by Ali Parker
Chapter Thirty-Five
Tyson
I woke up with a thin layer of sweat covering every inch of my body. There wasn’t a moment where I was at peace. As soon as my eyes flew open, I was completely and totally awake.
I knew where I was: at my father’s safe house. My brothers and I had all decided to spend the night after staying up for half of it trying to fine-tune our plan.
Their girls were all staying over at Jeremy’s, and we’d sent Dad’s bodyguards there to watch over them. We all needed to be here, but no one wanted to put the kids in any danger. It was safer for them to stay away, but given the threat that had been made against us all, we couldn’t leave them unprotected.
I was sharing a room with Sonny, who was snoring softly on the twin bed pushed up against the opposite wall.
Something was wrong. I knew it as soon as I woke up, feeling it in every fiber of my being. At least it wasn’t Sonny. One of my brothers was safe, but the others?
I was out of bed the next second, crossing over to Sonny’s side of the room to shake his shoulder. When he grunted, I grabbed his jeans from beside the bed and dropped them on his back. “Something is wrong. Wake up.”
“What going on?” He rolled over immediately, got off the bed and got dressed. “Did you hear something?”
“I don’t know.” I stalked out of the room, my eyes falling on the sleeping forms of Jeremy, Evan and Beau spread out on the couches. Breathing a quiet sigh of relief that all my brothers were okay, I realized that we still had one more family member to account for. Dad.
It had been so long since he’d been around all the time; it felt strange to add another person to my mental checklist before I could really relax. I rushed to his bedroom, the door opening with a soft click. Dad’s sheets were rumpled but empty. “Fuck.”
“He’s gone?” Sonny asked, his voice quiet but shocked. I turned to face him, nodding as I pushed past him and went in search of my car keys. “I’m coming with you.”
“Fine.” I found my keys on the coffee table and picked them up slowly, not wanting to rouse the rest of my brothers just yet. It could still turn out that Dad was just taking a walk or something.
“I’m going to check the backyard before we go,” Sonny said, ducking out. He was back by the time I reached the front door, simply shaking his head to let me know Dad wasn’t out there.
I didn’t turn on the headlights in my car until we had backed out of the driveway. Sonny rolled down his window and kept his eyes on the wide sidewalk. “Where do you think he went and how do you think he got there?”
“He could have walked or called a cab or something. I don’t know where he would have gone, but this isn’t good.” My eyes were on the road and on the sidewalk on my side of the car. The street was quiet and dimly lit by arched streetlights every few yards. “We should have let Greg or one of his guys hang around. Sent the rest to the girls.”
. We had been so focused on people who might be trying to get in, and we figured he would fine with all of us there, that we hadn’t considered he might try to leave.
“Yeah, but it’s too late for that now,” Sonny said. He straightened his leg to be able to pull his phone out of the pocket of his jeans. After checking the screen, he made a frustrated sound. “I was hoping there was going to be a message from him.”
“If he wanted us to know where he was going, he would have told us before we went to bed.” My fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “He told me on Saturday that he had something left to do. He wouldn’t tell me what, though.”
“Fuck,” Sonny cursed before dragging both hands through his sleep-tousled hair. “I didn’t think he would take off on us. Fucking obviously, otherwise I would have put a lock on his door or something.”
“We couldn’t do that.” I sighed. “It’s not your fault, Sonny. I didn’t see this coming either. I was so worried about him being accessible if he was released, I didn’t think for a second that he’d go looking for trouble.”
We were quiet as we turned the corner, both of us hoping to see Dad standing in one of the pools of orange light being cast by the streetlights. Maybe he would say that he’d gotten turned around while he had gone for a walk, but that didn’t happen. Trees swayed in a gentle breeze, causing shadows to dance across the sidewalk and the blacktop, but there was no other movement on the street.
“Damn it.” Sonny was getting wound up beside me. I could feel anxious frustration coming off him. “Where the fuck would he go in the middle of the night, Ty? Why wouldn’t he take one of us with him?”
I shrugged, but there was an ominous pit forming in my stomach that didn’t allow the move to be as casual as I wanted it to be. Sonny picked up on it, letting his head fall back against the seat with a groan. “I’m sorry. I never should have supported his release. You were right. It’s too dangerous for him to be out, and it’s not just because people are after him.”
“Dad has always been impulsive.” Which was why he’d lost everything, but I didn’t think this was the right time to remind Sonny of that. “As for being sorry, don’t be. There was nothing you could have done to stop it, anyway. Ken pulled too many strings too high up. We didn’t have any shot at keeping him inside.”
“Maybe, but I could have helped.” I could hear despair creeping into Sonny’s tone. He lowered his voice, glancing at me in the darkness of the cabin. “Can you feel it, bro? There’s something seriously wrong.”
“I know.” I swallowed past my dry throat. It felt like there was something scratching at my veins from the inside as the foreboding feeling spread from my stomach. “We’ll find him, Sonny. I just hope we find him before it’s too late.”
“Whatever happens, I need you to know I appreciate the role you took on. I know I told you that you don’t need to be a father figure for me anymore, but—”
“It’s water under the bridge. Don’t worry about it, okay?” I checked that the road was still clear before turning to give him a quick grin. “All kids act out at some point. It was just your turn.”
Lifting his middle finger, he extended his hand so it hovered right in front of my face. I swatted it away, hearing a soft chuckle coming from Sonny. Our lighthearted moment of reconciliation was interrupted by the buzzing of Sonny’s phone.
I slowed down, watching as the display illuminated the worried lines on Sonny’s face. I could only just make out the name of the caller. It was Sonny’s boss, the town’s new chief of police. “This isn’t a social call, is it?”
Straining to hear what was happening on the other end of the line, I mouthed to Sonny to put the man on speakerphone. He pulled it away from his ear and tapped a button. Suddenly, the sound of the chief’s voice filled the car. “… got the call seven minutes ago. The first uniforms just arrived, but I thought you would want to know, given the address given to us.”
“Ken Lyons?” Sonny guessed, his voice flat.
“Yep. If you go over there, which I know you’re going to do if you’re not already on your way, just remember you’re in a delicate situation at this scene. Don’t touch anything and listen to the uniforms, okay?”
“Got it.” Sonny’s jaw clenched, his skin paler than it had been when he took the call. “His address still the same?”
“He hasn’t moved in over a decade,” the chief confirmed before wishing Sonny luck and saying goodbye. When he’d hung up the phone, Sonny gave me the address for Ken’s house.
I made a U-turn, and with screaming tires, we were on our way. Ken’s house was in the same part of town our old house used to be in. It was one of the newer ones, but it was still stately and large. Usually, however, there weren’t two ambulances, and three marked police cars hanging around these houses after midnight. But they were all there tonight, along with a scattering of other vehicles.
People were streaming in and out. I vaguely recognized some of them as fellow public servants, but then my heart dropped to my feet when I saw the coroner coming out of the house.
&
nbsp; Sonny saw him at the same time that I did, and he threw himself out of the car before I had even come to a complete stop. Leaving my engine running and the door open, I raced after my brother.
The coroner grimaced when he saw us, holding out his hand to stop us from barreling past him into the house. “You boys don’t want to go in there.”
“Why not?” I liked the man under ordinary circumstances, but I wasn’t above punching him out right now if it was necessary.
Sympathy flooded his eyes as he gave me a meaningful look. “There’s a lot of blood. A lot. Two dead on arrival. I’m sorry, boys, but your father is one of them.”
Whatever air I’d had in my lungs from my previous breath whooshed out of them. I heard a similar sound coming from Sonny. Devastating, crippling pain ripped through my body, landing with a blast right in the middle of my chest.
My limbs went numb, and the rest of me felt cold. My vision swam, and my knees were threatening to buckle. Only the thought that Sonny was standing right next to me and shouldn’t have to ask any questions himself prompted me to speak.
“What happened?” My voice came out more like a croak, completely unfamiliar even to my own ears. “Was he…?”
Footsteps trudged up the steps, and the chief came to stand next to the coroner, having obviously just arrived at the scene after calling Sonny. “I just got off the phone with some of my boys on the way over here.”
He shot me a sympathetic look but spoke to Sonny. “Davis and Johnson say all evidence points to a fight that got out of control. It looks like they got into a scuffle and the gun went off. The neighbors heard a few shots. Ken was critically injured and bled out, but your Dad… It was quick. The gun is registered to Ken Lyons. That’s all we know for now. ”
“Fuck.” Black dots marred my vision as I tried to process what he was saying. It was impossible. It couldn’t be. Dad was dead.
Suicide? Why? Murder? That wasn’t Dad. It couldn’t be my dad the chief was talking about, but it was. He kept saying his name, even though I couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying. I kept hearing Dad’s name.
How had this happened? How had we gotten here? All I had wanted was to protect him from Ken, and now here he was, dead. I just didn’t understand.
Shutting my eyes tight, I forced myself to take a deep breath. The chief was talking again, saying they had found a text from Dad to Ken that they needed to talk. I was only vaguely aware of it in the state I was in, and I needed to snap out of it so I could hear what the chief was saying. I needed answers, and with Dad gone, this was the only way I could get them.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Eve
“Thank you all for coming.” My voice was quiet in Sonny’s expansive living room. Roy had given me his number in case of emergency and so I had called him first thing this morning.
Of course, Tyson’s name was listed first to be called if I ever needed to make the dreaded call, but Tyson had made it clear he wouldn’t take my calls. I doubted this changed anything.
Sitting around a modern dining room table with a metal frame and a glass top were five men and four women. They were all looking at me expectantly, if curiously.
Being surrounded by so many beautiful people was intimidating. Even for me, and even under the circumstances. The Lovett brothers were all as big and muscular as Tyson was, even if Beau was a little leaner than the rest. They struck an impressive sight when they were all together.
It was no wonder Penny, and so many other girls around town fantasized about these boys all the time. The women were all beautiful in their own ways. Whereas it was very obvious the guys were related, the women clearly weren’t. Charise I’d met before on the night of her engagement to Beau. I knew Jeremy’s wife too. Marie was my hair stylist, and I freaking loved her. She gave me a kind smile now, encouraging me. I didn’t know Sadie or Niki, Evan’s and Sonny’s wives.
When I had arrived a little while ago, I’d met Niki very briefly. It was her house we were meeting in, after all. She was in a flowing white skirt with purple flowers printed on it and a white T-shirt. She’d paired the ensemble with a wide brown leather belt and sandals. Her long hair hung in a neat braid down the center of her back.
She was kind and soft-spoken. In the minute or so we’d talked, she’d welcomed me to their home before offering her condolences on my loss. I had told her to keep them. If I was mourning anyone, it was Roy.
“Thanks for calling us, Eve. This can’t be easy for you.” Sonny’s gentle voice pulled me back to the meeting I had just called to order. “For the record, we’re sorry about what happened. It doesn’t make up for it, but we wanted you to know anyway.”
“That’s not necessary.” I repeated what I’d told his wife only a couple of minutes earlier. I made sure my gaze touched each of theirs before resting on Tyson’s narrowed eyes. “Ken was nothing to me.”
I could have sworn I saw a flicker of something there, but I would have to find out later what it was since Evan put up his hand. “What did you want to talk to us about? Sonny said you mentioned something about Dad’s will.”
“Dad asked Eve to revise his will a couple of months ago,” Tyson said, with the tiniest hint of a smile just barely lifting the corners of his lips. “I conveyed the message to her before his release.”
“Yeah, you did,” Beau muttered, but didn’t say anything else about it.
I cleared my throat, slightly humiliated by the knowledge that Beau—if not everyone else in the room—knew Tyson had done a lot more with me than simply conveying a message. Snapping open the briefcase sitting on the table in front of me, I pulled out the notarized copy of Roy’s will. “This is your father’s last will and testament. It supersedes all others he might have filed away with attorneys or even with you.”
Before I had come over, I stopped at the office and made a copy for each of the brothers. I handed them out before carrying on. Tyson left his on the table in front of him, having already seen what it said that day in his office.
The others all flipped past the front page and waited for me to continue. “The details are all in there but let me take you through the basics. Your father transferred millions of dollars out of Ken’s numerous bank accounts, as you know. All of that money was split between several accounts with banks all over the world. Recently, it was all pooled together in one account right here in Cypress Creek. Since it was taken from my father, it might have gone back to him eventually, but since he’s gone, it’s not like it can. As Ken’s only heir, it should come to me, but I have waived my right to it. I have more than enough coming from that bastard, and I know your father wanted you to have this. I’ve made the necessary arrangement to make sure it’s all done legally. Your father has left one-fifth of that money to each of you.”
“You knew where the money was?” Jeremy asked, disbelief ringing clearly in his voice. “How?”
Without meaning to, my eyes sought Tyson’s out. I never had gotten to explain my role in any of this to him. Maybe now, since his brother had asked the question and they were all eagerly awaiting my answer, he would listen.
“I’ve never been close to my father,” I started quietly, wringing my hands as I tried to figure out the best way to explain it all. “Every once in a while, though, he would call me to his house. I met Roy there on one of those visits. We got to talking and eventually, we grew close.”
The grief I’d been struggling to hold back all morning tightened my vocal cords. When I got the call from the chief last night, the emotion I felt most acutely was relief. Like all little girls, I had wanted to have a father who loved me. As I got older, I began to see that just wasn’t in the stars for me. Ken had never wanted a daughter to dote on, and he hadn’t tried to hide it.
Instead, it had almost been like he’d decided to make my life a living hell whenever he made his brief, cameo appearances in it. Case in point: Saturday when he had been responsible for the worst heartbreak I’d ever felt in my life.
Hearing the chief
tell me he was gone had been like a massive weight lifting from my shoulders. The news that Roy was gone with him, however, had been a bitter pill to swallow. As I looked around the table at his children, the ones he had given up more for than any of us knew, it was hard to hold back my tears.
“When Roy found out I’d gone into accounting, he approached me and helped me get on my feet. He knew I didn’t want to be dependent on Ken for anything and his business, coupled with the business of several of his friends, allowed me to finally sever my ties with Ken. He’d always had a hold on me financially, but when that was over, I could finally walk away.”
Most of the people around the table were wearing expressions of varying degrees of sadness, but Tyson’s gaze was intent on mine. There was no sorrow there, only burning curiosity. Inhaling a deep breath, I forced myself to tear my eyes away from his before I got lost in those dark blue depths. They were still waiting on the actual answer to the question.
“Ken never knew about my relationship with Roy. He knew all of Roy’s other business partners, accountants, lawyers, and so on. Everyone. So after Roy took the money, he came to me because he knew it was the last place Ken would come looking for it. Despite that, he still gave me enough money to ensure I could stay hidden from Ken until it was time for me to come to Cypress Creek. The money also allowed me to afford the other security measures that hid any trail of the money.”
“That’s why we could never trace it,” Tyson stated, incredulous. Unless it was my imagination, there was a faint hint of pride and amazement in his voice.
Encouraged by his reaction, I nodded. “Roy made me promise I would use only the best and I kept my promise. I knew how much Roy loved all of you, and I had no problem helping him. Ken was a bad person. Always has been. He deserved to be basically bankrupted.”
