Page 23 of The Art of You

My father brushed him off and gestured toward the window. “The media is camped outside. I’m sure someone in the Bureau will leak the full story to the media anytime now.”

And there it is.It was possible he wasn’t keeping secrets, just interested in keeping his job. He was worried about negative headlines impacting his reelection campaign.

“I assume your brothers turned over the two men they kept alive to the FBI a long time ago?”Like, before we knew we’d need to interrogate them ourselves.

“Yeah, and I doubt the FBI will confirm whether or not Eduardo and Chris were working with them,” Constantine responded.

How the hell did I let myself get in this situation to begin with?

“Unfortunately, given my son is involved in this mess, the Bureau won’t share details of an ongoing investigation with me. So, I’ll probably know after the media does.”

So, we’ll be on our own to figure this out.I held my jaw at the sudden burst of pain radiating there, and a new memoryunfolded in my mind in the process. Bella had been about to share what Kit had done to upset her. A reporter was why I’d pulled over to begin with.

Bella fidgeted with her sling, staring at my arm, once again appearing to be lost in some type of stupor. She’d been mostly quiet throughout this conversation, offering her support simply by standing by me, and I was grateful.

“And how much do the media know?” I honestly didn’t care about the grief they’d cause my father, only the headache they might cause for Bella and her family.

“That you were in an accident on the way home from my party. That’s all for now, but it’s already too much,” my father answered. “I need to get you out of this hospital as soon as possible.”

“You think the Feds will let us go home?” Bella asked, her voice still as fragile as glass.

“I’ll make sure of it. After all, you’re technically in this mess because of me, right?” My father’s sarcasm was frustrating, but not too shocking. “To help explain how you got mixed up in all of this, I had to let the FBI know you were working with Agent Cattaneo to rescue Carla’s daughter. But without the murder weapon, and no witnesses to rely on, the Feds don’t have anything to hold you on. Plus, you were out of it when the police arrived.”

“I’ll see if Alessandro can look at last night’s security footage from the party,” Constantine suggested. “Hopefully, there’s an angle of the parked cars to see who may have planted a tracker on the vehicle. If Alessandro can’t hack the system from afar, he’ll have to head to Scarsdale and handle it on-site.”

“Handle it quietly. I’ve promised the director there won’t be any interference from you all with this investigation, and I don’t need to give them more ammo to lock up my son.”

Right, that’d ruin your chances of reelection.I kept mysarcastic thoughts to myself for now. “Youdoknow I didn’t kill those men, right?” I didn’t need to remember what happened after the crash to know that truth deep down in my bones.Their blood isn’t on my hands.“You believe me, right?”

My father’s brows stitched together, and his quiet nod instead of a resounding yes about broke my heart.

Chapter 8

Isabella

“I’ve toldyou a hundred times and I’ll tell you a hundred more. Hudson would never shoot someone unless it was in self-defense. And even then, he wouldn’t shoot to kill. He’d keep the bastard alive for questioning.” Bastards, in this case.

I covered myself with the blanket as I sat upright in bed, glaring at the federal agent holding a coffee mug that said, ZEN AS F*CK. Did he steal that from a nurse or bring it in from the office just to get under my skin? Probably the latter.

This was the third round of questioning this afternoon. Federal agents had taken turns from my hospital room. I couldn’t believe they were treating us like the bad guys here, recycling the same lines repeatedly but in a different way as part of their obnoxious game of Gotcha.

I hadn’t lied. Not once. I’d told them word for word everything I remembered. Well, I’d excluded why we’d pulled off to the side of the road in the first place, but I didn’t see how that was relevant to their case.

“Back off. I told your people no talking to mydaughter without our attorneys present.” Dad to the rescue, armed with his favorite asset, his right-hand man, Constantine.

The agent lowered his mug to his side but didn’t flinch or back away beneath the death stares of my dad and brother. “She didn’t request one. We’re just having a casual conversation.”

Casual my ass.I couldn’t even remember the name the agent had provided, but he was perpetuating movie stereotypes about the FBI, which pissed me off. “I want to see Hudson.” I sounded like a kid begging for her mother, throwing a tantrum. But who could blame me? This whole thing was a confusing and blurry nightmare.

My father’s jaw worked overtime as his loafers carried him farther into my room while he muttered a few choice words in Italian I hoped the agent didn’t understand.

“You can’t buy your way out of this mess like you did for your sons years ago.” The agent lifted his chin, eyes sweeping to Constantine as he returned to his casual sipping, testing me so hard. “I’m friends with the AG. I know about that backdoor deal you made for your sons.”

I’d only recently learned about that. My father had ensured my brothers never saw the inside of a prison for murdering who they’d believed had killed Bianca.

“We saved the ambassador’s daughter last night and stopped her abductors from getting away. Why don’t you focus on that? Maybe thank us instead.” Constantine began methodically rolling one sleeve to the elbow. “You need to leave my sister alone.” I heard the “or else” I knew he wanted to say but couldn’t.

I was pretty sure threatening bodily harm to an FBI agent was an arrestable offense. Leave it to my brother to always be the responsible one and think about consequences, even if itpained him to do so sometimes, like now. He’d be no help to any of us if he tossed an agent out on his ass, even if that’d be a lovely sight to see.

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