He jerks his head toward the kitchen.
I hesitate just a fraction, but curiosity gets the better of me, and I drop the laundry basket back onto the counter and follow him into the kitchen.
Waiting for me on the island is a thin manila envelope. There is no writing on the front, and it’s fairly thin, which makes me even more intrigued.
“This isn’t a restraining order, is it?”
Cormac rolls his eyes, and for a fraction of a second, it feels like it did before, when we could have a joke with each other and pretend that life wasn’t so dark and serious.
“Just open the damn envelope.”
My fingers shake as I slide them beneath the lip of the envelope and open it up to find a handful of important looking documents.
I slide them out slowly, frowning when I notice various different bank logos. I set them down on the island, and Cormac watches me silently as I look through each one.
It’s nothing but bank statements and evidence of various accounts that belong to?—
“These are Joe’s,” I say, stunned. “H—how did you get these?”
“I know people.”
“Okay… different question. Why do you have them?”
“What do you think you’re looking at?” Cormac asks plainly.
“A bunch of bank statements that tell me Joe is more well—off than I thought.”
Cormac rifles through the documents and tosses a particular one down in front of me.
“Try seven million dollars well—off.”
It’s a good thing I’m not drinking anything, otherwise I would have sprayed it everywhere.
“There’s no way.”
“The evidence is right in front of you, along with the supposed tax returns he’s filed over the past four years.”
I lay the tax returns beside the bank statement and flick back and forth between the two. I’m no accountant, but it doesn’t take a math whiz to realize the vast difference between the numbers.
“This is evidence of tax fraud,” I whisper as I stare at the eye-watering amount of money he has stashed away.
Did he have this when Carly was in trouble? Because if he did and he chose not to help her…
“I’m actually going to kill him. Why would he do something thisstupid?”
I slam my hand down onto the counter. “Carly isdead. If he gets caught, he could get serious prison time. And then what? Who’s going to look after the gir—” I look at Cormac, my eyes wanting to bug out of their orbits.
“What?” He quirks a brow.
My eyes narrow at him. “Why did you do this?”
“Because you want your nieces back, and this gets you that.” He says it so casually, as if he didn’t just offer me a life-changing gift.
My mind reels.
This is the first thing Cormac has done for me that isn’t about punishing me, so what’s changed?
Why has he suddenly had a change of heart?
