All In (The Naturals, #3)(54)

Aaron’s lips tilted upward slightly. “I heard you were good with numbers.”

I couldn’t detect even a hint of criticism in Aaron’s tone. From Michael’s expression, I didn’t think he caught any, either. My mind went to Sloane saying that she wanted Aaron to like her.

I studied Aaron. You do like her. You want to know her.

“How about we focus on this mythical thing you need us to give to the FBI?” Lia came and sat on the arm of Dean’s chair. She didn’t like strangers, and she didn’t trust them—especially not with Sloane.

Aaron reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a clear case. Inside, there was a DVD. “Security footage,” he said. “Taken from a pawn shop across the street from where Victor McKinney was attacked.”

Lia’s silence seemed to confirm that the DVD was what Aaron had said it was.

“Victor was our head of security,” Aaron continued. “From his perspective—and my father’s—Beau Donovan was a security risk.”

Beau had attacked Aaron. He hadn’t done any damage, but to a man like Grayson Shaw, I doubted that mattered. If Sloane’s father viewed Sloane as little more than an inconvenient possession, his legitimate son would be viewed not just as property, but as an extension of himself.

I’d seen that dynamic before—with Dean’s father.

“If you’ll play the footage, you’ll see that Victor was the one who followed Beau, not the other way around. Victor was the one who slammed Beau against a wall. And Victor,” Aaron made himself finish, “is the one who pulled a gun and put it to the side of Beau’s head.”

Dean absorbed that information in a heartbeat. “Your head of security never had any intention of pulling the trigger.”

Aaron leaned forward. “Beau didn’t know that.”

Sloane’s father liked issuing orders and ultimatums. It was a small hop to threats. Beau wasn’t a person who would take well to being threatened. He had a temper. The moment the gun came out, he would have fought back.

“He grabbed a loose brick,” Aaron said.

Blunt-force trauma.

“Self-defense,” I said out loud. If Victor McKinney had drawn a gun on Beau, it was a clear case of self-defense. And if Aaron had seen the connection between Beau’s arrest and what the Majesty’s head of security had been sent to do, Grayson Shaw almost certainly had as well.

“How could your father let Beau take the fall for the first four murders?” I asked. “Doesn’t he care that there’s a serial killer still out there?”

“My guess?” Aaron replied. “My father thinks he and the FBI have scared the original killer away. He’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. As it stands, Beau Donovan will never lay hands on me again, and no one is questioning why the Majesty’s head of security went after Beau.”

“Why bring this to us?” Lia asked. “Daddy Dearest isn’t going to be very happy with you.”

“He rarely is.” Aaron stood, shrugging off the words like they meant nothing—which, of course, told me they meant more than he would ever admit.

You’re the golden boy. The first-born son. The heir.

I stared at him for a moment, my mind assembling the pieces of the puzzle. You don’t go against your father without a reason. “Tory,” I said. “You did this for Tory.”

Aaron didn’t reply, but Michael translated his expression. “Yeah,” he said, sounding gut-punched at the depth of emotion he saw on Aaron’s face. “He did.”

I read between the lines of Michael’s words, my gaze locked on Aaron’s. You love her. The realization took hold in the pit of my stomach.

Aaron’s phone buzzed. He looked down, saved from confirming that he’d risked his father’s wrath to save Beau because Beau was Tory’s brother.

“Do we want to know what that text says?” Sloane asked.

Aaron looked up, meeting his sister’s gaze. “That would depend on how you feel about the man Beau put in a coma waking up.”





Aaron left. It didn’t take long to confirm what he’d told us. Victor McKinney—the Majesty’s head of security and our latest victim—was awake. Briggs and Sterling were on their way to the hospital to interview him, armed with Aaron’s accusations. We played the video, which was exactly what Aaron had said it was, and forwarded the footage to Sterling and Briggs. When they did talk to the Majesty’s head of security, they’d have some very pointed questions for him.

Half an hour later, my phone rang. I almost answered out of reflex, expecting it to be Sterling or Briggs, but at the last second, I saw the caller ID.

My father.

Just like that, I was twelve years old again, walking down the hallway toward my mother’s dressing room door. Don’t open it. Don’t go there.

I knew what he was calling to say.

I knew that once that door was open, nothing could ever be the same.

I declined the call.

“That’s not a happy Cassie face,” Michael prodded me.

“Drink your whiskey,” I told him.

Sloane raised her hand, like a student waiting to be called on in class. “I think I would like some whiskey now,” she said.

“First,” Michael told her seriously, “I need to verify that you have no plans to feed this whiskey to a moose.”