Page 93 of Craving Sin

But I don’t trust my father as far as I can throw him. He’s got himself tangled up in something, something that has to do with Rian. “Tell me what you did,” I spit out, hand tightening on the cell.

“I can’t. Not over the phone. I already told you that. Come and meet me.”

“Where are you?”

“At the summer house,” he replies. We call it the summer house even though we rarely spent summers there. It had been my mother’s favorite place in the world, though—the Cape Cod house, surrounded by gardens and nature and outside of the business of the city.

I haven’t been in years, and the thought of being there again squeezes at my heart.

“I’m on my way,” I say.

“Come alone,” he says. “And don’t tell that monster where you’re going.”

I end the call, knowing that the only monster here is the one I’m going to see.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Rian

I’ve had a hell of a day.

We got a batch of bad drugs—something we thankfully discovered before putting that shit on the streets—an issue getting payment on some of our real estate ventures, and a visit from the police.

Things like that happen fairly often. Conan usually knows when they’re going to go down, and I hadn’t heard a peep from him today, but they were just trying to give me a hard time, trying to pretend they will be able to get something on me when they won’t.

It’s all part of the gig, but I can’t pretend it hasn’t felt like someone behind the scenes has it out for us today. Usually, those types of problems don’t happen in threes.

It’s early evening by the time I’m heading back to the house. I haven’t spoken with Abbott all day, and all I want to do is get home and lose myself in his body. Why do I ever have to leave his bed again? I would be a happy man if I could just stay there with him all the time.

I frown when I pull up at the house just as another familiar car is parking. My heart immediately drops seeing Cillian’s dark gray BMW stop behind me, followed by Tiernan’s.

Cillian and Ollie spill out of the front seat, Rory and Shai from the back. “What is it? What’s wrong?” I ask, rushing around my SUV to them.

“Dean found something,” Cillian says. “Something big that couldn’t wait.”

It must be important for them to have come all the way here to talk to me about it, and I’m sure it’s not something we should be discussing in the middle of my driveway. “Come on. Let’s go in.”

It’s not until I’m inside the house that it hits me…Abbott is here, and Cillian is here. They’re going to meet—my worlds colliding in this way I crave, but that has me nervous too. We talked about it, yes, but I thought it would be something we would plan. Abbott is worried about meeting him, and certainly springing Cillian on him isn’t ideal, but…he’s here now, and whatever is going on can’t wait.

We go into the house, Conan sitting on the couch and noticing me first, then standing when he sees the others behind me.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“First, where’s Abbott?” I have no idea what Dean has to tell us and how whatever it is might affect Abbott.

“He’s been upstairs for hours,” Conan replies.

“Good.” I turn to Dean. “What’s wrong?”

“I found some weird shit when we looked into his dad. Our governor has a taste for young women…and I do mean young.”

Shit. “How young are we talking?” I ask. Abbott has mentioned it, but is it even worse than he thought?

“Legal, but just barely with a lot of them. He’s also made a lot of interesting payments over the years from hidden accounts,” Dean replies.

“It looks like he’s made payments to some of the women. We’re assuming hush money but don’t have any proof…but I’m thinking the motherfucker did some sick shit to have to pay them off,” Tiernan cuts in.

“If you go deep enough, there are rumors—assault…drugging. Women having a drink with him, and the next thing they know, they’re waking up naked with no memory of what happened the night before.”