Page 57 of My Three Rivals

I’d ask them about the money laundering another time, but at that moment, I just needed to make sure my cousin wasn’t going to send them to prison.

“Woah… no. Not yet. But if you hadn’t called me back—”

“It’s fine. They’re fine. We’re… we’re working things out here,” I blubbered, suddenly wishing I’d practiced my story before calling my cousin. Goosebumps flooded my arms. “Everything is okay.”

“You know, even if you keep saying that, it doesn’t make it true,” Bizzy grumbled, a small, smoker’s cough falling from her lips.

“It really is! In fact, they’re helping me restore the house and winery.”

“Uh-huh… and how did you convince them to do that?”

I really shouldn’t have called her. But I needed to know about Emerson.

I stretched out on the new patio furniture, my pale legs reaching toward the sunshine as Wyatt worked a hundred feet away in the vineyard. All the employees were in the final stages of harvest, the boys expecting me in the winery to help them through the wine-making process soon.

“It doesn’t matter how,” I insisted. “I called to ask you about Emerson.”

“I don’t know what your shithead brother did when he was at the vineyard, Tegan. It’s not like he was hosting dinners.”

“Were any of the other cousins visiting him frequently?” I pushed. “Was anyone else close to him?”

I heard Bizzy draw in a breath as the back door opened, Atticus exiting, his hands and face dusted with paint. He eyed me expectantly, and a quick glance at my dying phone told me that it was time to meet the others in the winery.

“Tegan, do I need to remind you that these are your cousins, not mine? Our mothers were sisters, but after she passed away, we didn’t come around often enough for me to get close to them.”

But Bizzy was thorough, and if she was digging into Maverick’s, Atticus’, and Wyatt’s past, she had to know more.

“Do you know anything? Anything at all?” I asked, just wanting her to tell me anything that could help.

“Maybe Nick,” Bizzy suggested. “He was the first to sell his shares of the vineyard, though, so…”

Fucking Nick. He’s for sure in on it. He knew what was coming.

“Anyone else?” I pressed. “Anyone you can think of?”

“Just Nick comes to mind. Those two were always unnaturally close. If Emerson wasn’t such a douchey man slut, I would have sworn they had some kind of incest thing happening.”

I gritted my teeth and rose, trailing after Atticus as he led the way across the grass toward the winery.

“What did he do?” Bizzy asked, a lilt of amusement lacing her voice. “Did he sell off the equipment? That sounds like something he’d do.”

Setting my feet down on the renovated porch, I held up a finger at Atticus and spoke carefully. “No… it’s…”

I hesitated, glancing at Atticus, who didn’t seem to be paying me any attention, but I knew him well enough to know that he was hanging on my every word. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll check in with Nick.”

Atticus turned and looked at me, his look telling me that the name sparked a memory in him, but I ignored him and hurried off the phone with Bizzy. She obviously didn’t know more about what my brother had been up to.

But Nick most likely did.

I really hope I got more of Mom’s genetics than Will’s,I thought grimly, sticking my cell in the back pocket of my jeans.

“Who was that?” Atticus asked.

“My cousin.”

“Nick?”

I shivered and shook my head. “Was he a part of the trafficking, too?”

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