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“And I asked you one. Is Keenan okay?” I shot back.

“He’s fine. Where’s Roman?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know?”

I got off the bed, trying to keep my voice steady. If Julian had that phone, he knew I had been talking to my son. I needed to know what he had done to Keenan to get it. Hopefully Keenan had been smart in deleting our text messages like I asked him to. I always knew that the phone getting found was a possibility.

“Aria told me you came to see her,” he said.

“Then she should’ve told you what we talked about.”

“You been asking questions about my brother,” he replied. Beneath the anger, I could hear he was genuinely worried. Oh well. He was never seeing Roman again.

“I asked her about my son. That’s who I’m worried about. Not your brother.”

There was a pause, and I heard a car horn followed by the clicking of a turn signal. He was driving somewhere. I looked toward the suite’s door even though there was no way he knew where I was staying.

Neither he nor Aria knew about Justice. I intended to keep it that way.

“I don’t know anything about Roman,” I continued. “I haven’t spoken to him since I went away to prison.”

Julian stayed quiet long enough for me to wonder whether he believed me. I hated that I couldn’t see his face. He had always been polite to me, but I didn’t recognize the man questioning me now.

“Then why you telling Keenan he can come live with you?”

“Because he’s my son, Julian. I found him and gave him that phone because I missed him. I wanted to be able to talk to my child without somebody deciding whether I deserved to hear his voice.”

“You weren’t supposed to be contacting him.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s fine. But you need to worry about what I’m asking you.”

I gripped the phone tighter. I didn’t believe him about Keenan any more than he believed me about Roman.

“If I find out you lying to me, there’s gonna be hell to pay,” he said.

“After everything Roman did to me, I want nothing to do with that family. You and Aria can figure out where he is. Just leave my son alone.”

“I gotta go.”

“Julian, give Keenan back his phone.”

He ended the call without responding to me.

I needed to hear my son’s voice. I didn’t trust Julian or Aria. None of them loved my son as much as I loved him.

My throat was tight as I picked up my phone and called Justice.

“Julian has Keenan’s phone,” I blurted out before he could say anything.

“What?”

“He just called me asking where Roman is. Now, I don’t know if my son is okay. It sounded like he wasn’t at the house,” I replied.

“Get ready. I’m coming to get you. This is perfect timing because the guy I have watching the house just saw that Julian left. Aria and Keenan are the only ones at the house. Julian got a meeting with Quest.”

I stopped pacing.