Page 69 of Family Affair
“Well, fuck.”
Rick slammed his hand on the wall, startling Cade. “Damn Frank. It’s all his fault. And this time, he isn’t here to answer for it.”
Cade turned around. “Stop blaming a dead man for your newest crisis. Frank wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger on Ward. And how about this, Ward was once your friend. You had seventeen years to try and make amends with him for what you had done to save your ass. If you had, this blackmail situation would have never happened. But you chose to do nothing.”
Rick started to advance, and a small, long forgotten part of Cade cringed before he could remember that he was bigger, younger, stronger than Rick, professionally trained to fight, and arguably more bloodthirsty when provoked.
“Don’t provoke me now,” he said in a low voice that came out strained and threatening. “I ain’t in grade school no more.”
Rick halted his menacing progress but continued to drill Cade with his dark eyes. Cade had to admit again that in both his physical appearance and the timbre of his voice he resembled their father the most. Sometimes genetics had a warped sense of humor.
“It was wrong of Ward to keep the Pollock drawing. It was stupid of him tobustit out now,” Rick grated.
“Yeah, go on, blame it all on him. Again.” He raised his voice addressing the room at large. “Whoever killed Ward fucked things up big time. Ward wouldn't have leakedthedrawing, I know it for a fact.”
“Do you, now?” Ross challenged softly, but Cade didn’t engage.
Instead, he continued, nearly choking from the force of his emotions. “It was a colossal mistake, one that can’t be fixed. It was reckless and stupid, and there will be consequences.”
Rick sneered through cigar smoke. “Awfully bold of you to imply any of us has anything to do with it.”
“I am not implying, Iknowone of you did it,” he looked at each man in the room without sparing them the burning rage in his gaze. “And I am warning you, shit just got real. Good luck.” Damn it all to hell and back. He couldn't leave fast enough. “I should've left before yesterday,” he said with a feeling.
“Why didn’t you?” Ross drilled him with his eyes.
He stayed to say goodbye to Coco, but it was none of Ross’s business, and so he left the question unanswered as he walked out of the study.
His intuition had always been pretty reliable, but this time he drew no comfort from the fact. All it was telling him now was that things were going to get worse before they got any better.
And the beautiful, innocent Coco was going to get swept in the whirlwind of his godforsaken miserable life.
