Sloane laughs then wipes her nose, and I realize that there are tears in her eyes. I swallow hard to temper my emotions, listening to every detail of her story.
“When he first suggested I may be able to pay off the money another way I thought…” she exhales suddenly as though the shock of it is hitting her all over again.
Now, I do stand up. Her eyes go wide until she sees me walk toward the master bathroom. I grab the entire box of tissues and bring it out for her. She eyes it warily—which I’m mildly amused by—before taking it and wiping both her eyes and nose.
“Well, you can imagine what I thought at first,” she says with a bitter frown. “Then he suggested this, that I come here and try to figure out what you are up to. Because that makes so much more sense.” She rolls her eyes. “I was even stupid enough to point out how nonsensical it was. If it was about the money, they could have just used Theo’s brain. I mean, so what if I did find out what you were up to? Unless it’s a publicly-traded company which they could buy stock in ahead of time or short if they know it’s going under, there’s no point. I mean, I certainly wasn’t going to question him…not after how they—” she stops, swallowing hard. “Anyway, they gave me forty days to do this, which I also didn’t understand.”
I give her a wry grin. “Gabriel is very Catholic, at least on paper.”
Her brow rises, as though realizing how completely irrelevant that is before she continues.
“At any rate, his man, Jan, was relentless, suggested I do ‘whatever I had to’ to get close to you, close enough to learn what I could.” She scowls at me with disgust, even after what just happened on this very bed.
“It was almost like it was…personal. Like he’d finally found some hidden treasure in me that he could put to better use.”
I consider her for a moment, allowing her to once again wipe her face before responding.
“That’s because it is personal.”
Sloane’s face wrinkles in confusion. “It is?”
“I know Jan…and his boss Gabriel Fouché.”
Now her eyes blink rapidly, as though her brain is trying to process this. “How?”
“Gabriel Fouché is the man who hired someone to kill my mother.” I stop to give her a focused look, analyzing her reaction to my next bit of news.
“And you should know that Jan Vorster is most likely the man who just recently killed Linus Caldwell.”
Chapter Thirty-Three Sloane
I knew something shocking was coming based solely on the way Magnus was staring at me. What I hadn’t expected was a pure gut punch.
I literally exhale every ounce of breath inside me.
“Theo!” I gasp when my lungs manage to function again.
I scramble off the bed, dragging my sheets behind me in search of a phone.
“Theo is fine,” Magnus says in a calm voice that my brain doesn’t even register.
I’m still sliding across the covers. My weak legs wobble on the stiletto heels of my shoes, and I fall to the floor. I’m too crazed to even think about getting back up, instead, crawling across the carpet.
“Sloane!” Magnus’s voice is sharp but not loud.
Still, it manages to snatch my attention from the grip of panic it was lost in. I turn to stare at him, suddenly angry that he would dare interfere with me trying to call my brother to make sure he’s okay.
To make sure he’s still alive.
“Theo is fine,” he says in a steady voice.
“How do you know?”
“Because I have people watching him, making sure he is safe. If anything had happened, I’d be the first to know.”
My mind works this out, fitting it into everything else I’ve learned tonight. “How long have you known?”
“About you or Linus?”
“Everything,” I spit.
Instead of answering, he stands up and walks over to me. I shrink away, but he still reaches down to gently grab me by the arm and lift me up. He walks me over to the chair opposite from where he was sitting and sets me down. I sink into it, retying the knot holding the sheets up around me. I watch as he walks over to the bar to pour both of us a drink, something amber-hued and hopefully strong.
“Linus, I found out about yesterday. It was a gunshot wound to the head. Suicide is definitely not suspected, or my source would have told me.”
I suck in air, hearing this news. I wasn’t Linus’s biggest fan, but he didn’t deserve this. My only guess is that Jan had no more use for him.
Which confirms what I suspected about Theo’s fate and my own if I fail at what I’m doing out here.
“You? I suspected from yesterday morning,” he continues as he walks back with both glasses. He hands one to me and settles into his chair. “It was confirmed by the man I met with yesterday before dinner.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s called the Pirate. He’s…like me,” he says ambiguously before taking a drink.
“Tell me everything,” I say, using his own words against him as I look him dead in the eye.
A small smile curls his lips, and he lowers his eyes as though to concede the point. He gives me a thoughtful look before continuing.
“What would you do to the man who killed your mother? Or your father?”
I stare at him for a moment, then take a sip of my drink to put that question in perspective. By now, I’m immune to being shocked in his presence. I’m sure there’s a point here, but I don’t know what it is.
“I’d certainly think about killing them,” I say, remembering
