Page 138 of Family Affair

“You don’t trust me not to squeal.”

“No! We do, don’t put words in my mouth. But… ” Cade looked genuinely affronted. His eyes flickered to Frank’s forearm scar, red and puckered even after months of healing.

“But?” Frank waited.

“When the prosecutor puts you on the stand, when there’s pressure, even you don’t know what you might reveal. Everything can be used against us.”

They thought he was too unbalanced to trust, too emotionally fragile to withstand the pressure. A wild card. And partly, he had given them the reason to think so.

Frank’s teeth hurt from being clenched. His entire jaw locked up from the effort of holding it all in. He sauntered toward the window and stood looking out, seeing nothing beyond the thick panel of the clear glass.

“What if Ward also gives an interview?”

“Everything he says afterwards will be considered damage control and not taken seriously.”

“You thought everything out.”

“It’s our safety net, Frank,” Cade sounded almost apologetic.

Frank turned and Cade tensed. But contrary to what these two believed, he could hold his impulses in check. There will be no fight here today, at least not the physical kind.

“Ward controls my money. Remember it when both of us are rooming at the state penitentiary.”

Rick’s poker face slipped, and for a moment he looked chagrined. Cade slanted him a look that saidTold you, giving away the fact that they had discussed the money situation between them.

“Now, if it happens, Cade and I should have access to your portion,” Rick said. “Our company will be managing it until you are released.”

So in Rick’s mind, he was already convicted.

Nice to know, he thought. They were busy planning to move ahead without him.

“Ward has my money,” he repeated. “It’s another agreement we’d put in place when I was indicted. You changed the rules of the game, and now you have to figure it out.”

“The money will just sit there with no growth,” Rick pointed out. “It won’t help you avoid time, much as it pains me to say so.”

“It won’t,” Frank agreed dispassionately.

He’d made peace with letting the criminal justice process run its course. He made the mistakes, and he would own them. But some questionable ethic that had sprung out of nowhere demanded he keep his accomplices out of the harm’s way. Was it love? Compassion? Familial obligation, like Stevie had called it? He didn’t know and didn’t dwell on his motives. He had planned on going down alone to save his parents and Cade some very difficult times. And Ward. He had to protect Ward.

How could he protect him now?

His head buzzing from frantic thinking, Frank felt drained. “Aren’t you tired of constantly living in subterfuge? Of playing games?” he asked them both.

His father gave him that deadpan look he sometimes produced when he hadn’t really understood the question.

Cade’s face was flushed. His eyes, slightly blurry from whatever it was he was on, drilled into Frank with the intensity that bordered on fanaticism. “You and your precious Ward started this business and dragged us in it. None of us can quit this game.”

None of you want to, Frank thought savagely.

“You didn’t have to play at all, but no matter. We will all quit now because the game is over,” he said, knowing he wasn’t being altogether fair toward Cade.

Like Frank, his brother had had little choice in the matter. Rick hadn’t asked Cade’s opinion before he had brought him in to manage the money because Cade had such a knack for it. Another Sheffield with a talent. Another waste.

The difference was, Cade would rather keep making bad choices, going deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole, than stop and face the consequences. For Cade, unblemished reputation was everything. And money. Cade cared about money.

“Calm down, Frank,” Rick said, ready to go to the golf course, and he sounded dismissive. “Everything will work out like it should. We’ve got it covered. But we do need to get together again to discuss your money in case you’re locked up. And soon, before the trial.”

“What is going to happen to Ward?” Frank asked. He urgently needed to see Ward, to give him a heads up about the disaster. If Ward knew, maybe he could lean in on Father and prevent the interview from seeing the light of day.