“You want to tell me what that was about?” Ryan asked.

She sniffed. “Yes.” Her voice cracked. “It’s because...” The words were more sobs than anything else now. “He’s a...he’s...a...a...fucking ass!” She took off as soon as she shouted the last two words.

Ryan blew out a breath and looked up at the ceiling for a moment before glancing at me. “Are you going after her? Or am I?”

“Yeah, it really looks like she wants to talk to me.” I gestured to my cheek.

Ryan sighed and shook his head. “You don’t know shit about women.”

Chapter 13

“If I may point your attention...”

The voice droned on and on. I was pretty sure that if I had to continue sitting here listening to him for much longer, I’d fall asleep.

And then...

“This particular clause affects one Robert E. Cantrell.”

“Bobby,” I corrected automatically, jerking my head up. The lawyer didn’t look happy to have been interrupted and I grinned at him. It wasn’t a nice grin though. I wasn’t happy he’d interrupted my near nap.

Mr. Theodore S. Edelson cleared his throat. “Yes, shall we?” And then he continued on to the clause that affected me, Robert E. Cantrell.

“I bequeath my house, located at...”

My head started to roar.

“And the entirety of its contents, including the library, the shed and its contents, and my car, a 1964 Mustang.”

The weird banging noise I heard had to be my jaw as it hit the floor.

The lawyer droned on.

Or he would have, but I finally stuttered out, “Stop.”

“Mr. Cantrell, that’s your bequest, in its entirety.”

“He can’t,” I said, shaking my head. “He couldn’t have left me all of that. His house? His car? I just wanted a couple of books!”

“Sir, I assure you, there is nothing else–”

Next to me, Ryan started to chuckle. Carly, after a second, giggled. It was the first time I’d heard her laugh in ages.

“I think you got the books, man,” Ryan said, and then he started to laugh.

I glared at all of them. “This isn’t funny! He left me a house! What am I going to do with a house? And his car? Was he crazy?”

Carly laughed harder.

Ryan struggled to get it under control.

“This isn’t funny.” My face burned. Everyone was staring at me, their expressions ranged from amused to pissed. Carly was the former, Ridley the latter.

Cameo – the newest addition to the crew, and the only woman – rolled her eyes at me. “Robert, you’d think he’d given you a case of syphilis, not a house and an awesome car.”

“Bobby,” I said.

She lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t argue. It was clear she was still feeling everyone out. “I don’t see what the problem is. If I’d been left a house, I’d be doing backflips.”

Carly was almost crying now. No...check that. She was crying.

Ryan started toward her, but I beat him there.

I didn’t know what drove me – or at least didn’t want to admit what it was – but I caught her in my arms just as her legs gave out. I sat and eased her into my lap. We ended up on the couch, and at first she pushed me away, shoved at me. I didn’t move, knowing that if she’d truly wanted me away, Ryan would’ve intervened. Then, finally, she clung to me. My chest tightened as she pressed her face into it, her sobs tearing at my heart.

“He’s gone, Bobby. He’s really gone.”

I stroked her hair and murmured her name. I didn’t say anything else though. What could I say? She’d lost a man who’d essentially been her only parent, and I knew all too well the hole that left behind. The best I could offer her wasn’t much, but it was all I had.

***

“I understand you’ve recently come into a sizable, well, inheritance?”

I met the dark, sharp eyes of Julia Espinosa. When I’d moved to California, the first order of business had been meeting with my new parole officer. An ex-convict out on parole has a shitload of rules to follow to keep from being sent back to prison. Detoine had been fine with the request to move, but I knew a lot of that had been thanks to Carly, Ryan and Jake. I didn’t, however, get to go without a PO at all. So, I’d ended up with the slightly scary Espinosa tugging my leash.

As she waited for my answer, I resisted the urge to slump in the chair and act like a horse’s ass. Instead, I jerked a shoulder and said, “Jake left me his house.”

“And a car, if I understand right.” She folded her hands on her desk, pinning me with a look. “Why would he do that?”

That was easy to answer. “I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure that out myself.”

Something that might have been a smile flickered across her eyes for the briefest moment. It was gone just as fast as it came. She flipped open a folder and withdrew something, studying it with pursed lips before turning it face down on her military neat desk.

“Tell me about the letters.”

I was going to kill Max. Or possibly Ryan.

“Don’t lie, either,” she warned. “That will get you in some serious trouble, Bobby. I find myself liking you. Don’t make me not like you by lying to me, and causing us both grief.”

“I don’t see why the letters are any concern of yours,” I said. Even I heard the fuck off in my voice. Not the best idea, but I couldn’t seem to stop it.

“Your general well-being is a concern of mine.” She picked up the top paper and held it out to me. It was a copy of the letters I’d shown Ryan the other day. “This sounds like a threat to me. Can you say otherwise?”

A life for a life...

The words mocked me.

“Somebody is just being an asshole,” I said.

“It’s possible,” Julia said after a moment. She picked up a pen and started to tap it on the arm of her chair as she studied me. “You know, a few years ago, people could probably say you were an asshole. Then you went and did something decent, and another asshole came after you. The two of you fought, and you killed him. Probably before he could kill you–”

“Probably?” I cut her off. Sweat gathered at the base of my spine and neck while my hands bunched into fists, but I managed not to growl. “I can guarantee you that Derrell Mitchell wasn’t looking to discuss the merits of our continued employment with a drug dealer, Ms. Espinosa.”

“I imagine he wasn’t.” She tapped the pen harder. “As I was saying, the two of you fought. He’s dead. You’re not. While there were extenuating circumstances, a lot of this started because you were an asshole. Since then, it seems like you decided there were other things you could be besides an asshole, but if anybody knows what things a person is capable of, it should be you.”

A dull, heavy weight formed in the pit of my stomach.

When I didn’t say anything, she tossed the pen on her desk and leaned forward. “I’m not going to claim any major insight on these notes, Bobby, but I don’t like them. They make me itchy. I know your boss doesn’t like them either, does he?”

Technically, I could argue that Carly was my boss, but in the end, it was Ryan who handled everything now that Jake was gone.

And both of us didn’t like anything about this.

It had taken determination to track me down, even if it had only been done via Carly’s agent. And whoever this was hadn’t done it just once. He kept sending the notes. There weren’t any prints. The postmarks all varied. Lexington, DC, Nashville, Detroit. He wasn’t stupid, which meant he was even more dangerous.

“What exactly do you want me to say?” Instead of looking at her, I stared at one of the framed prints on Espinosa’s wall. Her office was a lot nicer than Detoine’s had been. “You want to hear that whoever this asshole is has gotten under my skin? All right. He has.”

“I hope he has. He’s sending notes to Ms. Prince, too, if I recall correctly.”