“She never talked about him. She only told us that we had an older brother but he died when he was young.”
A brick hit my gut.
“And he’s obsessed with the Steels?” I said.
“The Steels, yeah, mostly Jonah. And your father. Tom Simpson.”
“My dad’s dead.”
“I know.”
“If he has a beef with a dead man, I don’t know what to tell you.”
“If he has a beef with a dead man, you know why,” Dominic said. “We all know who your father was.”
Chills crawled up my spine. Oh, yeah, I knew all right. But damn it, I was not my father.
“I’m not responsible for what my father did to anyone, and neither are the Steels.”
“I know that,” Dominic said, “but my brother isn’t quite as logical as I am. He tends to think with his emotions, which are out of whack.”
“You called him psycho,” I said.
“Yeah, and I stand by that assessment.”
“I do too. Only a psycho would arm himself with three guns and booby-trap his office with pepper spray.”
“Agreed,” Dominic said.
“Look,” I said. “I don’t know what my father did to your brother, but I know it can’t be pretty. Your brother was far from the only one.”
Dominic nodded. “I know that, man, but that thought never helped my brother and probably not any of the others.”
Talon visibly tensed. His story had gone public when all hell broke loose months ago. Dominic probably knew Talon had been among my father’s victims. That wasn’t for me to say, though.
“You’re saying your brother is a danger to the Steels? And to Colin? That’s why you acted on orders to protect them?”
“That’s right. But thanks to you all, they’re no longer protected.”
“You need to look no further than to us to protect our mother and sister,” Talon said through clenched teeth. “You’d better keep your hands off them and every other Steel from now on.”
I turned to Talon and Ryan. “Did you guys ever find the file of news clippings from the kids who disappeared around the same time as Luke?”
“Not yet. Joe was going to look for them,” Ryan said.
“Any chance a little kid named Cade disappeared?” I asked.
“I was too young to remember,” Ryan said.
“And I just remember Luke,” Talon said. “And…”
And…himself. He didn’t finish the sentence.
“What was Cade’s father’s name?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Dominic said. “My mom never talked about him. Like I said, she told us Cade was dead.”
“And she never mentioned his father?”