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“I’m saying that the dagger that killed my father was the exact same dagger that I saw protruding from your father’s chest last week.”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “That’s not possible.”
“I know,” I tell him, “But what are the chances that both our fathers were killed the same way by identical knives? Either it was the same knife or whoever did this has duplicates. I don’t believe in coincidences, Colton. Mom and I weren’t brought here by chance. Something has put us here and I don’t know why. I don’t understand it but to say this is all coincidental would be a mistake.”
“Shit, babe,” he murmurs, his eyes going far away as he thinks over the information I just dumped on him. “Are you sure?”
“How could I not be? What are the chances of my mom getting offered a job here and your father being murdered the exact same way as her husband only five months later by the same dagger?”
Colton sits up on the couch, pulling me up with him. “And you decided to wait over a week to come and say something about this?”
“Really?” I grunt. “The day your father died, you pushed me away. Had I even thought about opening my mouth, you would have killed me on the spot. Then you locked yourself away with a bottle of … I don’t even remember what it was … scotch, maybe? Then there was the funeral and since then you practically locked yourself in your office while avoiding everyone and everything. I mean, there were those few minutes in the library where I could have said something but my mind was a little preoccupied.”
“Okay, okay. I get it,” he says, his eyes briefly heating at the mention of the library. “I might have been a bit of a hermit this week, but I have a pretty good reason.”
“I never said you didn’t,” I tell him. “But speaking of your hermit tendencies, did you even go to school last week? You know you have to actually attend to graduate, right? Dean Simmons is a fucking prick. He’s going to start failing you soon and those board members won’t exactly be happy with a director who couldn’t make it through high school.”
“I can just—”
“If you say ‘pay him off’ I’m going to castrate you, Carrington.”
Colton’s lips twist into a devilish grin. “I wasn’t going to say that,” he says. “But that might work too.”
“Oh, geez! Do I even want to know?”
He shakes his head. “Trust me, you’re better off in the dark on this one.”
I can only imagine what that could mean when he’s talking about a guy like Dean Simmons and I can only imagine that it’s the worst kind of awful. Maybe Colton is right. Maybe I am better off in the dark where Simmons is involved.
“You’re not mad at me for not telling you about this sooner?”
Colton lets out a soft breath and I watch as he takes a moment to actually think it over. “No,” he finally says. “I want to be, but I’m not. What happened to your father is a tragedy but it’s also none of my business. You’re under no obligation to have to share that with me just because you feel there’s a connection, but I’m happy you did. I don’t want that bullshit building up on your shoulders and now it gives us somewhere to start looking.”
My hand falls to his and he instantly threads his fingers through mine. “Thank you.”
A small smile pulls at the corners of his lips before they press into a tight line. “Out of curiosity, did they ever find the guy who killed your dad?”
I shake my head. “It was a stabbing in Breakers Flats. It got ruled as gang violence before his body was even cold but dad had nothing to do with the gangs. He was completely against them and made a point not to get involved. Even when Nic or any of the boys were over, he’d go and hide out in the garage or disappear completely.”
“So, you think the same guy who killed your father is the same one who killed mine?” Colton asks, leaning back into the couch.
I shrug my shoulders. “It makes sense, right?”
“It does,” he murmurs. “All week I’ve been thinking it was the DeCarlo family.”
“The who?” I grunt, scrunching my face at the unfamiliar name.
“Vincent DeCarlo. Fifteen years ago, his business was going bankrupt and dad helped him out. He bought his business and got the whole family out of debt. That business turned into Carrington Incorporated and once dad got it back on its feet and transformed it into a billion-dollar business, Vincent wanted it back.”
“Well, shit.”
“Yeah. Vincent and his sons aren’t exactly known for doing things by the law. They’ve targeted all of dad’s other businesses, trying to take him down from the outside, but the Carrington’s are untouchable.”
