His mother’s friend didn’t come back after that afternoon. Dev never saw Pearl again, and Saturdays changed. Everything began to change that one Saturday afternoon, and it wasn’t until years later, when Dev was older, that he began to understand why.
When was the last time he’d thought of Pearl? Hell. It had been years.
His mind shifted back to Lawrence. The man was a virus that infected everything he touched, that much was true. Too many people who had business dealings with Lawrence, from his estate lawyer, Edmond Oakes, to several high-ranking city officials, had become tainted and twisted, either implicated or complicit in what Dev had suspected of Lawrence.
Hell, Lawrence was more than a virus. He had been a fucking cancer.
A shadow fell over the table, drawing his gaze. Justin stood there once more, holding a manila envelope. “Sorry to bother you, Mr. de Vincent, but this was left for you at the door.”
“Was it?” He reached for the envelope, taking it from the man. “By whom?”
“It appears to have been placed in the mail slot just a few moments ago. No one saw who left it there.”
Interesting. “Thank you, Justin.”
The man nodded and then scurried off while Dev looked at the envelope. His name was typed across the center of the envelope. Turning it over, he tore the top, unsealing it. At first he thought there was nothing in it, but as he reached inside, he felt something smooth. Dev pulled out an eight by eleven photograph.
What the . . . ?
A photograph of him and Lawrence de Vincent, his father . It was taken at the last charity function Lawrence had attended with Dev before Lawrence’s . . . untimely passing and only a few months after Dev’s suspicions about Lawrence had been confirmed in ways he could’ve never imagined.
Neither of them was smiling as they stood side by side. Neither of them looked like he wanted to be there. And neither of them was doing a good job hiding their immense dislike and distrust of one another.
Dev remembered the night of the Ulysses Ball. It was that evening, in the car to the event, the man who’d raised Dev and made him who he was today had scornfully told him that he and Gabriel were not his children. Only Lucian and their sister, Madeline, were.
Hell, Dev had never felt relief like he had right then. Some might believe that Dev was a monster, but if they knew what he did about Lawrence, they’d know what Archie had said earlier was true.
Real evil always had a face.
His brothers hadn’t known that Dev knew the truth before them. His brothers hardly knew anything.
Not even what Dev had learned before the night of the Ulysses Ball. A secret so fucking life-changing that he still, to this day, had no idea how to tell his brothers.
How to even deal with it himself.
If he could spare his brothers the knowledge of how evil, how spiteful the man who raised them was, he would. Damn, if he wasn’t trying to go to the grave with what he knew. It would be . . . better that way.
But it wasn’t the photograph that caused Dev’s jaw to clench. It wasn’t even what the photograph symbolized. It was the message scratched into the film by what looked to be a needle or some other thin, sharp instrument.
I know the truth.
Chapter 6
Rosie spent the better part of the weekend alternating between replaying the verbal fisticuffs with Dickhead de Vincent, being furious with herself for the momentary lapse of sanity when she’d been pretty damn aroused by the Dickhead and worrying about Nikki.
Which meant she was antsy and unable to sit still for longer than a minute at a time. This left her with only one option.
Rage cleaning.
She attacked every inch of her apartment. The living room and kitchen were practically sparkling and by the time she finished the bathroom adjacent to her bedroom, she felt that an immune-compromised individual could safely eat off the floor in there.
The bathroom was Rosie’s second favorite place in the apartment, coming in behind the balcony. The balcony only took first place because of its comfortable chairs and the view. After standing all day, either working the register or in the kitchen of her parents’ bakery while her parents, with the best intentions, periodically demanded to know exactly when Rosie was going to put one of her three college degrees to use, it was nice to sit up there and people watch.
That special scene—the one reserved only for people ready to get married and have babies.
Rosie already had that, at least the get-married part, and she wasn’t sure she’d have that ever again or if she wanted to.
By the end of those days when her parents and sister, Bella, were on her, Rosie wanted nothing more than to kick her feet up and drink wine out on the balcony, under the churning fans, doing nothing but people watching and listening.
The claw-foot tub and the balcony were what sold the apartment. She’d stumbled across it two years ago. Getting into the apartment had taken some patience since the tenant had left a lot of their personal belongings behind.
But it had been worth the wait.
Her apartment was rather small, but the bathroom was humongous in comparison. It was like the apartment was built around the bathroom. At least that was what she liked to think. In reality, the bathroom was probably originally a bedroom or something, but it was just amazing.
A double-sink vanity and long mirror offered more than enough room for all her makeup and hair stuff, which was quite impressive considering she did have a mean makeup addiction. She was constantly on the lookout for the perfect foundation. Her skin tone did not make that easy. Foundation often looked amazing in the soft lights of the bathroom, but once she stepped out under the sun, she either appeared ghastly ill or like she’d baked herself. So the drawers were filled with samples and half-used jars she hadn’t parted with, because maybe one day, magically, the foundation would work. Not only did the bathroom have that amazing vanity with a space underneath for a chair, it had a beautiful porcelain tub that had probably been in this apartment since the dawn of time.
There was also a decent-sized detached shower with classic subway tile. She could lie down in the bathroom, stretch her arms and legs out, and make bathroom angels without touching anything. Perfect. And if she did that right now, she knew she’d be fresh and clean since she’d scrubbed the tile floor for about an hour.
Rage cleaning was a lot like depressed cleaning, which was what she did whenever she really allowed herself to sit and think about Ian. It was no big surprise that he was lingering in the back of her mind since it was the anniversary of his death, but there really wasn’t a day that went by in the last ten years that Rosie wasn’t reminded of him.
Hell, nearly every time she walked into Pradine’s Pralines, the bakery run by her family since its creation, she thought about how Ian used to come here after school and study at one of the small booths at the front of the store.
Sometimes, when she was at the bakery, behind the register, and if she tried hard enough, she could see him sitting there, nibbling on the cap of his pen as he pored over his homework.
Those were the memories she held on to.
And Devlin thought she didn’t know anything about marriage and love? What an asshole.
Irritated all over again, she stomped out to the kitchen and made a beeline for the bottle of moscato in the fridge. She poured herself a glass and walked over to where her laptop sat open on the coffee table.
She needed a distraction and she had the perfect one. The video that had been sent to her this morning was paused on her laptop. She’d already watched it about two dozen times and was prepared to watch it two dozen more.
And it wasn’t even a video of puppies stumbling around and being freaking adorable either. It was better than that.
Plopping down on her couch, she balanced the laptop on her knees and hit play.
NOPE had caught something on film.
It wasn’t a full-bodied apparition, but the shadow darting across the hallway was definitely not a floating dust bunny.
Setting her wineglass aside, she picked up her red-framed glasses and then brought the screen as close as she could to her face. She hit the play button again on the grainy image. The moment the shadow blob appeared at the end of the hall, across from the baby’s room, she hit pause. Squinting, she tried to make out any sort of definition to the blob.
It looked like smudge on the camera or a flying grocery bag, but she knew that wasn’t what it was. She hit play and then slowed the film down. It still looked like a grocery-bag-blob when it disappeared into the opposite wall. What followed could only be described as the sound of a sledgehammer hitting the floor.