Page 9 of Ravaged With You

Maybe he’d be fine. But a panic attack in the ocean? Yeah, no thank you.

But Renly didn’t know any of that. Not the reason, anyway. But he knew. Somehow, his twin always knew.

“How do you know it wasn’t suicide?” Damien asked.

Red glanced purposefully around the courtyard. “For now, you’re just going to have to believe me.” He may have picked a silent location, but the more he talked, the more he risked being heard.

Technically, he hadn’t broken any rules by telling these men it was murder. The voice had said only to keep the truth away from the cops. But Red doubted that his nemesis would care about technicalities.

And it wasn’t just listening devices he was trying to avoid. The more he said, the more he risked Detective Amaro catching a whiff. He glanced over to where she now stood on the flagstone path, talking with one of the uniformed officers and someone from the coroner’s office.

No, he couldn’t risk her learning a thing.

Renly followed Red’s line of sight, then swung his leg over the stone bench and stood, nodding toward the detective. “If we’re playing evade the cops, I think I’ll go see what they know. Or don’t know.”

“Good luck. She seems the type to hold information close to the vest.”

Renly spread his hands. “I don’t need luck. It’s me.” He flashed a grin. “And it doesn’t hurt that I know her. Detective Lucia Amaro. She worked a series of ODs on the set of one of the movies I consulted on. Looked like ODs, anyway. Turned out they were murders.”

“So you’re going to pump her for information?” Red allowed some welcome humor into his voice. “Should Abby be worried?”

“Never,” Renly said, and Red knew he meant it. His brother had been in love with Abby since forever, but never thought he could have her. Now that he did, there was no way that Renly would screw that up.

As Renly headed across the lawn toward the detective, Red took a sip of water, his mind turning to Jo. Immediately, he felt like a complete prick for even letting her inside his head, much less in the context of comparing his love life to his brother’s. Except despite whatever other feelings Red had for Jo, she was also a friend. And she was going to need help.

“What?” Damien asked, watching his face.

“I was thinking about Jo,” he admitted. “She doesn’t know yet.”

“You’ve called?”

“Voicemail. Text. Got nothing.” As he spoke, he pulled out his phone and tried again, only to once more get the recording. He held it out to Damien with a sad shrug.

“You’ll be there for her,” Damien said. “We all will. And Jo’s strong.”

“She is,” Red said, smiling despite the situation. “She always has been. But she shouldn’t have to be strong for this.”

“No one should,” Damien agreed. “I’m glad I got to meet her and Mel. I would have liked to have known him better.”

Red cupped his hands over his chin, feeling the scruff of his beard. He sighed, a sound of utter exhaustion. “To tell you the truth, today I’ve been thinking that I wish I’d known him better, too.”

“We’ll find answers,” Damien said. Red nodded. Because when a man like Damien Stark made a promise like that … well, you had to believe him. “There is something I’m curious about.”

Red sat up, his head tilted slightly as he studied his friend. “What’s that?”

“Anything you need from me or Stark Security, you only have to ask. You know that. But with your skills, I’d think you’d be comfortable handling this on your own. Or with your brother. Working on his own time, of course,” Damien added with a grin. Because now Renly was a full-time operative with Stark Security.

“My skills?” Prickles of awareness straightened his spine. “Not sure what you mean. And I’m just one guy.”

“Your experience served my wife well when you protected her during that hostage situation. But I wouldn’t have expected anything less from a former SWAT officer.”

Red heard the question—or maybe it was an accusation—in Damien’s voice. “What do you think you know?”

To Damien’s credit, he didn’t deny. “I know that you never served on a SWAT team, even though that’s what you told me after you took that bullet. So why did you say that you did?”

Red shrugged. “Maybe I wanted you to feel secure about who’d been protecting your wife.”

“The crisis was already over when you told me. You could have been anyone with the courage to use themself as a shield against a bullet. You chose SWAT. You chose a lie. I want to know why.”