“Do you? Because from where I’m standing, it clearly did for most of today.”
He didn’t answer that. Which was its own kind of answer.
“Is there anything else?” I kept my voice flat and direct. “You said you would tell me everything. So tell me. What else don’t I know?” I held his gaze. “Tell me. Or I walk back in there, and I call the Queensland Police Commissioner and tell him that you and your siblings stole millions of dollars of laundered money belonging to a corrupt senior sergeant. Do you understand me?”
The wind moved through the dry grass around us.
“Yes.” Kayden looked at me for a long moment. “There’s a lot more we need to tell you. And we will.”
I held his gaze. He wasn’t scrambling, backpedaling, or trying to manage me. He looked at me like a man who’d finally decided that the weight of his deceit was too much to carry alone.
He’d reached a point of no return, and he knew it.
Now, he needed to choose between me and his family.
The same decision he’d made ten years ago.
The one that had broken my heart.
Chapter 15
Kayden
* * *
I looked at Sapphire for a long moment. The homestead light caught her face as the dark paddocks swallowed everything else behind her.
Ten years ago, I’d stood in a moment just like this one and made the wrong call.
I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. “You’re right. I’ll make them talk.”
“Mitch won’t like it.”
“Mitch can get stuffed.” I turned and marched toward the steps. “Come on.”
I pushed back through the screen door, and Sapphire followed me in. Everyone looked up from the table.
I grabbed a chair and sat down hard. “Listen up.” I waited until I had everyone’s attention. “No more bullshit, and no more keeping secrets from Sapphire. Everything we know about Frank and Bob and that money—she needs to know, starting with what we did with Bob’s cash.” I looked at Mitch. “You want to start, or should I?”
Mitch held my gaze for a long moment. Then he looked at Sapphire. Then back at me.
Cassidy’s eyes narrowed, analyzing me the way she always does. “What changed your mind?”
“Sapphire changed my mind when she aimed her gun at Bob’s face today.” I didn’t look at Sapphire when I said it. Didn’t need to. “Now, can we get on with it?”
“We need to talk.” Mitch glared at me as he pushed back on his chair.
“No. Mitch. We don’t.” I kept my voice flat. “You saw Sapphire work out that we moved the money from the outstation. She’ll work out the rest.” I scrunched up the note in front of me and tossed it onto the table. “Sapphire could’ve kept these stupid notes from us. But she didn’t. She wants to catch Frank and Bob as much as we do. She’s invested now.” I swept my gaze around the room to my siblings and all their new partners. “We all are.”
Another beat. Then Mitch nodded once. “Fine.” He eyeballed Sapphire. “We took the money from the eastern outstation and hid it here on the property. Four of us know where it is. That’s how it stays.”
Sapphire pulled out her notebook and sat down. “Okay. I’ll accept that for now, but what were you planning to do with all that cash?”
Silence. Then Cassidy shrugged. “Honestly, we had no idea. We haven’t gotten that far.”
Sapphire looked around the table. Nobody contradicted it.
I hoped like hell she believed us because it was the truth.
