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“What else did this report say?” I ask, needing to change the subject.
Winston goes along with it, thank God. “He’s not left the Morelli mansion for the last thirty-six hours. People are constantly coming and going out of that place, and Myron is still looking into who everyone is.”
“Myron? That’s our investigator’s name?” I shake my head. “He even sounds old.”
“He’s a good guy. Gruff. Doesn’t put up with anyone’s shit. Even mine.” Winston cracks a smile.
“You really think that McAsshole dude is plotting to somehow get to Charlotte?” I can’t stop thinking about the possibility. How he might try to get close to her. Talk to her. What if she’s receptive? What if he says all the right things? She chose that asshole first. I was merely assigned to her.
What if I lose her for good?
“You need to prepare for the possibility that it could happen. I recommend beefing up the security at your apartment.”
“It’s a Lancaster apartment,” I remind him. “Daddy still has a key.”
Winston frowns. “That’s not good.”
“I know.”
“Change the locks. It’s your and Charlotte’s apartment now, right?”
“I don’t have a deed or anything like that.”
“Get one. Ask Charlotte to talk to her father.”
I won’t make her do that. She’s frightened of him.
“If her father still has a key, he could give it to Seamus,” I say, my mind awhirl with all of the possibilities. All of the awful, shitty, that-better-not-ever-happen possibilities.
Jesus.
“Like I said, beef up the security. Talk to your wife. Let her know what’s going on. Don’t leave her in the dark. She deserves to know her ex is a threat.”
Says the guy who didn’t tell the love of his life jack shit until it was almost too late.
“Learn from my mistakes,” Winston continues, making me immediately regret my thoughts. “She’s not your enemy, Perry. She’s an ally, even if we don’t necessarily trust her. Make her feel as if she’s on team Constantine and she’ll do whatever you ask her to do.”
“She is a Constantine now, making her an automatic member of our team,” I remind him.
“Not even a week ago she was a Lancaster. Remind her that she has a new allegiance. To you.” Winston jabs a thumb at his chest. “To us.”
I slouch in my chair, my mind crowded with too many things. All of them having to do with Charlotte and that jerk and the Morellis and her father.
Her father, a traitor to his own daughter—and to the family he just married her into. When he knew what he was getting into, making that deal with our mother. He was supposed to be team Constantine as well.
“I need to warn her.” I start to get up but Winston speaks, halting me.
“Don’t—scare her, little brother. Just make her aware that things aren’t always what they seem. Maybe you shouldn’t mention the meeting Seamus had with one of her family members yet.”
“Why the hell not?”
“She might confront her father. Maybe her mother. For all we know, Louisa could be behind this.”
I shake my head. “Doubtful. She only cares about shopping and going to lunch.”
“Don’t write her off like her husband does. She’s been married to that piece of shit for almost thirty years and she’s still smiling. Hell, she’s practically the queen of the Lancasters and he’s only a second son,” Winston reminds me.
I hate that I have that in common with my father-in-law—that we’re both second sons in an important family. it’s infuriating.
