56. She Hunted for Answers
She Hunted for Answers
Gwen
Bad news was coming.
Suspicion narrowed my eyes when Toby shouldered his way through the door. Noah came next, propped on Toby’s hip, wearing a matching smile and—what the hell?—matching white T-shirts, black jeans, and white Chucks.
“Um, Tobes?”
“Hey, doll!” He struck a pose just inside the doorway. “Check out our new fit!”
After modeling their new clothes, all while my eyebrow crept higher and higher, Toby stooped to kiss me.
With one of his eyes cracked open, he upped his kissing efforts until we were locked in a full-on make-out session—minus his usual ass-grabbing.
His hands were too full, cradling a baby, a bunch of daisies, takeout from my favorite Chinese place, and a bag from the ice cream shop.
If Toby’s news was so bad he needed a tub of cookie dough ice cream that big, he was optimistic about the two spoons in the bag.
“That didn’t distract me,” I said. The fact I was almost breathless didn’t matter one bit.
“Oh, come on, that was an amazing kiss!” Toby shimmied Noah off his hip. “Chonk incoming!”
Laughing, I caught Noah, and he buried his face against my boob, his tiny fingers digging into my shirt like he never wanted to let go. I kissed the top of his fuzzy head and snuck a peek at Toby as he dumped the pile of goodies on the kitchenette’s black countertop.
“Sooo,” I sang. “What’s going on?”
“Uh, nothing.” Toby’s eyes darted everywhere. “Why would you, uh… you know… think something’s going on?”
Why indeed? “You’re a terrible liar, Tobes. Out with it. Where have you been?”
“You don’t want to know.” My frown made him grimace. “Right. Okay. Of course you want to know.” He gulped in a big breath. “I went to talk to Liam…at…um, you know… The Red Room.”
His face was so stricken that I covered my mouth to stop the laughter bubbling out. He was too cute. “Poor Tobes.” I patted his arm. “See anything interesting?”
“I most certainly did not, my lady. I saw a scratched wooden floor, my shoes, and your brother’s dumb face. Wait—did you?”
I shrugged. “It’s pretty hard not to.”
“You didn’t think to use a menu as a shield?” Toby’s chest puffed up. “Who’s the smart one now?”
This time, I didn’t bother holding back my laughter. “You win this round, Sir Knight. Why did you go see Liam?” I hiked Noah higher on my hip as I tugged open the drawer to rummage around for a fork. “Are you still pissed at him about the bodyguard thing?”
“Uh, well…”
“Is this a conversation to park until after dinner?”
Toby let out a massive sigh of relief. “Could we?” He slumped against the counter. “Honestly, I’m still processing a whole bunch of stuff Liam told me… And stuff I already knew… And Noah’s kinda crabby. We’ve both got a serious case of the hangries, doll.”
“Hey.” I reached out to touch Toby’s arm. “You won’t keep anything from me, right?”
“Nope. I’m spilling my guts.”
“Then it can wait.” I arched up on my tiptoes to peck Toby’s cheek. “But I’ll decide if you deserve a spoon for the ice cream once you get talking.”
“Gwen…say something…”
The hotel room was dark except for the flicker of the TV.
I’d been staring at the same pillow in my lap for—shit—at least ten minutes since Toby had finished recounting a story that sounded like one of his bedtime adventures.
Only this story started fifteen years ago when Liam and Elias had crafted a plan to forge a fake scholarship, and it ended with Liam thinking he had the right to decide our family’s future.
“Gwen?”
I firmed my mouth. “I…” My fists balled in my lap. “I’m going to kill him!”
“Okay, our starting point probably shouldn’t be murder—”
“Like hell!” I shot off the couch and pitched the pillow across the room.
“How dare Liam interfere in our lives like this? The nerve of him!” I stomped across the floor to the balcony doors, but there was no time to admire the twinkling skyline of the harbor.
I spun around and marched back toward the kitchenette. “Who the hell does he think he is?”
“Gwen, you’re pacing.”
“I’m thinking.” I paused and huffed out a breath.
“Liam was shady when we were kids and constantly dodging the cops, but… I dunno… His name never popped up when I worked in prosecutions, and I haven’t seen anything like that working for him.
He’s answering emails and running trades at two in the morning.
When would he have time to be involved in organized crime? ”
“Maybe it’s laundering, like my dad?”
I shook my head. “Insane amounts of money fly in and out of the hedge fund, but Liam and Elias cross every t and dot every i . Everything’s legit, or I’d be out of there in a heartbeat.”
“What about the other guy Liam mentioned?”
“The Widowmaker?” I snorted, my eyes rolling to the ceiling. “He’s an urban legend. A boogeyman used to scare people into submission. No one’s ever seen him.”
“Or maybe”—Toby wiggled his eyebrows—“everyone who has seen him is sleeping with the fishes.”
I tried shooting him an unimpressed look but only ended up laughing.
“I think you’ve been watching too many old movies on the pay-per-view channel.
” My fingers drummed impatiently on the countertop.
“Believe me, Tobes. When witnesses started disappearing in the Bankstown case, Wayne’s team chased down every lead, and sure, there were whispers about a rogue enforcer, but there wasn’t a shred of evidence. Our boogeyman doesn’t exist.”
My head fell back, and I growled with frustration. Why were there more questions and never enough answers?
Toby patted his knee. “Come ’ere, gorgeous.”
I slunk back to the couch and flopped into Toby’s lap. Strong arms wrapped around me. He smoothed back my hair, and a kiss landed on my cheek.
“We’re going to get through this,” he said. “And we’re going to figure out Liam’s game.”
“What if—”
A gentle finger landed on my lips to stop me from voicing any more doubts.
“We will,” Toby insisted. “I’ve got your back until the end.
But if you give the word, I’ll hike up my big boy socks and head back to that strip club and give your brother a talking to.
” He kissed the crook of my neck. “Eyes closed, of course.”
Gwen
Liam, you can’t avoid me forever.
Call me.
Liam had left all my messages on read. Toby had tried calling him, too. Nothing. Work emails were blowing up my phone, so I knew my brother was online somewhere. Was I giving up? Hell no. It was time to change strategy.
My Monday morning had started like clockwork—yoga, sipping my coffee while Marnie made goo-goo eyes at Romeo, and then back to the hotel to hang with my boys before heading to my true destination.
Arms swinging, striding purposefully down the city streets, I was on a mission. Too bad my shadow was going to ruin the element of surprise.
Romeo strolled up beside me at the traffic crossing. “Where are you going now, Signora Sullivan?”
“For a walk.”
“Where?”
“Here and there.”
“You like to keep me guessing?”
“I’m fun like that.”
A smirk danced on Romeo’s lips when he followed me to work. He took the rolled magazine out of his back pocket, flopped on the lobby couch, and blew me a kiss goodbye as the elevator doors closed.
When the elevator pinged to a stop, I charged past reception and down the corridors to Liam’s office. I flung open the door. My gaze narrowed on the empty chair tucked neatly behind his desk.
“Dammit,” I grumbled.
I wandered down the corridor to Elias’s office. After a quick knock on the door, I didn’t wait for him to call out before heading inside. He glanced up from his computer. He didn’t look surprised to see me. In fact, he smiled.
“Where’s our fearless leader?” I asked, snicking the door shut behind me.
Elias shrugged. “He might have had a tip-off that you were on your way to nail his balls to the wall.”
“Shouldn’t you be hiding with him, then?”
A dark eyebrow lifted. “How angry are you?”
“Angry? You’re worried I’m angry ? Elias, you and Liam… You understand you committed a crime, right?”
“Yeeeah…” he said slowly, like I was the dumb one.
“More than one.”
Sighing, he pushed his chair back and edged his way around the desk. “Look, Gwen… It’s not what you think.”
I folded my arms. He couldn’t be serious.
“Okay, it’s exactly what you think,” he said.
“Admitting that doesn’t mean you don’t owe me an explanation.”
“That’s fair.” Elias slouched against the desk, his gaze dropping to where his hand twitched along the hem of his jacket.
“I don’t always agree with Liam’s crusades, but this time…
” He lifted his shoulder. “Toby’s father earned his fortune by preying on people’s misery.
He was the type of man who never paid for his crimes; he simply paid off the right people to make them disappear.
I wish I could tell you I’m sorry that we took his money, Gwen, but I’m not. ”
My palm went straight to my chest, betrayal cutting into my voice. “And so, you decided to involve me? Do you have any idea what you’ve done? The trouble you’ve caused?”
He flinched. “We didn’t know how to make it right—and it was never our money to keep. We bought ourselves extra time by handing control of the money to the one person who’s never been afraid to stand up to the bad guys. You .”
“Except I didn’t know , Eli!”
“Would you have agreed if you did?”
“Of course not!”
“And that’s how I know we made the right choice.” He slipped a manila folder off the top of the stack on his desk and held it out to me. “And it’s your choice what happens next.”
I eyed the folder with suspicion. No way. Taking that folder was agreeing to a hundred new problems I didn’t need.
Elias thrust the folder at me again. “Think of it as some light bedtime reading before your next trip to the police station. You’ll find copies of the trust deed, accounts, earnings, donations… every document you need.”
“Every forged document.”