Chapter 48
FORTY-EIGHT
Ramsey
It takes me two days locked away with Hazel and a visit from Bo, but I’m feeling myself again. Enough that I’m ready to confront my brothers. The conversation with Amelia has played again and again in my head, and it’s obvious there’s more to the story than they’ve told me about our parents. Fuck, there’s more to this story with Curtis and Amelia than I think they know, especially after Haze finally has a chance to fill me in on everything that was discussed between her and Curtis the day he died. It doesn’t seem to be a surprise to them either when they see me come in the door to Grant’s office looking for answers.
“I was wondering when we’d see you.” Levi looks at me thoughtfully.
“I was wondering when you were gonna stop gaslighting me,” I reply tersely.
Grant’s eyes slowly roll to the side as he lets out a small sigh. “You had more important things to do, if you remember. Off on your little pro-football adventure instead of staying here when I asked you to.”
“You know why I left.”
“You don’t think the rest of us couldn’t stop thinking about Mom? Lev? Me? Aspen?”
“You aren’t the one who found her like that. You didn’t lean down to touch her one last time and find her body still warm. I was minutes away from being able to do something about it.”
“You wouldn’t have done anything about it. You would have ended up dead,” Grant answers me flatly, stopping his pace in front of his windows to look at me like I’m insane for thinking it would have gone down any other way.
“At least I would have died trying.” I grit my teeth.
“This isn’t worth discussing. It’s in the past,” Levi interjects, looking between us like he doesn’t have the energy for one of our brotherly spats today.
“Then tell me about the present. I want to know exactly why a madwoman and her fucked up son were on my ranch torturing and manipulating my wife. It’s obvious you knew more than you let on.”
“More but not enough. If you’d held your temper, we might have gotten more out of her.” Grant flashes a derisive look in my direction.
“She killed our mother.”
“All the more reason we should have gotten more out of her.” Grant presses his point.
“Fucking hell. The two of you need to stop fighting each other. We don’t have time for it. We killed two of theirs, and they still don’t have what they’re looking for. They’ll be at our door soon enough, and we all need to be on the same page of a plan when that happens.” Levi looks at us both like we’re misbehaving toddlers .
“Fine. What are they looking for? Let’s start there.” I study my brothers.
My brothers exchange glances before one of them speaks, and apparently Levi wins the silent argument.
“A reliquary,” Grant says flatly.
“A reliquary?” Of all the things I’d imagined, that was low on the list.
“Two weeks before Mom and Dad died, we were sent to help carry out a heist. It was part of a debt Dad owed to someone else—a favor he’d promised in exchange for an advance. One he needed to cover a bad bet. He sent us to ensure that it went smoothly, to have eyes on it since he couldn’t be there. Something went wrong. We still don’t know exactly what, but there was another team there at the same time as ours. The alarms were tripped, and in the process of trying to get out, we were attacked and robbed. Nearly killed. Managed to wound them in the process, but we never figured out who it was,” Levi explains.
“You were robbed during a robbery?” I ask skeptically.
“We were double-crossed. They used us to get in and it gave them someone to pin the blame on. Then after we did all the hard work, they took what we’d stolen. We were scapegoats.” Grant explains his side of the story while Levi crosses his arms.
“That’s a theory.” Levi looks at Grant. “We don’t know for sure.”
“There’s no other realistic explanation,” Grant answers, and it’s clear they’ve been arguing about this for the last five years.
“So you don’t have any of it, but someone thinks you do?”
Grant turns his back and looks out the window as Levi tilts his head and looks at the floor. I’m getting tired of their quiet little play they’re putting on, one that’s delaying the answers I need.
“Tell him,” Grant mutters.
“We still have one piece of it. It was the rarest piece in the collection, so we took extra precautions with it. Stowed it somewhere safe before we ever went for the rest. When they held us at gunpoint, they took what we had—not realizing that they didn’t have the most important piece,” Levi explains.
“There isn’t exactly time to double-check the order’s right when you’re fucking someone over, and the police are on their way.” Grant turns around, his hands in his suit pockets as he shakes his head and leans back against the desk.
“Did Mom and Dad know? Why did they kill them instead of you?” I ask, perplexed by what the reasoning could have been. It was Grant and Levi who fucked up.
“We don’t know. That’s what we needed Amelia to tell us.” Grant levels me with a look that tells me he’s disappointed that my temper got the best of me.
“She wasn’t going to tell you. Not once she realized Curtis was dead.” I shake my head.
“And whose fault is that?” Grant looks at me.
“Whose fault? That’s what you want to figure out right now? Because it certainly fucking seems like there’s plenty to go around in this family. Starting with you two not being honest,” I snap back at him.
“He’s right.” Levi looks at Grant, his brow furrowed, and Grant shakes his head, letting out a frustrated sigh.
“So they think Mom and Dad hid the reliquary somewhere on the ranch?” It feels like pulling teeth to get my brothers to give me any details.
“Yes. But whether it’s the people who asked Dad to find it for them in the first place as payment, or the people who stole everything from us assuming it would be there… We do n’t know.” Levi leans back in his chair. “We’ve always assumed it was the people he didn’t pay back, pissed off enough that they wanted to make a point to everyone else in the community.”
“How much of a community is it when you’re all killing each other all the time?” I run a hand over my face, trying to scrub the frustration and confusion away and failing. “You were involved in the business, and you didn’t know any of this?”
“Dad and Uncle Jay were only just letting us in on things. We were a stopgap measure when they didn’t have another choice. Dad didn’t like to provide details.” Levi explains.
Uncle Jay was the youngest of my dad’s two brothers. We’d only seen him a handful of times growing up, and after Uncle Creighton died leaving the casino to dad, the visits had grown even more scarce as bitterness permeated the dispersal of family assets.
“So ask Uncle Jay now.” I demand, hoping they’re still able to get in touch with him. It’s the only way we get answers.
“He won’t discuss it.” Grant shakes his head.
“What do you mean he won’t discuss it?” I press.
“Exactly what I said.”
“So how do you know he wasn’t involved?” I look between the two of them.
“We don’t,” Levi answers, his eyes drifting down to the floor again, like he’s as disappointed to tell me as I am to hear it.
“Holy fuck…” I pace back and forth. “You never thought to tell me any of this?”
“What good would that have done?” Levi gives me a perplexed expression.
“I begged you to stay here and help us redress Mom and Dad’s deaths. And you ran off to play ball. It would’ve only made you a liability if you weren’t going to help. Possibly a target.” Grant’s eyes darken, and I grind my teeth to keep from lashing out at him.
“I might have stayed if you weren’t keeping secrets from me. If I’d known Haze was still going to be in danger because they thought we still had something. Fuck! I thought I was keeping her safe by leaving, not painting a fucking target on her back.”
“Nothing happened for years. We thought it was safe. It was only when you drew our attention to Curtis, and we started looking at his badge logs and some of his behavior that we realized something was off about him,” Levi explains.
“That’s a big fucking miss,” I mutter.
“Yes, well… it seems to be a family trait.” Grant’s eyes sweep over me and then meet mine.
“We should focus on what’s next.” Levi tries to corral the argument.
“What’s next? I hope you’re pursuing this. Did you find out who the intruders were? The arsonists? One in the same?” I look between them.
“They used fake IDs, and they charged to the card I provided them for a free stay. It was a dead end.” Levi shakes his head, and I can tell he’s as frustrated as I am.
“So they could still be around.” I click my tongue and shake my head. I only felt safe coming here because Bo and Anson were taking turns staying on the ranch alongside Cade and his friend. Knowing she’s under constant watch is the only thing keeping me sane right now.
“We have to be cautious until we make the next steps.” Grant’s not sweating anything, probably because he lives in this tower surrounded by security.
“Cautious? That’s easy for you when you live in a fortress.”
“I told you to move in here.” Grant shoots me a derisive look .
“And abandon everyone at the ranch to some unknown fate?”
Grant opens his mouth to say something but thinks better of it and turns his back to me again. He paces toward the window and then finally speaks.
“Close temporarily. She wanted to do renovations, right?”
“I’m not even going to approach that subject with her. It’s a nonstarter. So tell me what the plan is. I think I deserve to be part of this family-bonding activity, considering I’ve already been helping clean up the mess.”
“We have someone coming to pick up the reliquary. She’s going to put it up for auction, and we’re hoping it’s going to draw out the people looking for it,” Lev explains.
“If it’s stolen, how’s that possible?” I frown at the implications.
“The black market. Not Sotheby’s.” Grant presses his lips together.
“Isn’t that risky? Can you trust her?”
“She comes well vetted and recommended, and she charges a hefty commission for the privilege of her services.” Grant shuffles a few pieces of paper on his desk, and then gives me a pointed look. “This whole world is a series of calculated bets. You just have to plan to be the house and not the gambler.”