Someone else had gotten there first.
Someone who knew where to look.
I put the note down. “You guys moved the money from the walls,” I said to nobody in particular. It took all my effort to keep my voice pleasant. The same tone I’d used this morning, when I’d quickly established that this family was hiding things from me. “Didn’t you?”
Nobody spoke.
Cassidy’s gaze went to Mitch. Mitch’s went to Declan. Declan’s dropped to the table.
I waited.
“Where’s the rest of the money?”
Still nothing.
I looked at Kayden, his gaze darted to Mitch, then back to me.
“Outside. Now.” I stood and walked out without looking back, because I knew he would follow.
The cool night air skimming off the paddock smelled of cow shit, which did nothing to help the sick feeling in my stomach. I strode down the steps and marched across the dry grass, needing to put some distance between myself and the Branson family.
The screen door banged shut behind me. I didn’t turn around. I made Kayden come to me.
He stopped at my side with the look of a man who already knew exactly how this conversation would go. “Sapphire.”
I turned on him. “You guys took the rest of that money. Didn’t you?”
“We did.”
“When?”
“The day after the cottage fire. Cassidy and Xavier found it by accident when the fire blew a hole in the wall. They used the ax to tear the rest of the plasterboard off, just like you figured. We went back out the next day and moved it.”
I looked up at the sky and took a breath. Out here, the stars were ridiculous, wall to wall, the kind of beauty that shouldn’t exist above a property that had been hiding bodies and laundered cash for years.
“Sapphire, you need to understand?—”
“Oh, I understand plenty.” I brought my gaze back down to him. “You moved millions of dollars of laundered cash and weren’t going to tell me.”
“We didn’t know whose it was.”
“You knew it wasn’t yours.”
“Yes. We knew it wasn’t ours. But we didn’t know if it belonged to Frank or Bob or some other bastard we’d never met. We figured if we left it there, whoever owned it would come and get it.” He paused. “With us taking it, we could say we knew nothing about the cash and blame Frank.”
I shook my head. Not angry. Past angry, actually, which was worse. “I said today that I was probably the only person who really knew you.” I kept my voice level. “I was wrong about that. I never knew you to be a liar.”
He dragged both hands over his face and held them there for a moment. When he dropped them, his eyes were red at the edges. “Sapphire, please?—”
“Please, what? Please forget that the man I once loved was capable of lying to my face?”
He flinched. Good.
“I didn’t want to lie to you. But I made a promise to my brothers and Cassidy before any of this started. Before I had any idea whose side you were on.”
“Your promise to your family doesn’t outrank my badge, Kayden.”
“I know.”
