When someone tells me not to get mad, that just about guarantees I’m going to fuck shit up. Gritting my teeth, I glare at him. “Get on with it.”
“When we started keeping an eye on Trey in Arizona, Eric was working on hacking into everything he could find relating to the trafficking ring. Vincenzo’s name kept coming up, over and over again.”
Eric nods, adding, “Although there wasn’t a lot of concrete evidence, it seemed like fingers were pointing in his direction everywhere I looked. There are not a lot of photos of your dad online; I’ve scoured the net looking for them.”
My eyes narrow, thinking. “He’s not on any social media that I know of, he tries to keep a low profile.”
The corner of Eric’s lip pulls up in a smile, then lifts an envelope from the seat next to him. He slides it over to me, and I open it with a little trepidation. Inside are two photos of my father. One a slightly more recent one, taken in the past couple of years. The second is a much younger version of him, maybe in his early twenties. Holding it up, I glance between it and Nate. My hands tremble and I drop it to the table. I try to swallow, but my throat is suddenly parched, hot and dry as I try to understand. I look at it again, and the resemblance is uncanny. They have different coloring, but their faces are eerily similar. I think back to that day, only a few months ago, when I sat in a bar and Nate came up to me with an envelope containing the information I needed to help take down my father. I remember thinking at the time there was something familiar about him. It makes sense now.
“Wait a minute,” I say. “You said, ‘don’t be mad.’ What would I be mad about?”
Tessa speaks up, placing a hand on my shoulder. “I’m the one that noticed the resemblance. Nate found out that his dad, Daniel, wasn’t his father when he was a teenager. He’s never known who his biological father is and was never bothered about knowing it. But when Eric showed me those photos, I had a feeling. I swabbed one of your glasses for DNA one night, and we sent it out for analysis.”
“Jesus, Tessa, that’s not a violation of privacy or anything!” Tessa and I had become friends over the past few months, and it hurt that she would go behind my back like that.
“I’m sorry,” she replies, sorrow shining in her eyes. “We didn’t want to bring our suspicions to you without any evidence. But we should have asked you first, and I am truly sorry we went behind your back like that. We were excited to have another family member, and were afraid that if we were wrong, that we wouldn’t just have our hopes dashed, but maybe yours as well.”
Although I hear what she’s saying, it still feels like a stab in the back that they thought they couldn’t just talk to me about it. I know I can be prickly and downright confrontational sometimes—okay, a lot of times—but I would have listened. I think.
Tessa watches me with her big brown eyes, wariness and hope flickering in them. “Fine, I forgive you,” I offer, narrowing my gaze at her. “But next time, just talk to me, okay?”
Tessa squeals and pulls me to her in a side hug. “I always wanted a sister!” she exclaims, bouncing on her seat. I laugh at her exuberance, eyeing Nate over the top of her head. He’s smiling at us fondly, and my throat closes with emotion.I have a brother.Offering him a tremulous smile, I then turn to The Duke, narrowing my eyes at her. She raises a brow back, waiting for whatever bullshit is about to come out of my mouth.
She’s gotten to know me too well.
“You knew all this fucking time, and kept it to yourself?” She chuckles at me and shrugs. “Now that conversation in the car after you rescued me makes sense,” I mutter under my breath, running a hand through my hair. “The only thing I don’t understand is why my father never said anything about you. I’m assuming we had different mothers?”
Nate nods. “I don’t know the story. Daniel, my stepdad, killed my mom when I was a kid. I never knew her family, so there wasn’t anyone to ask. Until Daniel told me that he hated me because of who my father was, I never knew I wasn’t his. I’m not sure Vincenzo knows about me, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Blowing out a breath, I waggle my finger at the three Bannermans. “I’m stoked to have a brother. But I want to make one thing perfectly clear.” They lean forward, Tessa looking a little worried while Eric winks at me, Nate watching me solemnly. “At no point whatsoever am I joining in on this little brocest shit you’ve got going on. It’s bad enough that I’ve seen my brother chasing the other two of you through the hallways—I’ll never get that image out of my head.”
All three of them burst into laughter while I sit back in my seat, trying to stop a grin from spreading across my face. And failing spectacularly. Just then, a cheer sounds from the back of the plane, and I turn to see what all the commotion is about. Kian waves his arms in the air making cheering noises, as Jase shakes his head and Ryan throws down his cards with a scowl on his face.
Kian catches my eye and blows me a kiss, winking. Rolling my eyes, I turn back to my group, a small smile playing at my lips. He’s a clown. Adrop-dead gorgeous clown, but a clown, nonetheless.
And maybe a traitor, my mind whispers to me. Maybe. I keep wanting to let my guard down, to finally let people in. Each and every one of them pledged to help me destroy my father, but I can’t forget that one of them has to be a mole. There’s no other way my father could have known about our plans otherwise. Now that Nate is family, does that mean I can fully trust him? Do I tell him my suspicions, or has he figured it out already?
Rotating my seat, I set the recline to a comfortable position and close my eyes. With six more hours to go, maybe a nap will help calm the flurry of thoughts swirling through my mind.
It feels like only minutes later—although I’ll find out later it was several hours I had been asleep—that I startle awake when the plane starts dipping and jerking through a rough patch of turbulence. Ceiling panels open, oxygen masks falling while The Duke starts shouting for everyone to buckle up. Trey storms up the aisle, bumping into seats as he’s thrown around, dragging Rebecca behind him, her face white with dread. He clips her into the seat in front of me, then pounds on the pilot’s cabin, demanding to know what’s happening.
My stomach drops to my feet as the plane takes a dive, dropping us abruptly in a move that has each of us rising from our seats, our belts the only thing keeping us in the air. Tessa lets out a scream, Nate and Eric looking grim as the three of them hold hands.
Trey flies up, hitting his head against the ceiling of the plane, before dropping back down with a groan. Rebecca shouts his name, reaching for him as the plane levels off. We all breathe a sigh of relief when the plane stays steady for a few minutes, some of us laughing uncomfortably, others looking like they are going to puke. The announcement tone sounds through the cabin, the tinny voice coming through a relief. “Sorry about that, folks, we hit a bad patch—”
The voice clicks off as we take another dive, my heart thundering in my chest as the plane spirals out of control.
Chapter 7
Dutch
Amomentlater,whenthe plane suddenly pulls up and levels off, Ryan jumps out of his seat, rushing up the aisle. I don’t need to have the gift of sight to know that something’s wrong; the way the pilot’s voice cut off, the lack of cabin crew—something is seriously wrong.
Trey pulls himself to his feet, rubbing his head. He exchanges a glance with Ryan, then they move as one toward the cockpit. Needing to know what’s going on, I quietly unhook my seatbelt and follow after them. Ducking behind the curtain, I watch as they stop in front of the galley before Ryan goes in, coming out with a corkscrew and ice pick. He hands the latter to Trey, who then gets to work picking the lock.
I glance into the galley; the flight attendant sits slumped in the corner, her throat slit. A hand comes down on my shoulder and I jump, spinning around to see Nate behind me.“Sorry, shouldn’t have snuck up on you like that,” he whispers. “Go sit back down. We’ll take care of this.”
“The fuck?” I hiss back, eyes narrowing. “You’re not benching me, Nate. I can take care of myself.”
