Page 67 of Twisted Truths

“Nash, please?—”

“What was your plan? Distract me with Hadley while you get rid of any evidence the police might have missed?”

“No.” Gabriel scrambles to his feet, panicked and breathless. “Fuck, no. I’m not tampering with anything. The police closed the case. I came here because we had nowhere else to go. My priority was getting Hadley somewhere safe, and this was the only place close I could think of.”

I glare at him, my body vibrating with anger. “How am I supposed to believe you when you’re in here pulling the place apart? What are you looking for?”

“I’m not looking for anything,” he insists. “I didn’t want Hadley to see it. Fuck, I didn’t wantyouto have to see it. I thought…” He clears his throat. “I thought if I cleaned it up, it wouldn’t be so brutal.”

My eyes lock on the dark stain soaked into the underlay and my stomach swoops.

“You think I can’t handle the sight of my own mother’s blood?” I hiss, trying to hide how much it’s affecting me. I’m not fooling either of us.

“You’ve had to handle way too much these last couple ofweeks.” Gabriel’s voice is low, careful, like he knows every word could be a landmine. “I’m not here to hide anything. I want to help find out who really killed Zara. If my parents had anything to do with it, I’ll help you burn them to the ground.”

Silence settles around us.

All I can hear is the dull thump of my heart and the buzz in my ears.

I want to hate him. I’m fighting my need to grab him by the collar and kick him the fuck out of my family’s house. But there’s something in his eyes, in the tenor of his voice. It’s raw. Honest.

It screws with every preconceived notion I have of him.

“Why?”

His brow furrows. “Why what?”

“Why are you helping me?”

Gabriel hangs his head. “I feel like I owe you.”

“You owe me?”

“For not keeping Zara safe,” he says.

His words knock the fire out of me. I move over to the couch and sink onto it, burying my head in my hands. “I don’t get it. Why did she come to you? What happened that she felt she couldn’t go to Mum or Paul or Levi?”

Hell, why didn’t she call me?

When Gabriel doesn’t say anything, I lift my head to look at him, only to find him rubbing the back of his neck and looking uncomfortable.

“What?” I demand. “What don’t I know?”

“Zara was pregnant when she came to me.”

The room spins. “She was what?”

“She was pregnant and terrified.”

My ears are ringing and I’m finding it hard to concentrate on what he’s saying. Why didn’t she tell me?

“Who’s the father?”

Gabriel shrugs. “I don’t know. She refused to tell me, but she said he didn’t know, and she was never going to tell him.”

My stomach drops. “You said shewaspregnant. What happened to the baby?”

He opens his mouth, but the answer comes from a soft voice behind me. “You have a nephew.”