I scoffed. I’d wanted more than anything to protect my sister, but I was a kid myself. My mother had placed the burden on a kid, a rebellious kid who was likely to pull out a knife and attempt to kill his own father.

Which was exactly what I’d done.

If my father had died while my parents were still married, everything would have gone to her. Had she been hoping I’d kill him? And take the blame? She’d be off scot-free. Rich and rid of him.

And rid of me.

She and I had always been like oil and water. I wasn’t sure why, but we never did click. Not since that day when Roy came into the world. That was the fondest memory I had of Connie Wolfe.

I finished washing my hair and body and stood under the stream of hot water, letting it cleanse me of the memories of my youth. My life had been one fucked up mess, and I wasn’t going to let my mother or anyone else screw up what I could have with Lacey.

Which meant one thing.

I had to take the reins.

I had to solve my father’s murder myself, before someone could frame Lacey or anyone else I cared about.

I scoffed again. The only other three people I cared about were Reid, Roy, and Riley.

My mother hadn’t murdered my father. She wouldn’t get her manicured hands dirty. In fact, she probably hadn’t hired it out. She was too smart for that. No, Connie Wolfe was simply doing what she always did, taking advantage of the situation at hand.

She wasn’t a killer.

Neither was I, despite my rash actions as a teen.

And neither was Lacey.

Why would anyone want to implicate Lacey? Was there something I didn’t know about her?

I laughed out loud. Funny. There was a lot I didn’t know about her.

Of course, there was a lot I did know about her too. I knew she had a tiny raised mole at the top of her right thigh and an angel’s kiss birthmark on the back of her neck. I knew she had the sweetest natural fragrance. I couldn’t get enough of it when I was kissing her neck. I knew her hair smelled like pineapple and coconut, and that her nipples got hard when I so much as looked at her.

But I didn’t know her favorite ice cream. I didn’t know what she liked to read for pleasure. I didn’t know why she’d chosen to go into law as a career.

Still, there was no doubt in my mind that I loved her.

Loved her so damned much.

The thought of my life without her in it…well, it would be no life at all.