The Revenge (The Insiders Trilogy #3)(64)

THIRTY-NINE

Kash


This was the moment I had feared.

I couldn’t shake it, and hearing that my twin had come in, that he had touched Bailey, gotten near her, this was my fear. Calhoun had taken everything from me. Both my parents. He had taken my own brother. I didn’t know of him before now, but it didn’t matter. He was stripped from me. And now that same brother had impersonated me, tricked my own men, got through to one of my buildings, and I heard Victoria’s warning.

It was a fucking premonition of sorts.

He wanted to replace me.

This was it. This was what my grandfather always wanted. This was why he had allowed me to live so long, because it never made sense to me. He had allowed me to live.

“How are you handling all this?”

Detectives Bright and Wilson came as soon as they were called. My guards were all debriefed on my twin brother, who to look for, and since then we’d been sequestered inside my office while Bailey gave the FBI a formal report. This wasn’t a local kidnapping attempt, not anymore. This was so much more, and I wanted answers .

I would fucking get answers.

Instead of answering Bright’s question, I pivoted with one of my own. “How was an entire body taken into evidence and processed and no one reported that it wasn’t Chrissy Fucking Hayes?” I ground out, my teeth grinding against each other. “How is it that Bailey witnessed her own mother get shot in the head and now she’s seen alive and well?”

And in the backseat with my goddamn enemy?

“Well…” Bright’s eyes flashed before she got ahold of herself. She ducked her head, glancing back to where Wilson was writing on his notepad, sitting on the couch beside Bailey. “Are we sure she actually saw her mother?”

I nodded my head. “She saw her.”

“How do you know?” She edged closer, lowering her voice. “M.E.’s report was solid. DNA matched Chrissy Hayes, along with her own daughter’s eyewitness testimony of seeing her mother executed.”

Jesus.

I ground my teeth again.

If Bailey had heard that word. Executed.

“You’ll watch how you talk about Chrissy Hayes’s supposed murder when you’re in the presence of her own daughter.” My tone was scathing, and her head whipped back. Her eyes widened.

She got the message. Respect or get out.

“We’re running road cams, all the typical stuff we’d be doing. We need to verify what Bailey saw is who she actually saw and not a play of shadows or something.”

“It wasn’t.”

I knew it in my bones, just like that other feeling. The end was coming.

“We have to make sure—”

“It wasn’t. ”

“Your girlfriend’s been in mourning. It makes more sense that she wanted to see her mother and so her subconscious produced what she wanted.”

“She didn’t and it didn’t. She saw her mother.”

“How do you know, Kash?”

I heard the inflection in her tone.

I rounded on her. “Because I know Bailey. That’s not a daughter in mourning anymore. If there was doubt, she wouldn’t be looking like that. Look at her, Bright.” I nodded toward Bailey.

Bright turned.

I kept talking. “She’s ready to set fire to the earth and burn with it. If there was any chance she didn’t see Chrissy or she doubted herself, none of that would be there. She’d be curled up in a ball, because trust me, it’s been a long process to get her uncurled from that ball. No.” A decisive shake of my head. “She’s itching for you and Wilson to get out of here, and then I know she’s going to launch herself into whatever and however she can help to find her mom.”

And we were wasting her time.

I cursed again.

Bailey wanted to hack. Hell, that wasn’t even it anymore. She needed to hack. I could see it pulling at her. She wanted to fuck or fight. It was the most human part of us, and taking her to bed wasn’t prudent right now. That meant fighting.

Which meant hacking for Bailey.

I needed to get these FBI agents out of here.

“Are you sure?” Wilson was repeating some question to Bailey, whose eyes were flashing from annoyance.

“I’m sure!” Her tone was snapping.

That was enough.

I started for them.

Bright’s hand touched my arm, stopping me .

I looked at it, looked at her. “Get your hand off of me. Now.”

She did, jerking backward from the severity of my tone. She tucked her own phone into her pocket and her lips parted, glaring at me. “We will handle this, Kash.”

“You are on retainer for her father.”

Her hand clenched into a fist. I saw it before she caught herself and lowered it back to her side. Her head ducked, but her eyes remained on me. They were in slits. “That’s for special favoring. Not for us to look the other way on a case. We have to verify what Bailey is saying. Look, it won’t be hard. There will be things to be covered up if her death was faked. It’s easy if no one is looking. Once someone’s looking, there’ll be traces. We’ll catch the traces, but let us do our job.”

My own eyes were narrowed, and I leaned into her space, saying quietly so she could hear just how clear my promise was, “Then work fast, because once you leave, I’m letting my girl go. If I find that anyone in your department is being paid by my grandfather, they will be taken down.”