Page 36 of The Villain

That was the part of this that made no goddamn sense. At least before, Brandon trying to kill her for the insurance payout was a solid motive. But for him to have been paid additional money to do it by someone else…who? Why?

There was only one answer my mind would let me consider.

“It has to do with Ivans.” I pinched the bridge of my nose.I just didn’t know how or why.

“Why would Ivans want her dead?” Harm folded his arms, watching as I started to pace, my mind churning through possibilities.

“I don’t fucking know,” I muttered and ran my hand along my chin in frustration. “Athena said they’d only been on a few dates. She didn’t want a new relationship…yet.”

My brother looked particularly hard at me as the conversation drifted toward silence.

“I’ll look into this payout he mentioned,” Ty offered. “Even with an offshore account, I might be able to get a lead on where the money came from, and that could give us a better idea of what’s really going on.”

“Thanks,” Harm said. “If it does have to do with Ivans, we’re obviously missing something. A part of the relationship we’re not seeing.”

Not seeing…

I growled, an idea starting to form like the first darkened clouds of a storm. “We knew she was seeing Ivans. Remington knew…what if we weren’t the only ones?”

“What do you mean?”

“Our assumption is that Ivans returned to the States to blackmail Belmont and Wenner and GrowTech. He was at GrowTech’s fucking fundraiser; they have to know he’s here—what he wants from them,” I said, rambling as I tried to keep up with the flow of the thought. “What if Belmont is behind this? What if his plan is to kill Athena and pin it on Ivans?”

“Frame him.”

Just like they did before.

“Exactly.”

A ripple of cold worked down my spine. “Did you find out anything at the gallery?”

“The paintings you described are there. I spoke to the owner, Glenn, but she wasn’t there the day of the explosion.All she could tell me was that those two paintings are there, but there are three others that were there but aren’t any more.”

“There’s three missing?”

“She said to come back later this week to talk to Carol, who was working that morning. She would’ve let Athena in.”

I made a low noise.

“She also mentioned seeing Ivans—Iverson come around a bunch to see Athena and look at her work.”

“Right.” I exhaled loudly. “I’ll…talk to her.”

“Dare…”

“What?”

My brother crossed his arms and looked at me. “You can’t spare her the truth anymore.”

“About Ivans,” I clarified, as though there were some chance he was referring to the truth about who I was. “I know.”

My breath exhaled in a bitter burst of laughter, thinking of how that conversation had to go. I had to tell Athena that her ex-husband was paid to blow her up to frame her new “boyfriend” for the crime and that her new “boyfriend” was a wanted fugitive.

“I’ll do a deeper dive into the payout to Martins and let you know what I find,” Ty said.

When our call ended, Harm added, “Since we’re here, I’ll see if Hadrian can go through the evidence from the bomb one more time. If they were going to frame Ivans, there would need to be more evidence tying him to the bomb or the car or…something.”

“Yeah.” I nodded, my mind still staked to my own task. “I’ll tell Athena and then take her back to her house. See if anything jogs her memory.”

---