“Why is my brother up here?”
Fuck.
I don’t want to answer, but I have to. “He was part of it.”
She shakes her head. “Part of it?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
“He was working with your father, Andy. Helping move funds through the system.”
“No,” she whispers the word, still shaking her head. “No!” she says louder.
“It’s what got him killed.”
“No!” she screams so suddenly it has me stepping back a bit. “You’re lying! You’re a fucking liar!” She snatches a handful of pages from the board in front of us and turns on me, a fistful of paper bunched up beneath my face. “You said you would tell me! You said if you found anything out about Kyle, you would tell me first!”
“Andy, I’m—”
“Shut up!” she screams. “Just shut the fuck up!”
I stand silently, not moving when she pounds her fist against my chest. Pages flap against my skin.
“You’ve known all along. All these years, you’ve been spying on my family. On me! It’s why you agreed to this whole thing? This fucking engagement? All of this is because you’re trying to take down my family?”
“No, Andy.” I can’t help myself. I have to reach out to her now. And when I do, she flinches as if I’ve struck her. It rips me up. “No, that’s not why I did it.” Maybe it is…just a little. Dammit, I’m such a cunt. “We didn’t know about you.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious. We knew there was a daughter but she…you…didn’t feature in any of the dealings. My superiors didn’t feel you warranted investigation.” Jesus, that sounds so messed up.
“But now they do? And so, you’reinvestigatingme? Is that what you call it? Fucking investigating? Or maybe just plain fucking!” She pulls my shirt tighter around her.
“I don’t know. I’m not working with them anymore.”
Her brow furrows. “What? Then what the fuck is this? Some kind of sick, twistedhobby? You just go digging into people’s lives because you get off on it?”
I rub my forehead because suddenly I don’t have an answer for her. Why the hellamI doing this?
“I decided I’d get more done if I worked without them. Whitlock is a monster, Andy. You know that as well as anyone.”
Low blow. Fuck.
“But why the fuck should you care? Why can’t you just be happy with screwing with the goddamn Caraldis of the world?” she half-yells.
“Because it’s what I do. Taking out human trash like Mark Whitlock is what I do, Andy.” Nothing I say seems to be helping and I feel frustration rise.
“And what about me? Are you planning to take me out too? Or am I just a means to an end? Poor little rich girl who’s so fucked-up I practically begged you to marry me to get me away from it all.” She covers her face with both hands. “God, I’m such an idiot.”
“It’s not like that, Andy.” I reach for her hands and draw them from her face, but she jerks away from me.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” she shouts. I drop my hands, feeling useless. I hate it. I cross my arms over my chest and straighten my shoulders.
“Don’t you want to find out who murdered your brother? Aren’t you interested in getting justice for him?”
“Justice? You’re talking about him as if he was one of them. Everything you’re doing here is just going to drag his memory through the shit, Mateo!”
I can’t deny that, because it’s true. The kid was as dirty as the rest of them…and if he wasn’t then, he would be now. Maybe death saved him from becoming another Whitlock. Though I doubt anyone could be as sick as that fucker.
