Page 124 of Burden of Proof

There was noise again and movement, Hunter navigating through the people who’d come closer to see what happened. His expression was a tangled mess of confusion and anger, barely any worry to be seen.

“I’m fine,” I lied, stepping over the spilled vodka soda glass. “I’ve.. I’ve got to go.”

And before Hunter could get to me, I did what I’d always done best.

I ran.

CHAPTER 38

HUNTER

My brother punched my boss in the face.

Well, Shaw wasn’t technically a boss anymore since the party was meant to celebrate me becoming a partner like him, but Andrew definitely had still punched him in the face. Lincoln looked like he wanted to crawl under a table and evaporate into thin air, but instead he did the opposite. He bolted out of the party faster than I could even register what had happened.

“I’ll go after him,” Silas said, touching my arm.

I looked down at the point of contact, Silas’s fingers soft and delicate around my arm. He didn’t bite his nails the way Lincoln did, not a single hangnail in sight.

“I should go,” I said.

“I’ll tell him you said that.” Silas squeezed, mouth twisted into a grimace. “I think you need to figure out what happened here first.”

“He’s right,” Marshall agreed, and I looked up worriedly at my oldest brother. “We’ll find him. He’ll be in good hands.”

“I know.”

I wanted to be the one to go after him. I wanted to be the one to find him and catch him, console him over whatever hadtranspired that had him fleeing the party with such a dramatic exit. He deserved it to be me, I thought to myself, but Silas and Marshall were already on their way to the elevator, and Andrew was heading for me, shaking out his hand. Lincoln called me Sir, called me Daddy. I should be the one to find him, to take care of him. But Andrew was in front of me, his knuckles an angry shade of red, his face flushed with just as much fury.

“What happened?” I managed to ask, frowning at my brother.

Shaw was still on the floor, but at least now he was seated on his ass with a welt across his cheek and blood pouring out of his nose. Winters was with him, the two of them speaking in hushed tones.

“That piece of shit was trying to blackmail Lincoln,” he said.

“What?”

“I walked over in time to hear him proposition your boyfriend,” Andrew explained.

I was a college-educated man, but I was in a bit of shock over the events that had just transpired, so I felt particularly daft when I stared blankly at my brother before muttering, “I don’t understand.”

“He said he’d been paying Lincoln for years, whatever that means, and he’d tell everyone if Lincoln didn’t have sex with him. Were they involved?”

He’d been paying…

Oh.

“They weren’t involved,” I said.

Andrew swiped his finger across his nostrils, sniffing an inhale. “The rest makes sense, though?”

“Yeah. It makes sense.”

Near the window, Winters helped Shaw to his feet, gesturing with a jerk of his thumb toward the closest conference room.

“Sorry if I fucked everything up for you,” Andrew apologized.

I shook my head before he even finished speaking, pulling him into a rough hug and clapping him on the back before he could think too long or hard about what happened.