“Regardless,” Lucas said, “you don’t get to lecture us. You took the easy way out and just unofficially adopted fully-grown humans.”
Atticus scoffed. “If you think corralling those kids is easy, you’ve never tried to herd cats before.”
“You think that’s bad?” Archer said. “Try over a hundred homicidal twenty-somethings with access to military-grade weapons and the department of defense discretionary budget.”
Aiden couldn’t imagine attempting to wrangle that many psychopaths in one place, much less keep it organized enough to carry out kills that, if done wrong, could start international incidents, even wars. The fact that Thomas thought Mac and Archer were prime for the job spoke to how little Aiden knew either of them.
Lucas, however, was unimpressed. “You can talk to me when you have two eighteen-month-olds simultaneously projectile vomiting on you or finger painting with their own poop,” Lucas said.
Avi pulled a face. “Ew. Why the hell are you having another one?”
Lucas and August exchanged a look that made Aiden feel like he was intruding, then August sighed. “You just won’t get it until you have one.”
“Which, if Felix has his way, might be sooner rather than later,” Jericho said.
“Yeah, laugh it up, grease monkey. You’re the one who’s going to end up a grandfather in his thirties,” Asa said. “All your kids are old enough to breed and half of them aren’t super picky about gender, so…may the odds be ever in your favor.”
Jericho flicked him off.
“Enough,” Thomas said. “Congratulations on the baby, Lucas.”
“Why just Lucas?” August said, frowning.
“Because he’s the only one who cares about formalities,” Thomas said, his tone soothing.
“True,” August said. He pointed to the manila folder in front of him. “I’ve been going through Shane’s medical records. Seems his parents knew he was prone to violence from a young age. He’d already hit the McDonald triad before he was ten. He killed some neighborhood pets, set fire to the pool house. Attacked a housekeeper with a screwdriver.”
Thomas dropped into a chair, rubbing a hand over his face. “How did nobody know about this?”
“You know how,” Asa said. “The same way nobody knows about us. Money. His mom is an heiress. She just kept paying off his victims.”
“He wasn’t like that in school,” Thomas said, almost like he needed to believe it. “He was popular, likable. Most people thought he was good-natured.”
“Come on, Dad. How many times have we heard that about Ted Bundy? That’s part of their cover. Hell, it’s part of ours,” Archer asked.
“He just wasn’t violent like that,” Thomas said, sounding lost.
“Wasn’t he?” Aiden asked, placing his hands on Thomas’s shoulders.
It was crazy how Thomas could still be so deeply ensnared by Shane. He had to know, on some level, that everything he and Shane had shared had been a tactic, a ploy to get Thomas to trust him, to let him abuse him freely. Nobody should know that better than him, but he was blind to it. Maybe it was the only way he could cope, but it was still frustrating. Aiden didn’t want him thinking about anybody but him.
“It didn’t seem like it at the time,” Thomas said. “He was manipulative, sure. But…”
Aiden squeezed his shoulders. “But what? He was a narcissist and a rapist. Just because you loved him doesn’t make him any less of those things. It just made it easier for him to manipulate you.”
Thomas scrubbed his hands over his face. “This is getting us nowhere. None of this is helpful.”
“Holly is a dead end,” Atticus said. “We can at least scratch her vengeful love child off our list.”
“Why’s that?” August asked.
Atticus held up a stack of papers. “I requested a copy of her autopsy report. Luckily, they did one. The coroner notes she never had children.”
“Wouldn’t the coroner just be going off of her medical records? Maybe she lied?” Asa asked.
Atticus shook his head. “There are osteological markers that show a woman has or hasn’t had kids. She hasn’t. There’s no secret love child stalking Thomas for revenge. I suppose she could have had someone close to her who sought revenge, but it still doesn’t make sense why they’d go after you instead of Shane unless Holly lied. Which is hard to believe. Would she protect her rapist?”
“I did,” Thomas said quietly.
