ansley’s mind reverted back to happier times. “Alberto and Ann had—well, I guess you might say they had a wild and reckless love much like my mother describes her love for Daddy Kane.” She laughed. “Although I can’t see Mom putting up with the things Ann tolerated. Then again, Ann was so in love, so completely smitten. I guess charm and good looks can buy a man a lot of things.”
“What happened to her?” Tristan leaned over the bar and listened. One of the things Ansley loved about him was his love of family. He never tired of learning more about the Cartwells and thought of her family as his own.
“For a short time she was happy. In the end, Alberto’s money didn’t buy the happiness Ann must’ve thought it would.” Ansley’s eyes watered at the memory as she returned to a past she could barely stand to recall. “Her girls found her face-down in the swimming pool on the eve of her twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.”
“Oh, Ansley. That’s terrible.”
