All In (The Naturals, #3)(39)

“Tavish.” Aaron repeated Sloane’s last name back to her, then paused, like his mouth had gone dry. “My father had a friend once,” he continued softly. “Her name was Margot Tavish.”

“I have to go.” Sloane bolted to her feet. She was trembling. “I have to go now.”

“Please,” Aaron said. “Sloane. Don’t go.”

“I have to,” Sloane whispered. “I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not supposed to tell.”

She wanted him to like her. Even panicked, even trying to get away from him, she wanted him to like her so badly that I could feel it.

“We have the same eyes,” Aaron told her. “They call them Shaw blue, did you know that?”

“A chameleon’s tongue is longer than its body! And a blue whale’s weighs two-point-seven tons!”

“I’m sorry,” Aaron said, holding up his hands and taking a step back. “I didn’t mean to scare you or to spring this on you or to put you on the spot. It’s just that I found out about your mother right after I graduated high school. I went to see her. She said there was a child, but by the time I’d confronted my father, your mother had overdosed and you were gone.”

Gone. It took me a second to do the math. Aaron would have graduated high school around the same time that Sloane was recruited to the Naturals program.

“You can’t know about me,” Sloane told Aaron softly. “That’s the rule.”

“It’s not my rule.” Aaron stood up and walked around to her side of the desk. “I’m not like my father. If I’d known about you sooner, I promise I would have—”

“You would have what?” Lia cut in protectively. Sloane was our family, more than she would ever be his, and right now, she was vulnerable and raw and bleeding. Lia didn’t trust strangers, and she especially didn’t trust this stranger—who we’d seen fighting with Tory Howard—with Sloane.

Before Aaron could reply, the door to the office opened. Judd was standing there. And so was Aaron’s father.





“Aaron,” Mr. Shaw said. “If you could be so kind as to give us a moment.”

Aaron didn’t seem inclined to leave Sloane in a room with his father, and that told me volumes about them both.

“Aaron,” Mr. Shaw said again, his voice perfectly pleasant. The older man had a powerful aura. I knew, before Aaron did, that he would give in to his father’s demand.

You can’t fight him, I thought, watching Aaron go. No one can.

Once Aaron was gone, Mr. Shaw turned the full force of his presence on the rest of us. “I’d like a moment with Sloane alone,” he said.

“And I’d like a dress made of rainbows and a bed full of puppies who never grow old,” Lia shot back. “Not happening.”

“Lia,” Judd said mildly. “Don’t antagonize the casino mogul.”

I took Judd’s tone to mean that he wasn’t planning on leaving Sloane alone with her father, either.

“Mr. Hawkins.” The mogul in question surprised me by knowing Judd’s last name. “If I wish to speak to my daughter, I will speak to my daughter.”

Sloane’s expression was painfully transparent when he said the word daughter. He meant it as an expression of ownership. She couldn’t help hoping—desperately hoping—that it might be one of care.

“Sloane,” Judd said, ignoring Shaw’s display of dominance, “would you like to go back to the room?”

“She’d like,” Shaw said, his words very precise, “to speak with me. And unless you would like me to let it slip to interested parties that your agent friends have been visiting teenagers in the Renoir Suite, you’ll let Sloane do as she pleases.”

We should have set our base of operations up off the Strip, I realized. Off the radar, out of the way—

“Cassie and Lia stay.” Sloane’s voice came out tiny. She cleared her throat and tried again. “You can go,” she told Judd, her chin held high. “But I want Cassie and Lia to stay.”

For the first time since he’d entered the room, Sloane’s father actually looked at his daughter. “The redhead can stay,” he said finally. “The lie detector goes.”

I realized then—Sloane’s father knows what Lia can do. He doesn’t just know that there’s a connection between us and the FBI. He knows everything. How could he possibly know everything?

“Sloane.” Judd’s voice was as calm as if he were sitting at the kitchen table, doing his morning crossword. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“It’s fine,” Sloane said, her fingers tapping nervously against her thigh. “I’ll be fine. Just go.”


Sloane’s father waited until the door was closed before turning his attention back to his daughter—and to me. Clearly, I hadn’t rated as a threat. Or maybe he’d just realized that Judd was never going to leave Sloane in here alone, and I was the lesser evil.

The fact that he’d kicked Lia out made me wonder what lies he was planning to tell.

“You look well, Sloane.” Shaw took a seat behind the desk.

“I’m twelve percent taller than I was the last time you came to see me.”