But I had to be mistaken. My father couldn’t possibly feel those things for any of us, or he wouldn’t have left us.

“Ryan, Daphne loved you like one of her own.”

“Doesn’t seem that way now.” I swirled the amber liquid in my glass.

“She did at first. She agreed to raising you at Steel Acres. Her name is on your birth certificate. In the eyes of the law, you’re her child. She forgave me, and she didn’t hold you responsible for my mistakes.”

“How did you manage it? Joe says he remembers her being pregnant.”

“We used a graduated prosthetic. When you were born to Wendy, we invented a story about a home birth and had a doctor and nurse attend to you and your mother.”

I took another drink. “Are you saying I was born at home?”

He nodded. “The doctor and nurse were well paid to keep quiet. As was your mother. She broke a vow to me when she told you the truth.”

“Christ!” Joe stood, pacing. “How could you put our mother through this? How could you fuck that crazy woman?” He turned to me. “No offense, Ry.”

“None taken.” After all, I wasn’t the only one who had a crazy woman for a mother. At least Daphne Steel wasn’t evil, though.

“It’s a long story, and Talon isn’t here yet.”

Silence. What the hell could any of us say to that, anyway?

“You might as well know. I’m likely to be imprisoned when this all comes out. Ruby’s father will be too. You may want to warn her,” he said to me.

“Are you kidding? She’s been trying to get him behind bars since she became a cop. She’ll be thrilled.”

“He’s slippery,” my father said. “He’s eluded arrest all these years. He’s a master of disguise and aliases. So good that he got complacent. That’s how you boys were able to track him down through his tattoo. But there’s another reason he got lazy as well.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“He wants out now.”

“Out of what? This crazy trafficking ring? It’s not possible.”

“I can understand why you’d think it isn’t possible. But he wants it bad enough that he has switched alliances. He’s working with me now.”

Joe’s eyes went feral. “What?”

“Before you ask, no, I don’t trust him. He probably doesn’t trust me either, but we’re all each other has. You kids were never supposed to know that your mother and I were alive or that Ryan is your half brother. Wendy is going to pay for all of this.”

“I don’t get it, Daddy. You had Mother, the most beautiful woman in the world. Why would you stray? You said she was devoted to us, even to Ryan, who she didn’t give birth to. I don’t understand.” Marj wrung her hands together.

“Sweet baby girl,” he said, gazing downward. “Your mother will always have my heart, but my soul? Without meaning to, I sold my soul long before I met her.” He paused, exhaling and looking back up. “I sold it to the devil herself.”

Three pairs of eyes settled on me.

My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I picked it up, trying to ignore the heat of my family’s gazes. From Ruby.

I just got a text from my father. Something big is going down.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Ruby

This is your father. Take cover.

That’s all the text said. I didn’t know my father’s cell number, and it was untraceable. It could be a hoax, but I doubted it. Oddly, he seemed to be on my side now, and previously he hadn’t usually bothered telling me who he was when he texted. At least that was what my intuition said.

I quickly texted Ryan.

I just got a text from my father. Something big is going down.

Seconds later, he found me in the kitchen. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know yet. He told me to ‘take cover.’”

“Take cover? What the—”

Brad Steel’s footsteps thumped loudly down the corridor, followed by Joe and Marj. “I just got word. The FBI has raided the compound. I need to get your mother out of here.”

“And go where?” Ryan said.

“What the hell is the FBI doing on foreign soil?” Joe said. “If you’re lying, I’ll fucking kill you with my bare hands.”

“Why would I lie?”

“I don’t know,” Ryan said with sarcasm. “You’ve been so honest with us for the past thirty years.”

“If it’s truly the FBI, we’re not going anywhere,” Joe said. “The only guilty person here is you. The rest of us are innocent.”

“And if the FBI is here,” Ryan said, “they’re rescuing Anna and the others from that horrible place. So yeah, I’m with Joe. We’re going to let them do their job.”

“I have contacts at the FBI,” I said. “Let me see what I can find out.” I left the kitchen and made a quick phone call to my confidante at the FBI. Armed with new information, I walked toward the kitchen, listening.

“This isn’t going to end well,” Brad Steel said.

“For you, maybe,” Ryan said.

He didn’t deny it.

Marjorie went into his arms. “I forgive you, Daddy. I don’t want you to go to prison.”

“Nothing can stop that now, baby girl.”

“Christ, Marj,” Joe said. “What is this about? He kept you from knowing our mother. He kept her from all of us.”

“That doesn’t mean he should go to prison.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “Maybe not, but the shit going on here does.”

Brad nodded. “Your brother is right. I had nothing to do with any of it, but I did know about it. That makes me an accessory.”

“How could you know about this and not do anything about it?” Marjorie asked.

“For you,” he said. “For all of you. Everything I did was to protect my children. My legacy.”

That was as good a time as any to interrupt with my information.

“It is the FBI. My sources confirmed it. And your PI, Raj? He’s an FBI attaché in Jamaica. He’s actually an American citizen, a captain in the Marine Corps who masquerades as a private investigator. He didn’t disappear. He rendezvoused with the other agents when they arrived.”

“How did your father know there was going to be an FBI raid?” Ryan asked.

“I’m not sure. We’ll probably find out when he contacts me again in the same enigmatic way he always does. Unless they already have him in custody, and I hope they do.”

“Theo will get away,” my father said. “He always has before.”

“Seems the two of you have that in common,” Ryan said.

“No, it’s over for me,” he said. “I’ll die in prison. But at least Daphne will be taken care of.”

Talon finally arrived. “Hey, what’s going on? I looked for you in the office.”

“The FBI has raided the compound.” Joe quickly filled him in. “It won’t be long before they come here.”

Talon eyed Brad. “I see.”

“So we’d better get to the whole truth before they get here,” Joe said. “Back to the office.”

I squeezed Ryan’s hand. “Go ahead.”

“No, this time you’re coming with us,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s approp—”

“Ryan’s right,” Joe said. “You’re as involved in this as any of us. Come to the office. You deserve the truth as well.”

Brad had taken a phone call and appeared to be listening intently. I looked to Ryan for guidance, and he nodded.

We all followed Brad back to the office.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Ryan

I walked numbly, Ruby’s hand in mine, to the elaborately decorated office across from the bedroom Juliet and Ruby were using.

Would we finally get the answers we sought? Or would the FBI interrupt us? Only time would tell.

Joe took the lead. “Start from the beginning. The future lawmakers. We know you funded their business. We know you once considered them friends. Ruby’s uncle even said you were the one person Theodore Mathias trusted. So how the fuck did a club based on brotherhood—Mathias’s words, according to Ruby—turn into a million-dollar human-trafficking business? And we already know you got greedy.”

“I’m going to be getting another call. I don’t have much time.”

“Talk fast, then,” Joe said through gritted teeth.

Our father sighed. “They got greedy. I had money.”

“Whatever. You funded them, so you’re just as much a part of this,” Joe said. “Explain how Wendy was in control. She was a sophomore JV cheerleader, for God’s sake.”

“Shit,” he said. “Where to start?”

“The beginning, Daddy,” Marjorie said. “Jade says Wendy told her you and she were soul mates and always wanted to be together.”

“Yeah,” Joe said, “but that didn’t add up because you didn’t get together with her after Mom died. Of course, now we know that Mom was never dead.”

“Wendy does indeed own my soul, but not in a good way.”

“So you’ve said.”

“We did date and become”—his face reddened—“intimate during high school. She joined the future lawmakers, and it turned out she had an amazing head for business. She was creative as well. She liked to paint, and she also dabbled in metalsmithing.”

My hand drifted absently to my pocket. My father’s ring. I’d been carrying it with me all this time. Why? I had no idea.

“She made this.” I held it up to my father.

“She did. I see you found it. I left it on the cushion of the couch at Ruby’s apartment.”