It wasn’t the police, the sheriff, the FBI, or the mayor, although all of them had tried.

It was a petite Irish girl with a smart mouth and eyes like bluebells who wanted to give me everything she had until I made it very clear to her I wasn’t worth any of it.

“That’s a great question.” Gerald grinned smugly, his face so punchable I was surprised it didn’t curve inside out.

He snapped his fingers, and just like that, Barbara materialized from the hallway, no longer looking like a day-shift stripper. Her hair was coiffed back, her attire a black velvet Prada suit and Chanel purse.

Yeah, she definitely didn’t need any food stamps or half-finished cigarette packs.

Barbara smiled at me apologetically, giving me a quick nod.

“I wanted to be here just to say I was sorry in person. I never meant to complicate things for you, Mr. Brennan, but Gerald is an old friend, and when he told me he was in trouble, I simply couldn’t turn my back on him. Surely, you can understand.”

Only I couldn’t.

Because I didn’t have any real friends. Only people I had business with and met with socially—only to make sure they didn’t screw up any of our mutual business shit.

“Well played, madam.”

She smiled and dashed out the door after saying her goodbyes, leaving Gerald and me to face each other. I took out another cigarette, waiting for the question on the tip of his tongue.

“So now it’s your turn to tell me … why?” he asked quietly, dropping his elbows to his knees. He looked broken. Wilted and weak and somehow still angry.

“Why did you put me through this? Why did you take everything I’ve ever cared for? What did I ever do to you, Brennan? Up until two months ago, I would name you as one of my closest business partners. Openly.”

Openly my ass. If he was so open about his business with me, he wouldn’t have forbade me from taking his daughter out for a coffee.

Not that that was what I wanted.

Or had anything to do with this bullshit.

“I found the letters,” I said, flicking ash into an ashtray on the table. “Catalina’s letters. Back in November. The old bat finally conked out, and her neighbor invited me to sort through her shit and see if there was anything of value there. Spoiler alert: there wasn’t. But she kept the letters to you. The ones you redirected back to her. And your photos together…” I took a deep breath “…and the pregnancy test. I know all about what you did to her, to me. How you drove her away from me. How you killed the child in her womb. My brother. I know everything. Everything. Everything.”

I said it three times, so he’d understand I meant business.

Gerald stared at me for a long beat. When he finally opened his mouth, no words came out.

He started to laugh.

Cackle was more like it.

And I mean, really go at it, slapping his thigh as he tried to regulate his breath, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye, shaking his head.

“You bought that bullshit?” He heaved. “Are you serious, son?”

“There were pictures, Gerald. Lots of them. Of you and Cat together. By the way, you should probably stop the habit of documenting every single fuck you have with women who are not your wife.”

The pictures were genuine. They were real. And they were damning. I knew a photoshopped work when I saw it, and this wasn’t it.

So why was I feeling like an idiot right now?

“No, I did have an affair with Cat, I’m not going to deny that part. Hell, Sam, you were a child, barely even old enough to wipe your own ass. I didn’t know you. And Cat was a gorgeous woman in her prime. Besides, she needed the money, and I paid her well for her … uh … company.” He looked away now, rubbing the back of his head.

There was no well-mannered way to point out someone’s mother was a whore, so I didn’t necessarily fault him for that. He carried on, exhaling quickly.

“I had an affair with her, yes, but everything else was a complete and utter fabrication. Catalina was never pregnant with my child, and I never raised a finger to hurt her. I did not cause her to miscarry. When we started seeing each other, she told me she had her tubes tied after she had you. I asked her to show me the doctor’s note—I knew Jane would rip my head off if I ever got any of my mistresses pregnant—and Cat provided it to me within the day. Not only that, but I went ahead and double-checked it with her OB-GYN.”

“Then what the fuck was that pregnancy test?”

“My guess is she took it from one of her friends. Catalina had a lot of friends in the … uh … industry she worked in. Kept women who messed around with rich men. We provided for them, but the main incentive was, of course, to fall pregnant with our children. That would tie us to them for life.”

I did not take that into consideration.

“So you are saying she was never pregnant with your child?” I drawled, trying to keep my cool.

He finished his whiskey in one go. “Correct.”

“That’s all nice and well, but I distinctly remember Cat coming back home around the time of the alleged miscarriage, disoriented and bruised. I remember her crawling into her bed, curling up into a ball, crying. I remember her being ushered to the hospital in an ambulance. How would you explain that?”

Gerald stared at me through beady, liquid black eyes, his lips sneering in distaste. “Does the name Donnie ring a bell?”

I shook my head slowly.

“Tall, muscular, an underwear model type. He was Cat’s real boyfriend at the time. The man she fucked without leaving an invoice on the nightstand afterward. Real good-looking guy, I’ll give him that, but he never came to terms with what she did for a living. Every now and again, he would rough her up if she showed up to meet him smelling like the man before him. As it happened, that man before him that night was me. I know, because I met your mother at the hospital and even paid for her hospital stay. I told her to press charges. She didn’t want to. I still have the receipt for that hospital bill, and I can show you none of the things listed there have anything to do with Cat’s womb or any of her reproductive organs.”

Suddenly, I had a really bad headache. Because through foggy memory, I did remember Donnie. A tall, blond fuckboy. I remembered internally referring to him as Captain Potato Head for having the combined IQ and wit of a used condom. He was the first person to give me a cigarette.

“Hey, Cat’s kid, bring me the pack of Marlboros over there, will ya?”

I did as I was told, mostly because I was too distracted to tell him to fuck off. The man left the pack open, jerking it in my direction.

“Here, boy, take one. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

“I don’t smoke.”

“Oh, you will, buddy. With your fucked-up life, cigarettes are a question of when, not if.”

“Explain the letters.” I turned to Gerald, the biting pain of being played closing in on my throat again. This time not by Aisling, who was at least smart and intelligent, but by Cat, whom I wouldn’t trust with a goddamn Snickers bar.

All the pieces of the puzzle were falling together.

“Easily, Sam.” Gerald poured himself more whiskey, seeming more relaxed than he had in weeks. I knew he was telling the truth, and it fucking killed me. “Sometime after Donnie roughed her up, Cat realized her line of work was just too dangerous. She asked me for money. A lot of it. To keep silent. I said no, and that’s when the blackmailing began. Each and every one of her letters was part of an extortion scheme. She threatened to out us, to spread terrible lies, to ensure Jane knew about what we were. What we did. She wanted to skip town, but she never wanted to take you, Sam. You weren’t in her plans. Not even for a second. At some point, I realized she wasn’t worth the heat I was about to get from Jane. I became open to giving her money. I kept asking her how she could leave you behind. Tried to convince her to take you with her—kids need their mothers. By God, Sam, she just wouldn’t. Finally, I handed her 150k just so she would shut up and leave me alone. I remember the day she left. She was so happy, and you know what, son? So was I. She almost cost me everything. I’m not going to lie, Sam, seeing the back of your mother as she skipped town was one of my favorite sights. It should have been a happy day for you, too.”