Page 175 of The Silent Note

I step in front of my brother. “How about we start withthistruth? What exactly was your role in The Grateful Project?”

The look dad gives me is so piercing it’s like he threw a knife straight at my face.

“Who is behind The Grateful Project?” I press.

His eyes snap to Finn’s again before he stares into the distance. “Someone who wouldn’t lose sleep killing me and my entire family. He’s that kind of man, do you understand? You’d be dead before you knew the knife was coming.”

“The mafia then?” I ask, clarifying. Because what else would dad be wary of when he has so much power? “We’re dealing with the mafia?”

“Finn,” dad taunts. “Are we?”

I see red.

“Don’t talk to him. Talk to me.” I stalk forward angrily. “Enough with the games, dad. We have the evidence. We can just hand it over to the police and find out that way.”

“It’ll cost you your lives,” dad says gravely. “The lives of everyone you care about.”

“You’re bluffing,” Dutch grunts.

Dad steps back and, for the first time, I see the mask of confidence falter. “My entire life, I’ve sought only one thing, and now I’m about to reach the pinnacle of my success.” His nostrils flare as he exhales. “Everything I’ve been working towards, everything I desire is on the other side of that door.” He points in Finn’s direction. Slowly, he drops his fingers and turns away. “But it’s not worth it.”

My breath skitters in my lungs.

My brothers and I stand together, our bodies tense as if we’re waiting for a fight but we don’t know which direction it’ll come from.

“Do you hear me?” Dad lifts his voice. “I would rathernotbe governor than let that evidence get out!”

Unease pushes beneath my skin. It pokes and pries, wresting open the niggling suspicions I’ve long buried in my mind.

Dad stands with his back to us, trembling fingers reaching for the whiskey.

I look at him, feeling like I’m crossing into a new world.

My father is the man I revered as a child. Resented as a teenager. Loathed as I became an adult.

He has been many things to me and my brothers. A terror. A nightmare. A god.

But he’s never been afraid.

“Destroy that evidence if you want to live,” dad adds. “If you don’t, well… the next time I see you, it’ll be in hell.”

He drains his glass, sets the whiskey down firmly and walks out of the room.

In the silence, I look at Finn and then at Dutch.

We just saw the impossible happen. Jarod Cross gave up the one thing he loves most in the world—power.

And the thing that brought him to his knees is, at this very moment, in the hands of my precious wife.

Chapter Forty-Six

GREY

Zane calls while I’m knee-deep in research on Japanese criminal organizations. I’m so locked in that I don’t hear the phone vibrating the first couple times. It’s not until I notice an incessant buzzing sound that I realize I’ve missed several calls.

“Grace Jamieson Cross?—”

I cut off Zane’s scolding. “I didn’t hear my phone.”

---