Page 118 of Wells

I'm back on a hotel balcony in Florida, watching him hold a cigarette between two fingers, so still he might have been carved. He looked at me then, like he was memorizing something, and I pretended not to notice. We hadn't named whatever it was yet. We were just two people losing a fight neither of us would admit we were in.

The ache rises, and I let it. I don't shove it down or scold myself for still carrying him. The old me would have gone under, spiraled, looked for something to fill the ache. This one lets it come, holds it a moment, and lets it move through and out.

I turn from the window.

The yoga mat sits rolled against the wall near the bed. I pick it up and carry it to the center of the room. The mat unfurls with a soft sound. The edges curl for a second before settling flat.

I slip off my shoes and step onto it barefoot. Namaste.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Wells

Laetare: Midway through the fast comes a single rose-colored Sunday when the church eases its sorrow and lets a glimpse of renewal through. The man who lived in the dark started showing up in the sunlight, remade in ways no one expected.

Cain shows up first, still shaking rain off his coat.

The others come in behind him, loosening collars, dropping into chairs, somebody complaining about the rain. None of them knows what this is. In a few minutes, every man in this room is going to look at Ridge and me differently, and there's no version of the next hour where that doesn't happen.

Ridge doesn't wait for anyone to settle.

"Vin had Dad killed. He orchestrated all of it."

The room goes silent. Not the kind that builds, the kind that crashes.

Cain's hand freezes halfway to his chair, and Keller's head snaps toward Ridge, then me, then back.

"What?" Reeves booms.

Ridge doesn't flinch.

"We don't need to go into all of the specifics here. That's not why I called the meeting. It was time that you knew. I didn't tell you sooner because I didn't want any of you to get your hands dirty while we handled it."

"What the fuck? How? Why? I want specifics," Cain says.

"Another time. Wells brought me proof that Vin arranged the hit. He used the Duvalls as cover. That's what you need to know."

Reeves is on his feet before Ridge finishes. "Six months." He says it low, which is worse than the boom. "You two have known for six months. I run security for this company, and you let me walk around blind while you handled it between you."

Ridge meets him. "That was the point. None of you touch it, none of you answer for it. You stay clean."

A muscle pulls tight in Reeves's cheek. His hands flatten on the table.

Cain leans back in his chair, exhales a breath, and mumbles under his breath.

"Jesus Christ," Rhodes says, cutting his eyes to me. I hold his gaze.

Reeves shoves his chair back and stands. He doesn't pace. He just stands there, hands braced on the back of the chair.

"How do you know?"

"The burner that called Ridge that night never traced back to anyone. The Duvalls confessed, the case closed, and everybody moved on. I couldn't. When I went back through the money, I found a trust Vin had buried, and the second I had that, the burner led straight to him."

Cain runs a hand over his head.

"He was good," Ridge says. "He made us think we had the answer, and we stopped looking."

For a second, nobody says anything. Vin taught half of us to drive. He sat at the end of the table every Christmas and called us his boys. Cain says it before I can. "He had his hand on my shoulder at the funeral."