“But Frankie Ribeiro does,” Reese snapped.
Chaz went dead still. “Who?”
David frowned at him. “How can you be a lawyer and be that bad at lying?”
“Hey!” Chaz protested.
“Guys?” Mati said, capturing Reese and David’s undivided attention. “Can we go check on my mom?”
“Yes,” David said, dragging Chaz to their car at a jog and stuffing him in the back seat while Reese and Mati climbed in front.
Reese sent up his thanks when the car started without issue after the whole grinding-noise thing.
David eyed the tracks Reese had left through the lawn. “Nice boulder,” he commented, nodding at the point where the tracks disappeared.
That did explain some things.
“It’s a rock,” Reese said tartly as he hit the gas and they shot down the driveway.
“Oh my god!” Chaz cried, scrambling for his seatbelt.
Mati and David, Reese noted, already had theirs on. He decided not to view that as commentary on his driving. The tires squealed as he swung back onto the road. Chaz clung to the oh-shit handle with both hands.
As soon as they were pointed toward town, Reese snapped. “What the fuck is going on, Chaz? Why the hell were you in Boston? Why did you break into my house? Were you the one who tried to kill me five years ago?”
“No! No no no! I wouldn’t—I never—”
David let out a low growl.
Reese passed a minivan in what he would argue was a passing-optional stretch of road. Yellow lines were open to interpretation in some cases.
Chaz gasped. “I didn’t try to hurt you.” He looked at Mati. “You weren’t supposed to be there. He should never have chased you. That wasn’t the plan!”
Mati glared at him. “Why were you there at all?”
“I needed to find the deed. You said Reese was working on a project. I had to find his copy of the deed to the forty acres in Fredericton.”
“Why on earth do you want that?” Reese asked as he cut through a residential neighborhood at three times the posted speed limit. “And why the fuck didn’t you just ask me for it?”
“My dad stole it!” Chaz cried. He pressed his face to his arms and squeezed his eyes shut. “He must have thought your father wouldn’t notice. Your dad had him do all the paperwork and filings when it came to the estate. My father must have believed he could make that property disappear when you inherited since he was the executor of the will, but your father signed everything over to you before he died!”
Reese’s head spun, trying to make sense of it. “What the fuck did your father want with a track of farmland outside Fredericton? And why didn’t you just tell me? Or sign it back over?”
“It’s not farmland! Not anymore. My dad sold it to a developer and there are houses there now. Lots of them. I think that’s how he paid for my school. Muffy’s, too. And Hunter’s trust.”
“So your solution was to run me off the road, then break into my house years later and scare the ever-living shit out of Matilda!?”
“No! No, I didn’t do that. I’ve never tried to hurt you. Or anyone! That was—” Chaz gulped so loudly it was audible over the rush of pavement under their tires and the roar of the engine. “That was my dad, I think. I think my dad tried to hurt you. I think he may have tried to hurt your dad.”
His confession rang inside the car, no one moving.
“Did your father kill my father?” Reese asked far more calmly than he felt.
“No. I was with him that day. I don’t blame you for asking, I would have wondered myself once I figured out the rest of this, but I remember that day. I remember him getting the call. He’d been with me all morning in the office.”
Reese let out a slow breath, a morass of emotions tangled in his chest. It wasn’t like confirming his father had committed suicide was good news. Particularly since they’d just confirmed Chaz’s father may have played a hand in driving him to it.
“God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Chaz sobbed, breaking down into tears. “My father was an asshole. I didn’t figure any of it out until Ms. Viveiros called me saying you’d requested some missing documentation and I started digging.”
“So, you decided to take up a life of crime five months ago?” Mati asked incredulously. “That seemed like the best option to you?”
“I thought it would be simple. Get rid of any proof you’d ever owned it, or draft something up so it looked like it had been sold legally, and it would disappear. That’s what my father must have thought would happen. I had to figure out what documents you had and how to make them invalid. I couldn’t risk my father’s reputation. Our whole firm was built on his name.”
Reese sighed. “You fucking asshole. If you’d come and told me about it, we could have figured something out. If you truly didn’t know…”
“I didn’t! I swear!”
Reese shook his head.
Chaz looked at him imploringly in the rearview mirror. “Now can you drive slower? I told you everything.”
Reese frowned, and Mati bit back a guffaw.
Apparently, Chaz thought Reese’s driving was an interrogation technique.
Not exactly a vote of confidence.
“No,” David said with authority. “We have more questions.”
Taking his cues from David, Reese took the next turn so fast his rear quarter panel brushed the snow bank.
“What do you want to know?” Chaz asked frantically.
“How did you know they were in Boston?”
“Frankie told me. Matilda’s mom told him you were there. And I knew if Matilda was working on the project, there was going to be a green folder full of the documents I needed in that hotel room.”
Reese glanced at Mati, who shrugged, because Chaz was right, that fucking deed had been in a green folder in the hotel room the whole time.
“You were going to break into our hotel room?” David asked, his tone making clear he seriously doubted Chaz was capable of such a thing.
“No! I thought they’d invite me in if I bumped into them.” Chaz whimpered as Reese took a hard turn. “I knew about Reese’s connection to McCormick Security, and a friend confirmed your car was in the garage. Then I called fancy hotels until I found rooms with your names or McCormick’s registered. There were a lot. Yours was the second one I tried.”
Reese almost laughed at the absurdity of Chaz’s detective skills and unbelievable luck of finding them in the lobby.
“How does Frankie Ribeiro fit into this?” David asked.
Chaz groaned miserably. “He was a huge mistake, but I needed help.”
“How do you even know him?” Mati asked.
“I bumped into him sneaking onto Reese’s property,” Chaz mumbled.
David leaned in closer. “What was that?”
Chaz pressed himself to the door to get as far from David as he could. “I thought I could get into the house, maybe through a back door. Reese had been his old self, you know? I thought maybe he and Hodges didn’t treat the place like a fortress anymore.”
Reese smiled grimly. “Old habits die hard.”
David put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not wrong to be safe.”
“And it turns out you had a reason to be careful,” Mati pointed out, sliding a hand onto his thigh.
Perversely, that did make Reese feel better, as did their hands on him.
David turned back to Chaz, who watched the three of them curiously.
“Let me get this straight,” David said, snapping Chaz’s attention back to him. “You attempted a little breaking and entering, found another fucking idiot wandering around trying to do the same, and decided to team up?”
“I wish I could say that wasn’t it, but it mostly was. Frankie spent a lot of time out there, and knew his way around better than I ever would.”
Reese’s stomach churned at the idea that Frankie had been skulked around his property at length. Mati’s fingers dug into his leg.
Da
vid leaned closer to Chaz, his glare murderous. “And now you’re surprised the felon you teamed up with is an asshole?”
Chaz cringed away. “No. I mean, Frankie told me he was there to get proof Ms. Viveiros was sleeping with Reese. I assured him there was no way that was happening. I promised him Reese held his Matilda in the highest esteem and would never compromise her in any way.” He eyed them now, clearly having second thoughts. Reese tried not to think about all the ways he enjoyed compromising his Matilda these days. “I think he believed me,” Chaz continued, “but he was eager to tell me all about the security at the house. He was the one who’d discovered the downed tree along the wall, which is where I found him by luck while I was driving by. And I, of course, knew about some of your security from my visits inside the house, so we pooled our information.”
“So my ex-boyfriend could stalk me better?” Mati asked.
Chaz jammed himself into the corner against the door. “I thought maybe after I had what I needed, I could report him to the police anonymously. Or he’d be convinced there was nothing for him to find.”
Mati stared at Chaz incredulously.
Reese pulled up in front of Mati’s parents’ house and came to a screeching halt.
David gave him a bland look. “We’re going to have a conversation about stealthy approaches later.”
Reese shrugged helplessly. “My goal was to get here quickly, not quietly.”
Mati threw open her door. “It looks like my parents and Stephen and Mikey are here. I’m going to go yell at them for not answering my calls. I’ll be right back.”
“Wait for us. We all go,” David said, sighing when Mati closed the door and ran up the walk. “The two of you are going to be the death of me,” he muttered, shoving Chaz from the car. “And she’ll have to be the one to explain why we have this asshole with us.”
Reese ran after Mati. Just as he reached the front stoop, there was a loud and furious shout from inside the house.
All the hairs on the back of David’s neck stood on end.
“Wait,” he barked as Mati turned the knob, but it was too late.
“She’s fucking them both! I’ve seen it myself. I’ve been nothing but good to you, and you let your fucking slut daughter tell you to fire me?”
Mati froze, one foot in the door, her face draining of all color. David made a grab for her, ready to yank her back out of the house, but she charged forward before he reached her.
Jesus Fucking Christ.
Reese looked at David in apologetic horror and sprinted in after her.
David’s stomach plummeted.
“Frankie!” Mati’s voice practically shook the house.
A collective gasp issued from the direction of the living room.
“You!” Frankie cried.
David shoved Chaz through the door and into the front hall, forcing him to sit on the stairs, out of sight. “Don’t move,” David whispered furiously while shrugging off his coat and tossing it aside.
His heart was beating way too fast.
He leaned in close to Chaz, who flinched. “Text your sister and have her send the cops. Now.”
Chaz nodded quickly, his eyes bugging out. If he ran, David wasn’t opposed to tackling him to the ground and threatening to rip his balls off through his nose again.
He took a deep breath, years of training trying to kick in with absolutely no good effect. He knew Frankie’s type—still obsessed with Mati a year later, stalking her for months. He’d seen the way Frankie had chased her through Reese’s house. It all added up to very bad news.
He stepped into the living room, gathering the attention of everyone inside. He noted Frankie’s wild eyes and combative stance while reminding himself sternly that he had advantages. He was trained in hand-to-hand combat. He was bigger than Frankie. He knew the layout of the house, and could hope that Reese and Mati would fucking listen to him if he asked really nicely.
Mati’s parents were on the couch, her brothers hovering nearby. Reese stood behind Mati, facing down Frankie in the middle of room, like some bizarre theatrical production playing out for her family.
“What do you think you’re doing, Frankie?” Mati asked furiously, her hands on her hips.
Frankie’s attention swung back to her. “I’m telling them the truth,” he shouted, his face red and eyes wild. He brandished his phone in the air. “I’ve got pictures of the three of you in the pool house.”
Mati’s face went red, but she didn’t flinch. “Okay, let’s see them.” She held out her hand, calling his bluff.
She was so fucking brave, and David loved her so fucking much.
“Is this true?” Stephen asked.
Reese glared at him. “Is that really the issue here?”
Stephen seemed to think it was.
Frankie held his phone to his chest. “I’m not giving my phone to you. You’ll delete the pictures.”
Mati laughed. “Oh, I guess you think I’m an expert at phones, like you? I hear you cloned mine in church. I’m pretty sure that’s a sin, asshole.”
Mati’s mother gasped.
“Language, Tilly,” Mati’s father snapped.
“Really, Dad?” Mikey cried before anyone else had a chance.
David definitely had a favorite Viveiros brother.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Frankie said at last to Mati.
“Jesus Christ,” David said with a laugh, “you’re a worse liar than Chaz.”
Frankie’s eyes bulged hearing that name, his attention fixing on David, as he’d intended. No one seemed to notice the indignant huff from the hallway.
David stared Frankie down. “That’s right, we’ve spoken with Chaz. He told us all about how you’ve been sneaking onto Reese’s property to spy on Mati, you fucking pervert.”
Frankie’s face flushed scarlet, his hand shaking. He looked at Mati’s parents. “This is who your daughter is sleeping with. Who she fucks right out in the open. That’s what Lamont pays her for.”
Reese opened his mouth, but Mati stopped him with an elbow in the gut.
“Fuck off, Frankie,” she snapped, drawing Frankie’s attention back to her. “I work my ass off for Reese, and the fact that I have sex with him is not only none of your business, but also has nothing to do with this.”
“So you admit you’re fucking him!” Frankie screeched.
“You just said you had pictures,” Mati said, exasperated. “I don’t know why you sound surprised.” She faced her parents. “I’m in love with Reese and David. I realize this will be hard for you to accept, but I hope you can find a way, because they make me happy and I have no intention of giving either of them up.”
David’s heart stopped, Mati’s words leaving him breathless.
Then Frankie pulled a gun and pointed it right at Mati’s chest.
Mati’s mother screamed. Mati’s father and brothers swore viciously.
Reese, Mati, and David didn’t move a muscle.
Sweat broke out over David’s entire body, his skin prickling with it. He was achingly aware of what was missing. His gun. Kevlar. A radio to call for help.
“Put the gun down, Frankie,” Mati said with admirable calm, only a slight shake in her voice.
David’s eyes darted around the room, assessing possible exits. There were two ways out. Neither was close enough for David to be able to shove Mati and Reese out of the room quickly.
“No!” Frankie cried. “You’ve ruined me. You did those things to me and now I can’t stop thinking about them.”
David understood the affliction and yet had zero compassion. His training whispered the words identity crisis through his head, but he couldn’t make his brain formulate a negotiation strategy. Not when all he could think was no no no no.
He stepped forward and curled a shaking hand around Reese’s hip. His heart ached at the idea something might happen to them, and he had to force it aside. The agony only grew, until his chest hurt and his breath was short and he wonder
ed if he might drop dead before he could do anything.
His fear swelled, consuming him until he could barely breathe.
Reese clamped his hand over David’s on his hip. David took another step forward, his body willing to do what needed to be done, even while his head was filled with panicked static. He took another step and carefully pushed Reese to the side.
He had to put himself between Mati and the gun.
That wasn’t the training coming through. It wasn’t a strategy. It was his heart. If he couldn’t protect the people who held it, it didn’t matter if it kept beating.
Frankie swung the gun to point it at David, and it was a relief. He swept his arm out and tucked Mati and Reese behind him.
“No, David,” she cried.
“Fuck this shit,” Reese agreed, slipping past them to stand directly in front of Frankie, the gun inches from his chest.
David knew without a doubt this would haunt his nightmares for years. “Reese.”
“You’re never going to get what you want,” Reese said to Frankie. “I’m not going to let you hurt either of them.”
David’s hands curled into Reese’s coat, his heart breaking. He tried to pull Reese back, away¸ but the damn man didn’t budge.
“I don’t know what happened between you and Matilda,” Reese continued, “but this isn’t going to solve or change anything.”
“She touched me,” Frankie said in a hoarse whisper.
Reese cocked his head. “You were lovers. That’s often how that works.”
A movement in the kitchen door behind Frankie caught David’s eye. He’d completely forgotten about Chaz.
Chaz, who appeared to be hefting a large…meat tenderizer?
“She tied me up! She sucked my toes!” Frankie cried, distraught.
A snort escaped Reese before he clapped his hand over his mouth.
Mati’s forehead thumped against David’s back. “Oh my god,” she whispered.
David’s head cleared for the first time since Frankie had pulled the gun, Frankie’s ridiculous announcement more effective than a slap to David’s face.
All this was happening because she sucked his toes?
Chaz crept up behind Frankie and stared at David. David’s heart pounded in his ribs and sweat rolled down his back. He shook his head no, once, slowly. Frankie’s finger was on the trigger.
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