“Excuse me,” he said after he’d taken his last bite. He stood, pushing the chair back and dropping his napkin onto the table.
“Where do you think you’re off to?”
“I have to piss, Father,” he hissed. “Did you want to come hold it for me?”
“That’s crass.”
“You surely are,” he agreed, stalking out of the room without another word. He bypassed all of the downstairs bathrooms, taking the stairs to the second floor two at a time. He closed the door to his room behind him, then locked himself in the en suite and sat down on the closed lid of the toilet with a sigh. Being drunk was preferable to working through another half day with his father hovering on the other side of his desk, but Rhys knew better. He had to toe the line, at least until his plan came together. Or…
Or something else. He wasn’t sure what, though.
He clutched his phone in his hand, wanting more than anything to call Beckett again, but not trusting himself to maintain a reasonable volume on the call. The pain in Beckett’s voice had been palpable, and every second Rhys was not home in Myers Bluff, he hated himself a little bit more than the moment before. So he called his brother, who answered as promptly as Beckett had.
“Finally.”
“Miss me already?” he asked with a weak laugh.
“Beckett has been bouncing off the walls. I’ve been trying to…”
“I spoke with him earlier,” Rhys said, cupping his hand around his mouth and the receiver of the phone.
“You did?”
“Briefly.”
“You called him before me?” Sebastian croaked, disbelief coloring the question.
“Sebastian. Of course I did.”
Sebastian was silent for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Right. How are you? How are things?”
“I can’t figure out his endgame,” Rhys explained. “He’s just…following me around like a pest.”
“Please tell me you have a plan.”
“It’s not as fleshed out as I would like,” he admitted. “I’m focused on trying to get sole access to a bank account. Brent is supposed to be working on that for me, and once I have that, I can deal with the next steps.”
“That’s not entirely reassuring,” Sebastian said.
“You’re telling me.”
“You didn’t answer my other question.”
Rhys dug his elbows into his knees and dropped his head until he was dizzy from the rush of blood in his brain. “What question?”
“I asked how you were.”
He chuckled under his breath. “Not well, Sebastian. Not well at all.”
“This will shake out soon,” Sebastian said, sounding as sure of it as Rhys wanted to feel. “I’ll check in with Brent for you, and I’m trying to call in some other favors.”
Rhys balked, flushing the toilet to carry on the charade of his absence. “Favors from whom, brother?”
He reached up and turned on the sink, even though he made no move to wash his hands. The water pressure in the upstairs bathroom was strong and loud, and that was how he almost missed it when his brother said,
“Callahan.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
