Page 74 of Hide Little Traitor

Ifind Damon a few yards from the porch, his arms crossed over his chest as he stares out at the tree line.

It’s freezing up here at this time of the year and certainly too cold to be out here without a coat.

Stepping up beside him, I hold out the coat, and for a moment I think he might reject it, but as stubborn as he may be, he’s not stupid.

“Thanks,” he rumbles, tugging the zipper up with more force than is required.

He’s pissed, and I can’t say I blame him.

Ryker was out of line and being intentionally obtuse about a situation we know little about. Hell, not even Chloe knows why he pulled away from her all those years ago.

As kids, the three of them were inseparable. There wasn’t one without the other two, much to Salvatore’s disgust.

But Caroline loved it. She always wanted a daughter, and Chloe filled that void for her.

He wanted his sons to be soldiers from the moment they were born, and if he could have, he would have started training them as soon as they could walk.

Thankfully, his love for their mother protected them, giving them a normal childhood for as long as possible. Or at least as close to a normal childhood as you can get growing up in a Mafia family.

“How’s your arm?” I ask. “I’ll replace the bandages for you after you’ve showered.”

“I can do it.”

I sigh. “But you don’t have to.”

“I don’t need your help, Kingston. If anything, I need you six feet under.”

His words hurt more than they should. Both brothers have been poisoned against me, and I’ve known that for a long time. But knowing something and seeing it firsthand are two vastly different things.

“Because of your mom’s accident?” I ask.

“Because you killed her,” he retorts.

I swallow the need to snap back. To tell him point-blank that I wasn’t responsible for the accident.

But it won’t help. Not without context, and he won’t believe it until he realizes how many lies his father has told him over the years.

“The day of the accident, your mom was going to meet with a lawyer about filing for divorce. She wasn’t happy, and she didn’t want you boys to have no other choice than to follow in his footsteps.

“I’m sure you remember I was rarely at the compound back then, and although your mom and Neil were my best friends, Salvatore didn’t like that his wife and number two were close with someone else.”

I shake my head, letting out a little huff at how childish this part of the story is.

“Salvatore never hit Caroline, but he could be cruel, a trait it seems you’ve unfortunately inherited.” I don’t pause to allow for his denial. “I chose to stay away so that she wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of our friendship. But this one day she called and asked me to drive her somewhere. She had her own personal driver, and she’d never asked me to do anything like that before, so I didn’t ask questions. I just got in the car and went to pick her up.

“It wasn’t until we were halfway to the city that she told me she was going to meet with a lawyer.”

“You’re lying,” Damon growls.

“I wish I was.” I swallow, bracing myself to tell him about one of the worst days of my life, second only to the day I found Chloe unresponsive in a pool of blood. “Unlike your father, I never had an interest in fast cars. If something was going to take me out, it wasn’t going to be a car accident. But when you kids or your mom were in my car on rare occasions, I took extra care, and the day of the accident was no exception.

“The light was green when I entered the intersection. I’ve replayed that moment countless times over the years, even going as far as hacking into the city’s traffic cameras to make sure. I didn’t run a red light, but the person that hit us did it intentionally, and hitting your mother’s door was the aim.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“I can show you the footage if you think it would help, but I’ve had analysts look it over, and they confirmed my suspicions.”

“Why would you do that if you never had any intention of coming back?”