Page 83 of Wicked Promises (Fallen Royals 3)

Riley: He’s an asshole.

Well, fuck.

I shake my head, stuffing the phone back into my pocket. The guys are waiting for me in the living room, all of them looking like I have all the answers. Or maybe I’ll just have the most dramatic reaction to whatever they uncovered.

Who knows.

I take a seat in the armchair closest to Caleb, draping a blanket over my lap.

He opens his mouth, and I hold up my hand.

“Is this bad? Like, really bad?” I close my eyes. “I just need to mentally prepare myself.”

Theo chuckles. “Good thing you’re in therapy.”

I glare at him. “I start tomorrow, asshole.”

“As I said, it’s a good thing—”

“Shut it,” Caleb says mildly, leaning forward. His attention swings to me. “Ready yet?”

My fingers curl into the blanket. No, I’m not ready. But actually… “Just rip off the Band-Aid.”

“We figured Matt wouldn’t have been able to get his hands on a vehicle without help,” he says. “And since Masters didn’t question him outside of getting an alibi—”

“Bunch of shit,” I cut in.

“A fake alibi,” he amends. “We went to the junkyard to get our hands on the vehicle. It wasn’t impounded by the police because it wasn’t… I don’t know why they sent it there, actually.”

Eli growls. “Because Masters is after Caleb like a hound after a fox.”

My eyes go wide. “So, wait a minute. You’re saying you were able to stroll right into the junkyard and find out who the vehicle was registered to?”

Caleb shifts. “Right.”

“And whoever owns the vehicle probably had something to do with it.”

“Supposedly,” Liam says. “Assuming it wasn’t stolen.”

“And was it? Stolen, that is?”

Eli perks up. “We didn’t check.”

I facepalm. “You didn’t check.”

“It’s a quick search in the public records,” Eli mumbles. “Don’t you ever check those?”

I shake my head, not bothering to ask why the hell I’d do that. Instead, I turn back to Caleb. “And? Who did it belong to?”

“Listen, Margo, before I say it—”

“Aha!” Eli yells. He lifts his phone. “It was reported stolen about three hours before the accident.”

“Why are you cheering?” Riley asks from the doorway, holding a box. “That’s not a good thing.”

I jump to my feet, but something in Riley’s face stops me cold.

Eli slowly rises as well. “I have a feeling we should take this upstairs.”

---