Page 57 of Loving Trent (Love in the Bootheel #5)
“Steven, Shawn’s ex. Yeah, it turns out that Nathan is obsessed with Shawn.
According to Nathan’s journal app on his phone, he tried to shoot his shot with Shawn a year ago, but Shawn turned him down.
Nathan said that Shawn told him he only saw him as a friend and nothing more.
A week later, the first bit of money went missing.
He called it his revenge,” Uncle Joey says, cutting me off.
“How does Steven come into this? I broke that fucker’s wrist and told him to leave town.
Which he did,” I snarl and fight the urge to punch something.
I obviously didn’t look hard enough when I went searching for him, and the picture of him sucking face with Nathan is proof of that.
If this has continued to happen because of me, I’ll never forgive myself.
“Nathan met Steven before Shawn did. Together, they hatched a plan to put Steven in Shawn’s life and get as much money out of him as possible.
According to text messages, the end goal was for Shawn to put Steven on his accounts.
When he did that, Steven would drain them before he, and Nathan took off.
Nathan had access to the money at the restaurant and would do the same there.
The night of the fire, when Shawn broke it off with Steven, it made them mad.
Therefore, they started stealing more money,” Ryan says, but there is something he’s leaving out, and the way my stomach turns means I won’t like this.
“What else are you not saying?” I stare straight at Ryan, but when he looks at Uncle Joey with a pleading look, I turn my attention to him.
“Text messages suggest that the fire wasn’t accidental.
” Uncle Joey, the room… hell, everything fades as a red mist takes over my vision, and the sound of my blood pumping through me drowns out the noise around us.
The cage unleashes inside of me, and there isn’t any turning back.
Nathan and Steven’s days are on a countdown, and it’s in the single digits.
“They’re dead.” The threat comes out as a whisper to my ears, but I don’t think that’s the truth. Uncle Joey shakes my shoulders, and I blink the mist away. “How did they do it?”
“According to the text they snuck in using the code that Shawn had given Steven when they started dating. He went to the second floor and started the fire. They wanted Shawn scared for as long as possible, which is why they didn’t set it on the third floor,” Ryan answers my question.
“But the inspector said that?—”
“The inspector who is Nathan’s brother,” Uncle Joey says, removing his hand to pick up a piece of paper, cutting me off.
“They’re half-brothers who didn’t really get along, but the day after the fire, there was a deposit of five thousand dollars into Nathan’s brother’s account and a withdrawal from Nathan’s. ”
“While Nathan was setting the hallway below Shawn’s on fire, Steven was setting the staircase on fire?—”
I jump up, and in the process, papers go flying along with Ryan’s laptop.
Ryan stops talking instantly as I pace back and forth.
My whole body is trembling, my heart’s racing, and I swear I’m craving the feel of blood running down my hands.
Nathan and Steven’s blood. “They tried to kill him,” I roar.
One second, I’m staring at the kitchen’s closed door, and the next, I’m in Uncle Joey’s arms. No matter how hard I scream at my muscles to relax, knowing someone that I let walk away tried to kill the love of my life pisses me off.
I should have ended Steven that night. “I let him go,” I finally say, taking a deep breath and letting it out.
“You didn’t know?—”
“But he could have come back,” I whisper, grabbing Uncle Joey’s shirt and holding on for dear life. “They could have come back to finish?—”
“Don’t think like that,” Uncle Joey demands.
“Why would someone do that to someone as amazing as Shawn? Stealing money, I understand, but murdering him…. What did they have to gain?” I ask.
“The one thing they were always after… Money,” Ryan says from behind Uncle Joey. I look up and find him standing right behind him. “Steven took out a life insurance policy on Shawn when they first started dating.”
Everything shuts down inside me as if someone has pulled the plug.
My mind stops trying to figure out how someone could be so evil or how I could have lost the love of my life.
Instead, one statement is running on a loop.
Make them pay. I pull out of Uncle Joey’s embrace without saying a word or looking at him.
I’m running on autopilot. It’s the same way I was when I got the letter from Nina, but a million times worse.
Slipping my shoes on, I grab my jacket and slide my arms through it.
“Trent, where are you going?’ Uncle Joey sounds as if he’s far away instead of standing right behind me.
Without looking behind me, I answer him coldly, “To kill two people who thought they could take the love of my life away.” Then I open the door and walk out.