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  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER ONE OF THE BASTARD

  CHAPTER ONE OF A PERFECT LIE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the supplier and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at lisareneejones.com/contact

  All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination. www.lisareneejones.com.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Abbie…

  Dead.

  I can barely process that word. Kenneth, a man I once called husband, is dead, no longer walking this earth.

  Gabe’s office starts to close in around me. This isn’t happening. I can’t breathe. I can’t even process words to speak them.

  “Abbie,” Gabe says softly, his fingers flexing on my shoulders, his big body close, a hard, solid wall of support I need right now. “Talk to me,” he orders, cupping my face and tilting my eyes to his. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m—I’m in shock, I think.” I swallow hard. “How? How did he die?”

  “No word on how. The police haven’t gone public yet.”

  Because it’s murder, I think, because I can’t bear to say this out loud.

  “Wait? What? It’s not public? How do you know before I know?”

  “Someone who works for Jean Claude under my father called Reid.”

  “To tell him that Kenneth is dead,” I say, still trying to process all of this.

  “Yes. Kenneth is dead, Abbie.”

  I’m back to not being able to breathe. I did this. I made the call that did this and now, now I’m acting shocked. Like I didn’t know what would happen if I made the call I made. Panic rises inside me. “I need to go. I need out of here.”

  I try to pull away from Gabe, but he catches my waist, holding me to him. “Why are you running?”

  “I need air, Gabe. I need to breathe.” Tears start to prickle my eyes.

  “You were still in love with him,” he accuses.

  “What? No. God, no, but I didn’t—this isn’t how I thought it would end. I thought—I need to go, Gabe.”

  “You’re crying. I mean, I get it. He was your husband, but fuck. I didn’t think you still—”

  “I’m not crying. I’m not. I—”

  He swipes dampness from my cheeks. “You’re crying, Abbie. Talk to me. I need to understand what you’re feeling right now.”

  “I need to leave, Gabe.”

  “Oh no. You’re not going anywhere without me. Not until we know what’s going on. You’re too connected to him.”

  I grab his lapels. “And he was murdered, right?”

  “We don’t know for sure yet.”

  “For sure? Was Reid told it was murder?”

  “We don’t know for sure.”

  “That’s a yes. We do know. Why not just say that, Gabe? He was murdered. The police always look at the ex-spouse. They’ll look at you, too, if you’re close to me.” And then they’ll know what I did. Then he’ll know. I shove at his chest. “Get back, Gabe. Let me go.” I try to pull away again. He isn’t having it, he still holds me firmly.

  “Stop and listen to me, Abbie. Pushing me away does neither of us any good.”

  “No, you listen. He was coming at me, my mother, and most recently because of me, you, Gabe. We are both suspects. You know we are. That’s how this works. You haven’t known me long. Distance will protect you.”

  There’s a knock on the door and by the time I’ve turned toward the sound, Reid’s inside the office, shutting the door behind him. “I talked to Reese. He needs you both to come to him at the courthouse. He’s in trial. He’ll see you during his break.”

  “Reese?” I ask, looking between the two brothers. “As in your brother-in-law who just helped us at the shelter? The criminal attorney? We need Reese?”

  “Just his name will give law enforcement pause,” Reid replies. “He’s that good. They’ll step more cautiously where you two are concerned once he’s formally named as your attorney.”

  “It’s a precaution,” Gabe interjects quickly. “Just a precaution.”

  “Because Kenneth was murdered,” I say. “Say it, Gabe. He was murdered.”

  His lips thin. “Okay, Abbie. Yes. That’s the information Reid was given. He was murdered.”

  And there it is. He was murdered. And I was involved. Oh God, I was involved. This is all exploding in my face, what I did is exploding in my face, and I can’t let that catch Gabe and take him down with me. “If we need precautions,” I say, “then you need to take a step back, from this and me.” And knowing this stubborn man, won’t listen, I turn a plea on Reid, appealing to a man I tried to hire for his cold-hearted reputation. “Protect your brother. I need out of this room and out of his life.” I take a step toward the door.

  Reid blocks my path. “What he needs,” he says, his blue eyes hard. “Is what you need. To talk to Reese. You’re already linked to my brother, but the good news here is that the list of people who hate your ex and might kill him is long.”

  “We’re going to the courthouse,” Gabe says, turning me to face him. “We’re going to talk to Reese about what to do next. That conversation needs to include your mother at some point. You need to call her, warn her, and let her know that he’s her attorney. Keep her silent until we can formally connect her with Reese.”

  “My mother,” I whisper, my hand pressing to my suddenly churning belly. “I pulled my mother into this. We should have just sold the property.”

  “I’ll be waiting on you outside,” Reid says, the door opening and shutting behind me with his obvious departure.

  “We are fine,” Gabe insists. “And we’ll know more soon. Reid called Walker Security. They’re our guys for anything and everything. They’re well-connected and experts in all forms of law enforcement and security. They’re getting the inside scoop on this for us.”

  “How fast will they know?”

  “They’re rapid fire. Like I said, we’ll know
more soon.”

  He’s going big on this. He’s afraid. I’m afraid and I have reason to be. “This is why I kept trying to push you away. Kenneth was trouble. I knew he’d try to hurt you. I just—I’m so sorry that I pulled you into this.”

  “I’m not sorry, Abbie. This would have happened no matter my involvement with you or not. Now, you’re not alone. Not now. Not ever again, unless you choose to be. And I won’t let you make that choice until this is over.” He strokes my cheek. “You’re stuck with me, baby. Get used to it.”

  I don’t argue. He won’t let me and at this point, it probably really is too late for him to turn away. As Reid said. We’re connected now, all of us, for the good, the bad, and the ugly, and I have a feeling this is going to get really ugly. “What now?”

  “We leave. We meet with Reese. We let him guide us. Walker has a car waiting for us.” He laces the fingers of one hand with mine and guides me toward the door, leading me to a meeting that he thinks will offer me some relief but he’s wrong. I just keep thinking about that call I made. I did this. Now I have to decide what to admit.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Gabe…

  Reid is waiting on us just outside my door, the dodgeball game with the staff to get out of the office is unavoidable, but finally, we step onto the elevator with Abbie on one side of me and Reid on the other. I pull Abbie close by my side, under my arm, hating the fear this has created in her. I knew that could happen. I knew that if I went after her ex, she might feel some temporary pain, but not this. This was not the plan. I’m not a fool who dives into trouble and screams “look at me.”

  Reid punches the button for the lobby and we share a look: we need to talk. The two-minute-long conversation we’d managed before Abbie showed up in my office wasn’t enough. But he damn sure came through for me. He’s why we have an early heads up. He’s the one who called Reese without me asking him to make the call. We have each other’s backs and in our case with our father, that’s our way of survival.

  “Do I need to have my mother come back from the Hamptons?” Abbie says, obviously spending the ride down fretting. “Or is she safer there, out of the spotlight?”

  “She needs to be here to talk to Reese and get any interviews over with,” I say.

  “We can have a chopper fly her back,” Reid offers. “I’ll make a call and arrange it before you contact her.”

  “Where’s Carrie?” I ask, catching a flash of his new wedding ring. “Did your new wife actually let you come back to the states alone?”

  “Not a chance in hell Carrie would let that happen,” Reid replies. “She’s at Cat’s place picking up the furry family.”

  “And now I’ve ruined his honeymoon,” Abbie says. “I’m starting things out with the family fabulously.”

  “My honeymoon wasn’t ruined,” Reid rebuts. “We had one hell of a time, but we were both ready to be back. This is nothing, Abbie. A blip on the radar, gone in a few days.”

  “A blip,” I agree. “We’re going to meet with Reese, offer up an alibi by way of the security footage from both my apartment and the house in the Hamptons, and then we’ll go enjoy lunch somewhere.”

  “Or go to the police station because they haul us both in,” she murmurs, the elevator dinging our arrival to the lobby.

  I wrap my arm around her, and we follow Reid out of the car. “Just lunch,” I promise. “Italian sounds good, don’t you think?”

  She doesn’t reply and I leave it alone. I get it. Nothing I say is going to comfort her right now and why would it? A man she was married to is dead. Reese is the man to make her feel better this time. Not me.

  For now, I concentrate on getting us there to make that happen. Once we’re outside, I pause at the rear door of a hired SUV, my arm around Abbie beneath her coat, holding onto her the way I plan to keep holding onto her. “Let me talk to Reid for a few moments.”

  “About me. About what I got you into.”

  “You know what, baby? Tonight I’m going to punish you in all kinds of naughty ways for every time you tried to make yourself my enemy today.” I kiss her. “We are not enemies. I just need a word with Reid. Okay?”

  “Yes,” she breathes out. “Yes. Sorry. I’m a bit paranoid right now.”

  “Understandable. I’ll only be a moment.”

  “Should I call my mother?”

  “Not yet. Let me find out if Walker has an update for us, and her, first.” I soften my voice. “Kenneth is gone. That doesn’t benefit you. Jean Claude still wants what he wants and that means your property. You had nothing to win by killing Kenneth and everything to lose.”

  “To lose? What did I have to lose besides a stalker?”

  That stalker situation is a potential problem and motive, which is exactly why I leave it alone for now. “The police could assume that Kenneth might have had a soft spot in negotiations with you, even helped you out.”

  “We’re talking about Kenneth, here. He helped no one but himself.”

  “But he was your ex. Jean Claude has no loyalty to you and no soft spot for anyone.” I stroke her hair from her eyes. “Get warm in the vehicle. We’ll be right there.” I set her away from me and start to turn. She catches my arm.

  “I hate that you’re involved and yet so damn relieved that you’re here.”

  The emotion in her voice undoes me. “I got you, Abbie, baby,” I promise, kissing her again. “All the way. Every day.” I turn her to the backseat, eager to just get this done and over with. “I’ll be right there.” Obedient for once, she does as I say and climbs inside.

  I quickly shut the door behind her, my attention already turning to Reid, who motions me to the back of the SUV where he asks the same question he asked right before Abbie had walked in. “How much trouble is this for you and us?”

  I scrub my jaw. “He threatened me and now he’s dead, but the only person who heard that threat was Abbie.”

  “Threatened you how?”

  “With a coded piece of my past better left in my past, that he wouldn’t know about if dad hadn't told him.”

  “In other words, dad’s really fucking involved in all of this.”

  “Is that a surprise?” I ask. “Isn’t he behind most of the shit we deal with these days?”

  “Was Abbie there during the exchange with Kenneth?”

  “Yes and that was intentional. Dad knows this isn’t something I want Abbie to hear from someone else.”

  Reid doesn’t ask for details. He’s focused on actions. “How did you handle the threat, Gabe? Because we both know you tried to talk me out of coming back. We both know you wanted me to stay away from this for a reason.”

  “I damn sure wasn’t giving Kenneth the chance to ruin us. I started the process to destroy him, but there’s no way that ties back to me or us. I made sure of it.”

  His cellphone rings and he grabs it from his pocket, eyes the number and then me. “Walker.” He answers the call and when I would listen in, I hear the back door of the SUV open.

  “Gabe!” Abbie calls out. “Gabe!”

  At the urgency in her voice, I rotate to walk toward her, only to have her rush at me. “It’s on the news,” she says. “I just saw it on my phone. No details but his death is public now.”

  Reid rounds the vehicle and joins us. “I have the details. I just talked to Blake Walker. Kenneth took a bullet between the eyes. It was an assassination, a professional hit.”

  Abbie grabs my arms, twisting my jacket in her fingers. “That means your camera footage won’t save you.”

  “She right,” Reid agrees. “The police will be looking for the person, or persons, who hired the killer. And you’ll both be on the suspect list. Blake is already working to pull together the electronic data to clear your names. ”

  “Electronic data?” Abbie asks.

  “Yes,” Reid says. “Emails, phone records, and financial records for starters.”

  Abbie’s knees go weak and I catch her waist, holding her up. “I need to talk to you alon
e,” she whispers. “Now.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Gabe…

  Abbie’s panic is palpable and with about ten alarms going off in my head, I pull her to the passenger door of the SUV, out of Reid’s earshot. “Talk to me,” I say, hands settling on her waist, just in case she decides that whatever this is, is yet another reason to bolt.

  “That’s just it,” she says. “I can’t. That’s what I want to say to you. If Reese is going to represent me, I need to talk to him in private or he can’t be my attorney.”

  “You have every right to speak to him alone, but I don’t like how this vibes right now, Abbie. This is my brother-in-law, my pregnant sister’s husband, you’re about to have as your attorney. What am I pulling him into? What haven’t you told me?”

  “I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you think,” she says. “But—it’s complicated.” She holds up a hand. “I can’t talk about this. What you don’t know, can’t hurt you. If I tell you everything, and you’re questioned or put under oath—”

  “Hire me,” I say, because I don’t know what she did, but I need to know before we get to the courthouse. “If I’m one of your attorneys, what you tell me is privileged.”

  “You aren’t my attorney, Gabe. We have no official contract.”

  I reach in my pocket, pull out my money clip, and hand her a dollar. “Pay me and tell me I’m hired.”

  “Gabe—”

  “Do it, Abbie,” I bite out, feeling the pressure of Reese’s courtroom schedule.

  “You’re so damn stubborn,” she hisses but she shoves the money in my hands. “You’re hired.”

  “Tell me,” I order, pocketing the dollar.

  “I’m afraid I caused this.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I found some incriminating documents a few years back, proof that Kenneth stole from Jean Claude. When he came at you, I hit a limit. I didn’t want you to suffer for me. I had Jean Claude’s business card in my wallet. I thought if he went at Kenneth, broke off their financial arrangement even, that Kenneth would have his hands full. He’d back off. They’d leave us alone.”

  “You sent the documents to Jean Claude?”

  “Yes,” she says grimly. “I sent them. I told a brutal man that another man stole from him and someone ended up dead. Kenneth ended up dead. I caused this. Jean Claude—”