“Knew he was a crook,” Murphy muttered, only to be hushed loudly by everyone else huddled around the phone.

“I am not withdrawing from the race. At this point I would rather let the Chicago citizens decide how this information might affect their vote. I recognize that this puts a different spin on things. In fact, I hope to God it does.” He stared at the camera again, those ice-pick blues challenging anyone who was listening. “I’ve been in a number of tricky situations, both personally and professionally, but none of them compare to the fight I am in now. The fight of my life.”

Alex clamped her hand to her mouth. The fight of my life.

Did he mean her?

The media room at city hall erupted, but Eli was already a ghost, the video’s end as abrupt as his exit. Shaking, Alex set the phone down on the bar and glared at it.

“That . . . that . . . idiot!” Not as colorful as her usual, but the best she could manage under the circumstances.

Five sets of eyes stared at her in shock.

“He’s only gone and demolished his chances.”

Kinsey narrowed her gaze. “Did you know about this? About his father? Is this why . . . ?” She waved a hand.

Alex rubbed her forehead. “Yes, he told—” She clammed up as Murphy and Derek were watching avidly. She’d been about to blab about Cochrane’s involvement, with his daughter and the gossips of Engine 6 in earshot.

“Let’s take this somewhere else,” Kinsey said, moving toward the other end of the bar.

“The public has a right to know,” Murphy whined.

“Read a newspaper,” Gage muttered.

Alex grabbed the Macallan and poured four extralarge doubles.

“You, too.” She pushed the glass toward Darcy. After Alex had downed her whiskey, she placed both palms on the bar.

“I think . . . I think he did that for me.”

Darcy’s expression was so animated that it was almost a shame to see the joy wiped off her face when she sipped the scotch. She stared at the glass like it had slapped her, then regrouped. “Certainly looks like it. He does something manipulative and dishonest, and now he’s wiping the slate clean with the one thing that will likely destroy his political future. It’s so romantic.”

Kinsey pursed her lips. “This from the girl who had a hissy fit when her man told her seven years later that he’d dumped her for her own good when they were teenagers.”

Darcy shrugged. “But I recognized that Beck’s decision was good for us in the long run. Eli’s had this information and he could have continued to hold on to it. He could have waited until after tomorrow when he would have been assured of the win. It’s not as if he could be driven out later—he’s not the criminal here. But telling people now, that’s . . .” She trailed off, apparently overcome with awe at Eli’s seemingly selfless actions.

Alex knew the feeling.

Yet the hurt and suspicious part of her wouldn’t let go. “But all these years he kept this secret, used it to prop himself up. How can I give him a pass on that?”

“You loved Sean, didn’t you?” Darcy shot back.

Alex jolted at the snappish tone in her friend’s voice and slid a glance at Gage and Kinsey. They merely shrugged, clearly as clueless as Alex.

“Of course.”

“Well, Eli loved his dad, too. He looked up to him, patterned his own life after the blueprint Weston Cooper created. He even went further and joined the Marines, and I bet his father’s memory was first and foremost that day he enlisted. Just like your heroes drove your decision to join CFD. What if you found out that Sean had been setting fires to make himself look like a hero, maybe even the blaze that killed him and Logan?”

“I’d be crushed,” Alex said quietly.

Darcy’s eyes flashed. “Eli found out that the man he had worshipped as a father and a hero was a fraud. Not only that, but this same man is the reason his mom is dead. Maybe he’s made some kind of sketchy peace with that over the last few years, but think how hard it must have been for him. How it must have destroyed him. I don’t pretend to know his motives for keeping it to himself. Political, self-serving, whatever. But maybe part of it was this need to hold on to the man who had defined his life. Keep the Weston Cooper he remembered alive.” She knocked back the whiskey, grimaced—bless her heart—and slammed her glass down with a so there.

Alex’s lungs had gone on hiatus. She knew Eli had adored his father before his world had been turned upside down, inside out. First with his parents’ deaths, then with the revelation about his father. Hearing that must have been like Weston Cooper dying all over again. And here she was judging him for his actions when she had no idea what pain he’d endured to make those calls. Instead of comforting him, she’d made it all about her.

Walk a mile, Alex.

If she ever needed the wisdom of her posse, it was now.

“Gage, what do you think?”

“I think he’s a piece of work, sis.” He threw an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “And I hate that he hurt you, but throwing himself on the grenade like that? It’s just wild. And Christ knows he’s probably the only guy who can handle how difficult you get.” He added a cheeky grin.

Next, she met Kinsey’s gaze, needing the guidance of this woman who was as much big sister as she was friend.

The ice-cool blonde looked disgusted as she thumbed in Darcy’s direction. “Hallmark Movie here might have a point.”

Darcy fist pumped the air. “You need to go down to city hall now! Like Hugh Grant in Notting Hill.”

Kinsey’s brows drew together. “Press conference is over, D,” and then to Alex, “Babe, you’re going to have to decide if this is a true leaf-turning moment—”

“Or just another move on the board,” Alex finished.

“What I know for sure,” Kinsey said as she extracted her phone and scanned the screen with an imperious eye, “is that right now, my boss is freaking the fuck out.”

“So Madison must be having kittens.” Brady passed a double scotch over to Eli, then took a sip of his own.

“Siberian tiger—sized ones.” He’d switched off his phone and holed up at Brady’s to get away from the press, but mostly from his campaign manager. She was pissed to all hell at him, and not quite so appreciative of the fact that he had merely followed her advice:

He’d walked into that media room, and all he saw was Alexandra.

Going deep cover also meant that Alexandra couldn’t get ahold of him—if she wanted to. He longed to go to her, fall on his knees, and tell her in private what he had already said in public. Had she understood what he was doing? This is how much I love you. I will destroy every barrier that separates us even if I end up destroying myself.

But who knew if it had any impact on her? Maybe she saw it as just another desperate stunt. The last play of a play-ah.

Best to let her sleep on it. She was the queen of the knee-jerk reaction, and any decision on her part should come from a well-thought-out place. He would ride out the next twenty-four hours alone. Or with a bottle of scotch as shotgun.

“Gage on shift tonight?” he asked Brady, silently praying he wouldn’t be here turning the scene into The Penis Monologues.

“At the bar.”

Maybe that’s where she was. His feet itched to charge over there and—what, exactly? Reap his reward for telling the truth at last?

“You want to see her,” Brady affirmed.

“So fucking bad.” Eli leaned back in the armchair and surveyed Brady’s loft. In the last couple of months, he’d added some comfortable furniture so it was less East Berlin industrial and more Chicago chic livable. Feathering his nest with Gage, he supposed.

“But I’ve done a lot of the running in this relationship and I need a sign from her that she wants this as much as I do. Wants us.”

Brady nodded his understanding. “It was the same with Gage—except he was chasin’ me down and I couldn’t figure out why.” A big smile lit up his face. “Of course, I’m not the most eligible bachelor this side of the Mississippi—”