“You never have to be sorry,” I said. “You’re right to be angry with her. We all are.”

Riley nodded as Matt entwined his fingers with hers.

“How are we just finding out about all this now?” I asked my mother.

She scoffed. “How do you think? I signed a confidentiality agreement promising never to tell where the money came from, and your father made it all go away. He had my trust fund, nine hundred and fifty million dollars. Easy enough to wipe out stuff he didn’t want anyone to see. Then, with the rest, he built up Wolfe Enterprises into a billion-dollar company.”

“And you’ve kept this from us all these years?” I shook my head.

“I didn’t have a choice. I signed a contract.”

“Were you forced to sign?”

She laughed lightly. “I was not. I thought I was in love with the bastard.”

“What about your divorce?”

“He took care of me. I hated him by then, so I didn’t care about the marriage. He paid me off, and I was just as happy to be rid of him.”

None of us could dispute that.

“And you really never knew about Irene Lucent?” Rock asked.

“No, I didn’t.”

“I believe her,” I said. “We talked at length about this yesterday.”

“All right.” Rock drew in a deep breath. “Our working theory is that Dad wanted to fake his death. Nieves Romero intercepted the call he made to me pretending to be Reid. Somehow she and her shady sister got involved, and they went to Hoss and Manny. Which means…”

“Fuck,” I said. “It means that was the leak. That’s how Father Jim—or whoever ultimately offed Dad—found out about his plan.”

“Why would he want you to know, though?” Roy asked Rock. “Why would he call you, pretending to be Reid, and tell you about the hit?”

“Easy,” Rock said. “To implicate me. To implicate all of us. Jesus Christ.”

“But—” Lacey began.

“You have to think like Derek Wolfe,” Rock said. “It was a cover-your-ass thing.”

“You lost me there somewhere,” Roy piped in.

“First,” I said, “the phone call”—air quotes—“proves that both Rock and I knew about the hit. Then we have the will that Lacey drew up, naming Rock as CEO instead of me. Giving it all to Rock. So by me telling Rock about the hit, that sets Rock up to be implicated because he knows he’d be taking over. It sets me up as well because I’d be angry Rock was taking over instead of me.”

“But none of us knew that,” Roy said.

“No, but Dad knew. About the will. He was sowing the seeds to pit us all against each other and try to implicate each other.”

“Motherfucker,” Rock said. “His fingerprints are all over this, and there’s no fucking way to prove it.”

Someone pounded on the door to the conference room.