Page 197 of Things We Left Behind

Knox slapped his brother in the chest. “Did you make him dump her?”

“Ow!” Nash rubbed his pectoral. “Watch the bullet hole.”

“There was no one to dump because we weren’t together,” I said despite the fact that no one seemed to be listening.

“Hotshot, you’ve got some explaining to do,” Lina said.

Nash sighed. “He wanted to know what we’d found about the threats. I told him what we had. Then he wanted to know my theories. So I told him.”

“And what were those theories?” I demanded.

“That either you pissed someone off over late fees or some shit, or maybe the timing meant there was a possibility you were being targeted because of your relationship with Lucian.”

“Once again, I don’t have a relationship with Lucifer. Second, we were sneaking around. No one knew we were not having a relationship. And third, I’m nothing to him. No one would try to manipulate him by threatening me because he literally doesn’t care.”

“That’s bullshit,” Knox said, tucking his wife under his arm.

Nash nodded. “Agreed.”

“Gotta side with the testosterone twins,” Stef said, hooking his thumb in their direction.

“They know something,” Lina said, narrowing her eyes.

I crossed my arms. “Then they better say it.”

The brothers shared a look.

“Uh-­uh. None of that telepathic guy code,” I insisted.

Nash cleared his throat. “Evidence suggests otherwise.”

“What evidence specifically?” Naomi pressed.

“When you blew into town and needed money, Lucy coughed up half the cash to fund the grant that paid your salary,” Knox announced.

“How do you know that?” Naomi asked him.

“Because I paid the other half,” he said.

Naomi sighed. “Just when I think I couldn’t love you any more than I already do.”

I slapped the bar. “Hang on. You’re saying I didn’tearnthat grant? That you two bozos justdecidedto give the library the money?”

Knox shrugged. “We heard the funding you applied for wasn’t gonna come through. So we made it happen another way.”

“That’s very generous of you,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Uh-­oh. Sloane’s going to explode,” Stef observed.

“No, I’m not.” The effort to keep from shouting made my throat hurt. “Why would he do that? He’s always hated me.”

“No, he hasn’t,” Lina and Naomi insisted together.

“At the risk of breaking man code, let me tell you a story about Lucian’s bike,” Nash said.

“I don’t care about Lucian’s bike,” I snapped. “I want to know why the guy who told me I wasn’t worth his time because I’d ruined his life would dump money into a cause I care about.”

“It’s a metaphor,” Nash promised. “Luce’s aunt and uncle who lived in California got him this sweet mountain bike for his thirteenth birthday. He loved that thing. Rode it everywhere. Washed it every other day. Two weeks after he got it, Ansel got pissed at him for not taking the trash out or mowing the lawn crooked or some shit like that. He took the bike out of the garage, threw it in the driveway, and then backed over it with his truck.”