“But there aren’t. Not with Zee’s story, anyway. They’re all dead. Hunted and killed. The only thing Zee’s story will do is make her a suspect instead of us.”

Again, Rock was not wrong. We could easily prove Zee wasn’t in New York the night of the murder, but what good would her story do other than to fuck with Dad’s character? It still wouldn’t absolve any of us of the crime. In fact, it would only give us more of a motive to off the psycho.

Something niggled at the back of my neck. That something called a conscience, which right now I wished I didn’t have.

“Why?” I asked Rock. “Why didn’t any one of us inherit Dad’s lack of conscience?”

“It’d make this a lot easier if we had.”

Truth be told, I was probably the closest to Dad’s lack of conscience. On more than one occasion, I’d ignored the angel on my shoulder in favor of the devil. Usually for business, though, not for personal gain. And never for sexual gain. I’d never bedded a woman without her explicit consent.

But wasn’t this business? I couldn’t run this business from a prison cell. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to prison for killing the bastard when my hands were sparkling clean.

Okay, maybe not sparkling, but still clean. I hated the mofo, but I didn’t kill him. Neither did Rock, Roy, Riley, or Lacey. I believed all of them. Hell, Lacey didn’t even have any motive.

“So about Zee,” Rock was saying.

“What about her?”

“We can sure use her story, but please don’t push her.”

“Is this you or the wife talking?”

“Both, to be honest, but Riley most of all.”

Riley. My kid sister, who had suffered more at our father’s hands than the three of us guys combined.

Riley, who I used to envy because of our father’s attention.

Boy, had I been dead-ass wrong.

For Riley, I’d do anything.

Even this.

“All right, brother. For Riley. Tell her I’ll treat Zee with kid gloves.”

It was a promise I knew I’d keep.

Didn’t mean I wouldn’t sleep with her, though.

5

Zee

That innocent eighteen-year-old girl had a plan.

Acceptance to Smith. Yeah, it was an all-girls school, but she didn’t worry about that. She looked at it as a gift. She’d be forced to spend more time on her studies. Her beauty wouldn’t be a hindrance in a group of all women. No one would envy her for the physical characteristics she couldn’t control.

The girl had aced the SAT and ACT, hitting a perfect score on the latter. She wanted to break free from the acting and modeling career her mother had forced on her and expand her horizons.