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I shrugged. “Yeah, but I did have my aunt’s driver drop me downtown the night I arrived. Well, I practically jumped out of the moving car. I couldn’t stand another second with that bitch.”
The guys shared a look, and something uncomfortable slithered in my belly. “What?” I asked when none of them said a word.
“We saw you that night, too,” Corvus answered for them all. “Dragging your suitcase all the way up to Briar Hall.”
My lips parted, confused. “I’m not following.”
“That was the night we found Randy dead in the alley,” Rook explained. “With an A carved into his chest. We had to drag Randy’s body out of sight when Humphrey’s fancy car squealed to a stop right outside the mouth of the alleyway.”
Diesel held a hand up, a red tint to his cheeks. “Hold on a fucking second,” he hissed. “You’re saying this fucker was in Thorn Valley the night Randy was killed? In practically the same goddamned place?”
“Holy shit…” Grey breathed. “You don’t think he…?”
Diesel was already nodding. “I do.”
He stood suddenly, his chair scraping across the floor, his palms slapping against the table’s edge before going to his head, pushing his hair away from his face. “Jesus Christ. Lenny wasn’t lying when he said his men had nothing to do with Randy.”
He hit the table again, and it rattled all the way down to where I sat. “Fuck!”
I was still putting it all together in my head. The guys being there from the very first moment I arrived in this place. Randy. The war with the Aces. The alliance with the Kings.
Oh my god.
“It was him this whole time.”
“What?” Diesel asked, and when I looked up, all eyes were on me.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
Or maybe it wasn’t. If it weren’t for the sick churn in my belly, I might’ve felt proud to have caught on beforetheDiesel St. Crow.
“He’s been working you this whole time,” I began, my heart thudding loudly in my chest. “He said it himself, he thinks Thorn Valley should behis. If he killed Randy, it was to push you into starting a war with the Aces. Which is exactly what you did. He wanted to hit you hard. Weaken your defenses. Andhe did. They weakened enough that you considered an alliance with the Kings.”
“Which was also exactly what he wanted,” Corvus picked up where I left off, his voice dripping with malice. “To get close to you, so that when the time came he could finish off the rest of us.”
“He’d have no competition for hundreds of miles in any direction,” Rook said, a dark laugh on his lips like he half respected the guy. I had to admit, it was a damn good plan. “He had you do all the heavy lifting. Taking out the Aces. The Dead Men. Leaving only us, weakened. For the first time since you and the other Saints created this empire, we’re weak enough that someonecouldhave the upper hand.”
Diesel staggered back a step, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He slunk back into his seat, still pushed back from the table, and bent, rubbing his palms over his face. “Whoisthis guy?”
The question was meant rhetorically, but I realized I might have one last clue that could help.
“He had this lighter,” I said, and Diesel lifted his chin. “The one I used to set the chair on fire. It had initials in it.”
Rook flipped his own zippo lighter between his fingers, his brows drawn down. “I remember,” he said before I could finish. “He let me use it once. The initials were—”
“L.R.B.”
Recognition flickered in Diesel’s eyes. His body stilled, going practically rigid.
“Boss?” Pinkie pressed, worry in the creases on his forehead. “You don’t think it’s actually…”
Diesel stood, holding himself up with palms pressed flat against the table. He let out a shuddering sigh. “I think that’sexactlywho this is.God dammit,why didn’t I see this sooner?”
“Who?” Corvus demanded, his hand curling into a fist on top of the table. “Who is it?”
When Diesel lifted his gaze to us, I felt the guilt in his cold eyes like it was my own. Saw the rage behind it. “My son.”
“Your son?”I repeated, the throb in my skull pulsing double time now, seeing my adopted father through a red tint, my vision going hazy around the edges. “What the fuck do you mean,your son?”
