Page 143 of The Best of Us

“I told him not to be such anidiotaand track you down. To take a chance. If you were dating someone, then fuck that guy, you’d leave him if he showed upevenifyou never called.”

His mouth drew tight, and his jaw strained as something clearly ate at him.

“I think he would’ve done it. He would’ve found you and called if . . . if our sister hadn’t been murdered five days after that.” He squeezed his eyes closed. “That’s why I remember the exact date he told me about you. Because it was right before we lost Bianca.”

My stomach didn’t just drop, the floor beneath me went with it. “Oh my gosh, I’m so?—”

“No. No, it’s . . . don’t be.” He opened his eyes, waving me off. “Past is past. It’s time for all of us to move forward.” He blew out his cheeks, keeping his hand up as if requesting me not to get emotional on him.

Yeah, well, been there, done that, and had yet to stop being emotional since Constantine had come back into my life on Wednesday.

“Everything’s going to be fine. We’ll put all this insanity involving your son to rest in time for a birthday I’ve heard you have coming up. Maybe the three of you can visit us in Nashville so you can meet Callie once our baby is born?”

“I’d love that.” That dramatic pit of pain in my stomach loosened its hold on me at the subject change. “Boy or girl?”

“We’re letting it be a surprise.” He smiled, only to immediately change gears and frown. “I’m sorry Constantine wasn’t there for Colin’s birth. Or, um, for any of it. He must be grieving the loss of all that time.”

He was, but Alessandro was also right about something else he’d said. “Past is past, remember? Many more moments to come in Colin’s life for them both to enjoy.”

He patted my shoulder twice and winked. “Maybe another kid in the future, too?”

I never thought I’d have more kids, especially after being solo for so long and now almost thirty-eight, but Colin mentioned wanting a brother today, and now a seed was planted.

So . . .maybe?I opened my mouth to toss out that answer, but before I could, Izzy came rushing into the room along with Colin and his grandparents.

“I think I know who may be behind this,” Izzy exclaimed, holding out her phone, as Colin stood next to me.

I hooked my arm behind his back while we waited for her to explain.

“It wasn’t Jamie who ran the background check on Colin last month,” she shared. “And it wasn’t Jamie who cloned your phone and has been monitoring your texts with Lennon.” She fixed her gaze on Colin, keeping her back to her parents and brother. “Gwen figured it out.”

Ah, that was why she was still holding out her phone. Gwen may still have been on the line.

“It was Daniel O’Brien,” she revealed. “He’s obsessed with Lennon. She found evidence that suggests . . . well,that.”

Colin immediately bent forward, dropping his hands to his thighs to gather a deep breath at the news that probably had him feeling physically ill. I held his arm and rubbed his back with my other hand.

“Daniel’s twenty-three. She’s only sixteen,” he hissed. “But I—I should’ve known. The way he looked at us when Lennon introduced me as her boyfriend last month . . .”

“Wild enough, if Daniel hadn’t attacked Constantine’s intern last week . . .” Izzy let her words trail off, turning her comments in a new direction when she resumed talking. “I think we were wrong about Brian Cormac. No one is trying to revive The Alliance.” She turned to look at her parents and brother as well. “Jamie and his family were just trying to make money here, away from the eyes of The League. They’d never have known Sebastian has the cyber wallet in a vault at The Sapphire Hotel.”

I helped Colin stand tall again as I asked, “Then who would know?”

“What if,” Izzy began, “Daniel was obsessed with Lennon, so he wanted Colin out of her life, and somehow, Daniel knew about The Sapphire Hotel and that cyber wallet?”

Salvatore shook his head. “How would a kid like him know that?”

“Shit.” Hudson cursed again. “Last week when we questioned Daniel, he was afraid of anyone finding out about his attempted mugging and also said, ‘you have no idea who you’re messing with.’ At the time, we assumed he’d been talking about his boss, and he was worried he might blow the deal at the rave. But now that we know all this . . .”

Hudson left us to connect the dots.

“If it’s not Cormac and The Alliance looking to restart things, then who is?” Angela asked him, drawing Alessandro’s eyes instead of Hudson’s.

Her son unfolded his arms, grimacing. “A wolf in sheep’s clothing who couldn’t let any of this connect to him. Someone with enough power and pull to have prison records changed, sending us down the wrong track, thinking this was Alliance-related because of Cormac.”

“Who?” Colin’s question punctured the air, eyes moving back and forth between Hudson and Alessandro for answers.

“Someone in Sebastian’s inner circle who’d know what was on that device and where it’s hidden but couldn’t get their hands on it themselves,” Alessandro said. “Someone who knows Easton and Carter and what they’re capable of, so they had to keep their hands free of this and use unknowing puppets to get the job done. A member of?—”

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