Dirty Ties

Something softened behind his eyes. Maybe it was understanding, but I didn’t know him well enough to be sure.

I sat beside Kaci, and my hand instinctively went to her hair to feel the comfort of the strands between my fingers. Collin’s eyes tracked the movement, his expression unreadable.

She leaned toward me and placed her hand on my thigh, stroking the leather of my pants. “We’re not killing them.”

Collin stared out the windows behind me. At the skyline? The clouds? Who the fuck knew? His fingers around his coffee mug looked like he was holding on for dear life. “If we turn them in, my father will make sure I go down with him.”

She rubbed her brow as if warding off a headache. “We can fight him.”

His eyebrows gathered as he glanced between her and me. “The evidence my father has against me… It’s not all purchased.”

A sick feeling curled through my gut, and Kaci tensed beside me.

He swallowed, his face pained. “You remember Brad? The artist from SoHo?”

Her hand on my thigh clenched, and she wrinkled her nose. “An old boyfriend, right? Like…eight years ago?”

She’d told me a lot about her life last night, including some of the details of her and Collin’s approach to sex. As hard as it was to hear about her sharing lovers with her husband, I was grateful for her honesty. It gave me a new perspective on her loneliness as well as some insight into this conversation.

My first thought was this Brad guy had shared a bed with Kaci and Collin. But they’d only been married for seven years, and she didn’t seem to remember him.

Collin nodded in answer. “We got in a fight one night. It was bad.” His knee bounced, stopped. “He hit me, I hit back. His head hit…” He shoved a hand in his hair, and his knee bounced again as he struggled to maintain eye contact with her. “His head hit the wall at an awkward angle. I thought I killed him.”

Fuck. I could fill in the rest, but Kaci did it for me. “You called Trent for help, didn’t you? Except he didn’t help you.” Her tone lowered, her hand on my leg sliding restlessly. “He finished the job and used it as a threat against you every day since. Am I right?”

He rose and walked around the kitchen island with his fingers laced on top of his head and ghosts in his eyes. “He showed up at my apartment with a man I’d never seen before. By then, I’d realized Brad was still alive.” Bracing his arms on the granite counter top, he stared out the window, his gaze unfocused. “The man shot Brad as soon as they walked in. Removed the body. You know the rest.”

My stomach hardened. It was a murder Collin was undeniably connected to. It was his apartment. His lover. But it was Trent’s assassin who pulled the trigger. And probably some purchased evidence to make sure everything pointed to Collin.

Why the fuck would Trent go to the trouble? I stood and paced out of the open kitchen and into the sitting room. Beyond the windows, the sun blazed high above the city, casting the river and lake in deep aqua.

The day was half over, and my skin tightened with edginess. I wanted a decision made, a plan devised, and a future started with my girl. But first, I had to clear out every side road. “As concerned as your parents are about keeping your sex life a secret, news that Trenchant’s favorite commentator is a murderer would be much worse.”

Kaci’s sweet scent reached my nose before her hands slid over my t-shirt, moving up my spine and around my shoulders. “My mother cares about image, and Collin’s mom despises the fact that he’s gay. Each of our parents have their own agendas, and Trent balances their demands to keep them happy and loyal. But in the end, he doesn’t give a shit about Trenchant’s name or who Collin is fucking. He’ll risk a scandal to maintain the power he holds over the people beneath him.”

People like Kaci and Collin, who he’d controlled their entire lives. My body heated, and my fingers flexed. I wanted to knock him to his knees, whimpering and begging, before I showed him the control in a six-inch blade.

That wasn’t going to happen, but I did have one final ruse I hadn’t shared. “I sent the Timex you collected at the nightclub.”

Her footsteps shifted around me. In the next breath, she stood between me and the window, the light in her blue eyes spitting a thousand rapid questions. Fuck, she was heart-stoppingly beautiful with her teeth pressing into her bottom lip, the gold in her hair gleaming against the backdrop of the bright sky, and the heave of her irresistible tits in that tight t-shirt.