It was Sylvie he was looking for in that picture, Sylvie who had given him the smile on his face. Sylvie had sat between the rows of roses and begonias. She’d stuck her tongue out at him and then smiled, and he’d known he wasn’t alone.

The memory pierced through him, so bittersweet it nearly brought him to his knees.

“Rene?”

He forced himself to put the picture down and turned.

“I didn’t think you were going to come.” Gabriel wore a perfectly pressed suit. Rene had noticed that his cousin had started dressing better in the last few months, showing up in suits with good loafers almost everywhere he went.

He was starting to look a bit like Rene himself.

“I’m not here for long. I’m just popping in. Is your sister all right?”

Gabriel’s face went grim. “She’s struggling. I am, too. I have a confession to make. I . . . I don’t know quite how to tell you this, but I can’t let you fire Louis.”

It was funny how heartache could make anger seem like such a useless emotion. “You’ve been working with Charles. You stole the bids.”

Gabriel looked down at the floor. “Yeah. I’m sorry. I can’t let you think it was Louis. He didn’t know. He trusted me and I went and made copies of the bids he was working on, and I was the one who handed them over to Charles.”

“Can I ask why?” There was always a why, and with Gabriel he didn’t think it would be pure greed.

“I told you my father left us in debt, but I didn’t tell you how much. My mom went a little crazy for a while. She drank a lot, and we had to put her in rehab. That was when Ashley had to come home,” Gabriel admitted. “She doesn’t know what to do with herself. She was told all she had to do was be pretty and find a husband. Turns out she doesn’t like men all that much and feels pretty worthless. She’s drinking too much, and I’m worried I’m going to lose them both.”

It was odd how far empathy could go. He’d thought he would find out who had betrayed him and rage would take over, but all he could manage to do was to feel for Gabriel. He wasn’t even twenty-five years old and had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He didn’t have the tools he needed to navigate these deep waters. Gabriel only knew if he didn’t do something, he would lose the people he loved.

Yeah, Rene knew what that felt like.

“What did Charles offer you?”