Chapter 17 - Emmett #2
“Yeah.” I stared out at the empty corn field next to my truck. “I know who I can get to do it. He owes us one.” I’d just have to get everyone on board.
I got off the phone with Jack and sent a text to the group chat, telling them I needed to meet everyone at Beau’s and that it was urgent. Funny how I could expose other men’s lies so easily but couldn’t fess up to my own.
Delilah didn’t respond. Not that I expected her to. For all I knew, she blocked me. It’d be what I deserved anyway for dragging her into this nightmare she and I were in.
The driveway was already littered with everyone’s cars by the time I pulled up. Guess when I said urgent, everyone knew I meant it.
When I walked in, only five pairs of eyes immediately settled on me. All guys. “Where are the girls?”
“Pregnancy symptoms hit Tess hard today,” Levi said. “She’s at home asleep with Luke.” The bounce in his knee told me he was itching to be there instead of here.
“Anna stayed home with the kids,” Joseph explained. “Too close to bedtime to get them over here.”
Jealousy hit hard in my chest, ringing through me until it rattled around in the marrow of my bones. They had families. People who loved and adored them. Little versions of them and the women they loved. I didn’t know if I’d ever get that.
“Sav’s over at Delilah’s,” Weston said, scratching the back of his head, looking uncomfortable. “Don’t know what for, but it sounded not good from what I heard on the phone.”
“Claire, too,” Beau added. “Raced over there with a fire lit under her ass. Must be some girl drama.”
“Think so,” Colt started. “Britt was double fisting bottles of pinot when she left.”
My legs went wobbly, and I braced a hand on the counter before I hit the ground. Thankfully, guys didn’t pay attention to the symptoms of heartbreak.
“Oh,” was all I could get out. I wanted to call Delilah and make sure she was okay, but I knew she wasn’t. I’d left her naked, crying on her bed. Of course, she wasn’t okay.
“So what was so urgent?” Colt asked, leaning back in his dad’s old recliner they hadn’t moved over to Anna’s yet.
“Where were you anyway?” Beau frowned at me, gesturing to my house with the butt of his beer bottle. “All the lights are out at the house.” Thank God, they’d all somehow forgotten that we were all sharing locations. Pretty sure the girls were the only ones who cared about that.
“Out.” Colt laughed to himself. I shot him a glare. “I’m not in the mood, Colton,” I ground out.
“Oh my God!” Weston shot up in his chair, grinning like a fool. “Did you finally get your cherry popped?”
Joseph choked on his beer, some of it dripping onto the hardwood at our feet.
“Are you a virgin?” he coughed, wiping his face.
A flurry of laughter carried through the open-plan first floor while I was hoping the ground would swallow me whole.
I tried to laugh with them, but my body wouldn’t cooperate.
Laughing now felt wrong when the last time I’d laughed had been with Delilah.
Weston held up a hand, laughing so hard he was wheezing. “Bad word use, sorry.”
I rolled my eyes and grabbed a beer out of the fridge while he explained the intimate details of my sex life. Which probably also meant Savannah knew. Exactly the kind of information I wanted my sister to know about me.
“I thought humiliation was reserved for you three youngest,” I grumbled, gesturing to Colt, Weston, and Levi.
“Apparently not,” Levi snorted.
“But wait.” Weston frowned at the ground, processing. “Does that mean you slept with someone?”
Colt smirked. “She sent him a nude while we were doing the stakeout last week. He choked on a cookie.” Weston snickered like he’d just seen panties for the first time, while the other guys looked at me with varying degrees of shock.
I scowled at Colt, who was moving himself lower and lower on my preferred person list. “Did you know I hate you?” I sat down on the couch, resting my head back against it.
“People still send nudes?” Joseph asked. “Hot.”
“That’s what I said,” Colt laughed.
“But the real question is who is this chick?” Beau asked with a hint of amusement in his voice.
“Doesn’t matter,” I replied, staring at the ceiling, reevaluating my life and every mistake I’d ever made. The first one was befriending these assholes when I was a kid. “We ended things.”
“Oh shit,” Weston said. “That sucks.”
I swallowed thickly, forcing down the knot in my throat. “Yeah,” I rasped. “Sucks is about right.” Sucks was a colossal understatement. I wiped the burn out of my eyes and sat up. “I didn’t come over here to talk about this.”
I glanced at Levi. I practically watched his stomach drop in real time. “What did they do?”
“My buddy, Jack, did some digging and he uh”—I ran my hand over my mouth—“found something.”
Levi’s eyes drifted shut behind his glasses. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and steepled his hands together over his mouth. “What did he find?”
I ripped off the band-aid. “Sterling has been committing tax fraud since ’82, and Preston is embezzling money from his clients.”
Levi’s eyes shot open. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
“Holy shit,” Weston shouted.
“Not kidding,” I told Levi. “So now we need to get an anonymous tip to the IRS so they open an investigation.” He fell back against the loveseat, covering his face with his hands with a heavy, defeated breath. “Or we could leave it,” I offered, quieter.
“Leave it?” Beau snapped. “No way in hell can we just leave somethin’ like that.”
“It’s not up to us,” I replied, voice stern. “It needs to be Levi’s call. They’re his family.”
Levi sat upright, shaking his head. “No, they’re not. I don’t want anything to do with them—or this, if I’m being honest. Do whatever you have to.” He got up. “I gotta go check on my wife. I’ll touch base with you guys tomorrow,” he said and left without another word.
Beau’s screen door slammed shut with a deafening smack.
And I couldn’t help but feel guilty for being the one to break the news.
I couldn’t imagine how it felt for him to keep getting reminded just how terrible the people he related to were.
I would’ve run home to my person too—if I had still had one.
I turned to Colt and cleared my throat. “Was thinking we could get Rhett to be a kind of whistleblower. Is he still at the jail?”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Weston said.
Beau nodded along slowly, thinking. “Tell him we’ll drop the charges for the tack room if he does it.” I was thinking that, but didn’t know if they’d go for it. It was a lot of damage to let him off the hook for.
“Yeah, he’s still at the jail,” Colt confirmed.
“Let’s go then.” I stood and finished the rest of my beer. “Wanna get this shit over with and be done with these assholes once and for all.”