Page 28 of Forbidden Bond

TEN

NOTHING.

Not a speck of blood, not a clue.

They’d been at her grandfather’s and left again, none the wiser.

Back in the car, Strat drove without aim. “You’re quiet, Scamp.”

“Of course I’m fucking quiet,” she said, her arm dropping from its place holding up her head, elbow on the doorsill. “It’s like I made the whole thing up. Am I delusional?”

“Probably, but that doesn’t mean you made it up.”

Ha-fucking-ha. “Strat—”

“They wouldn’t leave evidence.”McDades are in the business of reducing our criminal footprint.“They don’t want anyone to know a McDade spilled blood. You said Silvio was there, right?” She nodded. “So he knows exactly who was in that room. If blood was found there, reported, The Director would know who it belonged to.”

“None of us have been seen around this week. Any of the three of us could’ve bled out.”

“He couldn’t know who.”

What had been her father’s intended grand plan? What was supposed to go down that night? Someone could’ve lost their life. If Conn wasn’t with her and she’d been alone with her father and Silvio Manzani… God, it didn’t bear thinking about. Death was one thing, death by complicit father would be something else.

“There wouldn’t have been enough blood,” she said. “For it to be all of us. And it would’ve been concentrated, right? Just wherever Conn sat.”

“I don’t know, Scamp. What does it matter? The McDades must’ve cleaned the scene.”

After their leader was taken care of.

She exhaled; her fingers curled into fists against her thighs. “I’m going to kill him. Me! I’ll take down goddamn Connel McDade myself. For putting me through this? I’ll wring his damn neck.”

“That’s treason,” he teased. She’d accused him of that not so long ago. “How’d you find out?”

She grabbed Strat’s phone. “Find out what?”

“That your dad killed your grandfather. Did he tell you?”

“He was rambling, frustrated, pissed off, saying how Henry should’ve listened to him and it shouldn’t have happened that way. I just… knew.”

“Not like he’s denied it either.”

No. Someone should be vehement about their innocence of such a heinous crime, of any crime, if the innocence was genuine.

“He wasn’t thinking straight when it came out.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Strat said. “You sure he doesn’t have a habit?”

They’d investigated Henry. Had anyone thought to background check her father?

“You think he helped Silvio under duress? That he owed him something?”

“Not what I was getting at but, sure.”

She shifted to examine his profile. “What were you getting at?”

His hands skimmed to the top of the wheel. “If the guy’s twitchy, maybe he’s not getting his fix.”

Shock opened her mouth even before she got to gasping. “My father would not take drugs!”

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