Ghost starts to leave but I stop him. “I want a list of everyone with access to the dressing room for the past week,” I say, my mind reverting to what happened this morning. For weeks, there've been small mishaps that I let Sienna convince me were simply bad luck but it's too much for it to have been a coincidence. I should have paid a closer look at it all then maybe what happened last night could've been prevented.
Someone is trying to stop the wedding.
"The list will be long," Ghost warns and don't I know it. Fuck, it could take weeks before we catch the person that ruined her wedding dress and knowing they're so close only makes it more dangerous. It's clear there are no lines they're not willing to cross and the only person who stands to gain from me failing to meet the conditions of the will is…
No.
I laugh at my own thoughts, trying to push them out but a seed has been planted. But fuck, there is no fucking way my twin brother would do something like this. Bishop and I may not beon the best of terms but he wouldn't hurt a fucking seventeen-year-old just to put a damper on the wedding plans?
Right?
I run a hand through my short hair, trying to tell myself that I know my brother better than anyone else. There is no way in hell he’d do all of this instead of just sitting down to talk things out. No fucking way. One more reason to catch the culprit, to protect Sienna and her family but also to prove that my brother isn’t capable of something so deplorable.
It would kill me if it turns out that Bishop is behind everything. Him acting aloof and stubbornly avoiding me doesn’t exactly help his case.
Fuck!
“Get me the list,” I tell Ghost who nods and walks to the door. He pulls it open just as Bishop is raising his hand to knock. The man drops his hand to his side and steps in when Ghost moves aside to let him through then shuts the door behind my brother.
I want to give Bishop the benefit of the doubt. We're brothers, after all. Twins, for Christ’s sake. I know him better than I know myself—at least I thought I did. He's changed since we were handed our father’s letters.
“Where the hell have you been?” I ask, my fear bleeding into rage. “You were nowhere to be found after the accident last night.”
"Out and about," Bishop says in a calm voice and I watch as he walks to my minibar and pours himself some whiskey but doesn't drink it. "I've been looking for the hit-and-run driver that tried to take out Jude and nearly killed your new bride."
My pulse jumps at his words. “And did you find him?”
Bishop takes a sip of the whiskey before sliding a hand in his pocket and I don’t see what he takes out until he tosses a photo on my desk. My eyes narrow on his before turning to look at the photo of a young man, no older than twenty by the looks of it, with curly hair that falls over his haunted green eyes. It takes me a second longer than it should for me to make the picture out as a mugshot, “Who is this?”
Instead of responding, Bishop drops another photo on the desk and it's of the same man but this time, his skin is deathly pale, his lips blue and his eyes are closed. The man—boy really, is lying on a metal table with a sheet pulled up to his chest, clearly deceased—looking so painfully young that I feel a tug of pity in my chest.
“Daryl Gore,” Bishop says, pulling my attention from the picture and to him. I see it in his eyes, the pity I feel for the kid but it’s gone in a flash. “He’s a known drug addict and a car thief. I made a few calls and was able to find that it's Daryl who stole the car that nearly killed the Ford siblings. This morning, he was found in an alleyway, dead from an apparent overdose.”
I stare down my brother, watching him down the whiskey before turning those blue eyes to mine and I feel that seed of doubt sprout.
It’s a neat story.
A story that I want to believe. A crash that was nothing more than an addict driving a stolen car while high? So it was indeed an accident and everything that has happened before and after that was purely a coincidence? Except, well, there are holes in this story my brother is feeding me.
The Elysium casino isn’t on the main strip and it’s not one of those places you can simply stumble across, high or not. What are the fucking chances that some random addict wouldend up speeding through the casino parking lot on the night of my engagement party at precisely the moment my fiancée and her family are outside and vulnerable? Even more curious is the fact that none of my men were able to track this guy on their own but Bishop was. Sure, the man has a natural talent for investigating and uncovering information but this all seems too damn convenient for my liking.
I try to push the seed of doubt back to the ground but my brother keeps watering it with his words and actions.
We made vows when we were younger, promises to always have each other's back and until two months ago, have been loyal to each other. He wouldn’t really throw me under the fucking bus for Elysium, would he? Not when all he has to do is ask.
It’s the boxing match all over again. At fourteen years, sweat and blood tickling down my brows after my last match, faced with the thought of fighting my brother for the championship. The crowd roaring behind us.
Fight. Fight. Fight.
A knock interrupts my stare down with Bishop and I turn when the door opens to reveal Ryder, whose brows arch at the tension in the room. "Is everything alright, boys?" My father's oldest friend asks, his eyes moving from me to Bishop.
Bishop laughs without mirth and I watch him drop his glass on my desk with a sharp click, grab the photos and without another word, storm out of the office. Ghost, who's been silent until now, nods once at me then follows my brother out, leaving me with Ryder to handle club business.
Ryder shuts the door behind him, getting straight to business. “I’m here to discuss the security protocols for your wedding.”
“Right.” It’s a distraction from the Bishop and what he may or may not have done so I welcome it, gesturing for Ryder to take a seat. “Let’s get to it.”
Chapter Eight
