“And then you two can explain where you’ve been for the last twenty-four hours,” Atticus said, looking at Archer and Mac pointedly.
Mac dropped into Archer’s lap beside Calliope’s chair, taking her hand and kissing it. “Looking lovely, as always.”
Noah whipped his head around, expression mutinous. “No fucking way did you already know Calliope in person.”
Mac’s expression was smug. “She works for Elite, too, remember. Our paths have crossed. Though, it took me an embarrassingly long time to put two and two together. She doesn’t look quite like this when she’s in the office.”
“This is such bullshit,” Noah muttered to himself.
“Enough,please,” Thomas begged, wishing he had a drink. But it was better that he remained clear-headed.
Archer waved his hand in a dramaticgo-ongesture. “The floor is yours.”
“The whole house is,” Levi said under his breath.
Thomas stifled a small laugh, then looked to Calliope, who tapped a few keys. The screens behind him lit up. He didn’t look at the photos. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to see it. Not again.
“This is my family,” he said, knowing Calliope would handle the reveal of the crime scene photos. “When I was fifteen and away at boarding school, my cousin, Shane, drugged and strangled them all before turning the gun on himself.”
“Whoa,” someone said from the floor.
Thomas didn’t look to see who it was, just scanned the sea of faces, hoping to gauge how they all received the news. Noah, Zane, and Felix looked shocked, Lucas seemed…resigned, almost like he’d known. Maybe he had. Lucas had most definitely seen something the day they’d first met, but he was respectful enough to keep it to himself.
But his sons stared blankly, expressions inscrutable.
“That’s really fucked up,” Noah said. “But what does that have to do with you? Why does the blackmailer think you killed your family?”
“Because, in a way, I did,” Thomas said hesitantly. He didn’t want to have to slog his way through the entire story all over again. Just telling Aiden the details had almost killed him.
“What? How?” Felix asked, his disbelief evident.
Thomas rested his palms on the conference room table, closing his eyes. “Because I told Shane I wanted them dead. And he wanted to make me happy. So, he made my wish come true.”
“Your cousin killed your family because you asked him to?” Noah asked, voice dull, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“It’s not like that,” Aiden said, voice dangerously low, like he was prepared to defend Thomas with extreme prejudice. It eased something deep inside him.
Still, there was no time for half-truths. “Isn’t it?”
Aiden shot to his feet. “No, it’s really fucking not.”
“You wanted me to tell them everything. So, I am,” Thomas reminded him.
“No, I wanted you to tell them the truth.”
“That is the truth,” Thomas said.
“No, that’s a small, distorted part of the truth,” Aiden snapped.
“So, why don’t you tell us what the whole truth is?” Jericho asked, like he was ready to play mediator if he had to.
“Shane was a psychopath who groomed him, assaulted him, and somehow convinced him that it was love. He didn’t ask him to kill his family—he said he hated his mom and dad and he wished they were dead. And he should have because they were abusive fucking monsters.” To Thomas, he said, “Tell the story right or don’t fucking tell it at all.”
There was a moment where the entire room froze. Even Thomas. Aiden had trauma dumped Thomas’s entire life on an unsuspecting audience and they were all fighting to process his claims, even Thomas. And he’d lived it.
“He…raped you,” Noah said, tears forming in his eyes.
“It—” Thomas cut himself off. What was he going to say? It wasn’t rape? Wasn’t it? Would he have called it rape if it was one of his sons who’d been the victim? Yes. Undeniably. “It’s complicated.”
