What Are You Afraid Of? (The Agency #2)(92)

“Are you saying that my father didn’t commit suicide?” she breathed, struggling to accept his words.

“Of course he didn’t.” Ronnie shoved his hands into his front pockets. “He was too arrogant to take his own life.”

“God.” She pressed a hand to her throat. Her heart was doing something weird in her chest. Beating too fast, and then forgetting to beat at all. It made it hard to breathe. “You killed him.”

Ronnie scowled, looking like a petulant child. “It’s not what I wanted.”

She studied him in horror. “Are you trying to claim it was an accident?”

“I wanted him to speak the truth.”

She shuddered. He was truly insane.

“Where did you get the gun?”

He shrugged. “I found it while I was cleaning the garage. It was in a cabinet with a box of shells.”

She slowly nodded. She had a vague memory of her father warning her never to play around the wooden cabinet. The gun had belonged to her grandfather, who’d been an avid hunter.

“How did you get into the cabinet?” she demanded. “It was always locked.”

“I found the key,” he said with a vague shrug, although it didn’t take much effort to figure out the young Ronnie had been snooping around the house until he found it. “As soon as I had it in my hands I knew I finally had the means to force him to acknowledge me as his son.”

She scowled. “By killing him?”

The twitching next to Ronnie’s eye accelerated as he gave a wave of his arms.

“No,” he sharply denied. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

A mixture of pain and fury erupted through Carmen, briefly muting her fear.

She wanted to tilt back her head and scream. Or better yet, leap to her feet and pound her fists into Ronnie’s face. She wanted him to hurt. To bleed like he’d made her parents bleed.

“What did you think?” she asked in harsh tones. “That my father would be overjoyed to confirm the fact that you were his son while you were pointing a gun to his head?”

His jaw jutted. “I wanted him to say the words, but he refused. He even denied that my mother had been his lover.” His voice didn’t hold one ounce of regret. Or guilt. Just an annoying whine, like he was the victim. “I hated him in that moment.”

She glared at him in disgust. “So you killed him.”

“I told you it wasn’t my fault,” Ronnie insisted. “He tried to grab the gun out of my hands. My finger squeezed the trigger in the struggle.”

Carmen’s hand moved up to touch her damp cheek. She hadn’t even realized that she was crying.

“He didn’t commit suicide,” she whispered, feeling something shift deep inside her. A fundamental truth that determined who she was and who she was yet to become. Then she drew in a shuddering breath, staring at Ronnie with an accusing gaze. “Why did you hurt my mother? She had nothing to do with you.”

“She must have been on the back terrace when the gun went off. I didn’t even have a chance to try to help our father before she ran through the back door and started yelling at me.”

Once again there was no guilt. In fact, he looked aggravated. As if her mother had been an annoying pest that he’d had to eliminate.

She curled her hands into tight fists. “You bastard.”

With a blur of motion, Ronnie surged forward, an ugly expression twisting his features.

“I’m not a bastard.” He grabbed her hair and slammed her head against the wall. “Don’t ever say that again.”

*

Griff held his Glock in his hand as Matthew swerved his car to a halt on a quiet side street. He’d grabbed the weapon before they’d left his house. He had a license to carry a gun, but he rarely had it out unless it was to take target practice with Rylan.

Now he kept it pointed toward the younger man.

Not because he intended to shoot Matthew. At least not yet. But if the idiot was plotting to lead him into a trap, then he wanted him to know he was going to take a bullet to the head.

At the same time, Griff ’s gaze skimmed their surroundings, taking a full inventory of any potential dangers.

It looked harmless enough. The area was dominated by square buildings with large windows covered by steel bars and flat roofs. He assumed they were mainly warehouses and small factories. There weren’t any local stores or residences. A stroke of luck that kept the midmorning traffic to a mere trickle.

Matthew pointed toward the two-story building across the street.

“That’s our warehouse.”

Griff frowned, studying darkened windows and the empty parking lot. “Where is everyone?”

“We close down our warehouses between Christmas and New Year’s Day.” Matthew shrugged. “Dad claims it saves us a bundle in salaries.”

The casual indifference in the man’s voice made Griff roll his eyes. Griff had built his own empire without any help from his father. Nothing had been handed to him on a silver platter.

Thank God. Clearly, being a pampered rich boy did nothing to encourage ambition.

“You don’t handle the budget?” he asked in mocking tones.

Matthew sent Griff a humorless smile. “Numbers give me a brain cramp.”

With a shake of his head, Griff turned his attention to the warehouse.