AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ve already told the police the truth. They have their alibi.” I hesitate telling him about Kaden, but I have no doubt Detective Riley will be looking into him as well. “My brother, on the other hand, might be in some trouble.”
“Why do you say that?”
“The detective showed me surveillance photos of Monica leaving the parking garage today. Kaden was with her, but they thought it was me.”
“That is a problem. I’ll need to talk to Kaden before I leave here tonight.”
I shake my head. “I need some time alone with him first. I’ll have him stop by your office tomorrow morning.”
Blackwell searches my face for several seconds before nodding his agreement, and just like that, he drops it. We discuss the photo I received several weeks ago, Monica’s odd behavior, and what little I know about Lydia Hirsch. An hour later, we leave the study, and I find Kaden waiting in the living room, alone. Blackwell bids me goodbye, promising he’ll be in touch soon.
“Where is everyone?” I ask.
“Dad’s been on the phone since I got here.” Kaden nods toward the garden room where I spot our father pacing with his cell to his ear though the French doors. “And Mom gave Roni a sleeping pill and set her up in one of the spare rooms.” Clashing sounds come from the kitchen, and that answers where she went after she got Veronica Blake settled in. Mom deals with stress that way—by cleaning shit in the kitchen, even in the middle of the night.
“And Ned?”
“He’s in the library with a bottle of something.”
I settle next to my brother on the couch. His knee is bumping up and down, and he seems as frayed around the edges as I feel. “Probably for the best it’s just you and me. We need to talk.”
Kaden must have detected the hard edge to my tone. He sits up a little straighter. “What’s on your mind?”
“How about we cut through the bullshit? You’ve been fucking my wife.”
The accusation settles between us, heavier than an elephant. Kaden stares at me for five long seconds before getting up and turning his back to me, both hands raking through his dark hair. “I haven’t slept with her.”
“You expect me to believe that? The detective showed me a photo of the two of you kissing today. Or did you forget about the cameras in the parking garage?”
Kaden drags in a deep breath before letting it out. Then he turns and faces me. “I mean it. I haven’t been with her…not since you guys got married.”
I jump to my feet, hands clenching at my sides. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Kaden lets out a sigh. “This isn’t how I wanted you to find out.”
“Bullshit. You didn’t want me to find out at all.”
“You’re right.” He reclaims his seat on the couch, and something about the dejected set of his shoulders pricks underneath my anger.
“You need to be straight with me. A woman is dead and Monica is missing. Now’s not the time to keep shit from me.”
He glances up, slowly nodding, as if the coming conversation is an inevitability he can’t escape. “Monica and I were…involved before you got married.”
I blink, but it does nothing to dispel the shock building inside me. Suddenly, I’m looking at my twin—a man who is my mirror image—in a whole new light.
Almost as if I don’t know him at all.
“When, and how long?”
“Off and on for years, right until the wedding.” He looks away with a hard swallow, because there’s no skirting the fact that even then, they were fucking behind my back.
“How did I not know this?”
“The Blakes didn’t approve, so we kept it discrete.” He shrugs. “You were the one they wanted her with, man.”
“And what about Monica? What did she want?”
“She wanted the company and everything that came with it.”
