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“Can you do me a favor and let Detective Ford know what’s going on, too? I meant to call him after the accident, but I⁠—”

“Got busy falling for your client? Yeah, I know.” He laughs. “Relax, Tank, I can hear the wheels in your head turning. I think it’s great.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see.”

“We will. And it is. Until then, I’ll call when I have something.”

“Great, thanks.” After ending the call, I turn back toward the house, surprised to see that Presley is standing in the doorway behind me.

“You know, there aren’t many men who can sneak up on me,” I tell him.

“There’s a reason I was paid well.”

How much blood is on his hands? How many deaths weigh on his heart?

“Your guys find anything new?” he questions.

“Dahlia’s personnel files were erased from Pine Meadow.”

Presley arches a brow. “Someone is preemptively covering their tracks. Removing her from Prescott’s direct circle.”

“They also must not expect her to live long enough to prove them wrong.”

“This is one impressive cover-up,” Presley says.

“If we can’t keep her safe, we may have to make her disappear.”

“I had that thought, too.” Presley crosses his arms. “But they’ll never stop hunting her. Guys like this? They don’t back off just because they lose track of their target. He will send everyone he can after her.”

The way he says it sends up a red flag in my mind. “How did you find out we were targets?” I ask him.

“I told you, I have contacts.”

“No, it’s more than that.” Now, I cross my arms, mimicking his stance. “How?”

Presley’s gaze darkens. “Because he tried to hire me to take you both out. Obviously, he didn’t realize we were brothers, or he would have known that was painting a target on his own back.”

I stare at him. Of all the things I expected him to say—except, I did expect it, didn’t I? On some level?

“You were hired to kill us?”

“No, hired means I accepted the job. I told you, I don’t do that work anymore, and the lives I took never included an innocent girl.”

“What about me?”

“We both know you’ve done things you’re not proud of. You’re telling me you consider yourself innocent?”

He’s got me there. While I never took a life if I could help it, there were times when the pull of a trigger was the only way to put a bad man—or many bad men—into the ground. And I don’t lose sleep over that. I saved lives.

But does that make me innocent? Well, I’m not so sure about that.

“Yet he thought you did that work.”

“Because I was good at what I did. I made a name for myself, and clearly, whoever he hired to put the hit out knew that.”

I shake my head, anger burning in my veins. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Would you have come if I did?” Presley asks. “If I had shown up and said, ‘Hey there, Big Brother, haven’t seen you in twelve years, but someone wants me to kill you and your new girlfriend. Want to go on a trip?’ Yeah, that would have gone over well.”