Damien tossed back the last of his scotch, then lifted his glass to signal Phil. “Because I don’t need Pratt to find the answer. I already know it. And so, I think, do you.”
“I’ve considered that it might be Jeremiah,” Jackson admitted. “But it doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“On the contrary. It’s the only answer that does make sense. I know I didn’t leak it. You say that you didn’t, and I’m inclined to believe you.”
“Thanks so much.”
Damien’s mouth twitched, but he continued. “We both know that neither Sylvia nor Nikki said anything.”
“There are others,” Jackson added. “Cassidy knows, and so do Jamie and Ryan. But I can’t imagine any of them telling.”
“The only other person who knows is your mother,” Damien said. “And Penny’s not in a position to talk to anyone at the moment.”
“You know about my mom?” Penelope Steele had developed early onset Alzheimer’s ten years ago. She lived now in a facility in Queens, a relatively easy jaunt from Jackson’s office in New York. He visited frequently. Most of the time, she had no idea who he was.
“As you said, I like information. You grew up knowing all about my family. I thought it was only fair I learn something about yours.”
“You could have just asked.” The idea that Damien had been poking around in Jackson’s life pissed him off. Not that this was a new sensation. He’d experienced the same sense of violation when Damien had found his petition to establish parental rights, along with the evidentiary DNA test results confirming that Ronnie was his daughter.
“Now I would. Back when I looked, I didn’t trust you. And, frankly, you didn’t trust me. I could have asked, but you wouldn’t have told.”
Jackson didn’t answer; Damien was right. Instead, he finished his own drink, lifted his finger to signal to Phil that he should pour a fresh glass for him as well. As soon as the drink was in front of him, he took a long swallow, savoring it before speaking again. “He chewed me up one side and down the other for coming to work for you. And then he got in my face about telling you the truth. Doesn’t that cut against our assumption?”
“Do you think it does?”
Jackson sighed. “No. I think that Jeremiah Stark has and always will have his own agenda, and trying to second-guess that man is like trying to predict the lottery.”
“Glad you get it,” Damien said, then he shifted on his stool so that he was facing Jackson more directly. “I want to show you something.” He pulled out his phone, swiped the screen a few times, then handed the device to Jackson.
“Goddammit.” The word burst out the moment he saw the image from last night—Jackson, Syl, and Jeremiah on the deck, right about the time that Jackson was telling his father to get the fuck out off his boat. He didn’t even bother to read the caption, just passed the phone back to Damien. “Those fucking pricks.”
Honestly, it was just as well he hadn’t seen this picture before he and Damien walked down the hill, because he sincerely doubted he could have kept his temper in check.
He fought a shudder as he remembered what had happened after Jeremiah had left. He’d almost taken Sylvia on deck. Demanded she strip for him. That she stand naked under the stars as he stroked her, touched her, fucked her.
His stomach roiled at the thought that she’d come so close to having her privacy violated to the extreme, and he clenched his fists against his harsh and immediate reaction to move out. To stay at a hotel. To tuck tail and run because these lowlifes were messing with him.
Fuck that.
“You’re pissed,” Damien said mildly.
Jackson glared at him. “Some asshole I don’t know has a camera aimed at my home and is snapping pictures of me and my girlfriend.”
He glared at Damien, as if the fact that his brother handed him the picture made him responsible for all this shit. “Damn right I’m pissed.”
Damien nodded as if the response pleased him. “It’s a safe bet that Jeremiah’s not pissed at all. On the contrary, he’s soaking up the attention.” He paused just long enough for the words to soak in past Jackson’s still-bubbling anger. “Don’t trust him, Jackson. Just a little bit of brotherly advice from me to you.”
Jackson pushed down the lingering anger as he considered the other man. “You know, I used to wonder what happened between the two of you. I thought that you were such a shit to him. I mean, I had reason to hate him. He was always gone. Kept me and my mom hidden away. But you had him—and yet I looked at you and thought you were a complete prick. Demanding. A prima donna. Too goddamn full of yourself.”
“So glad your impression has changed,” Damien said wryly.
Jackson chuckled. “About some things. Not others. But seriously, after I learned about Germany—after it all hit the press—”
He cut himself off with a small shudder, thinking of the things his brother had endured, all with their father’s knowledge and without his protection. He thought of Sylvia, who had suffered so similarly, and he had to fight a sudden rush of anger against Jeremiah, Reed, and Sylvia’s father. Not to mention a universe in which even one child had to endure such horrors.
He took a sip of scotch, blinking back a wave of emotion, because now Ronnie was at the forefront of his mind, and he really couldn’t understand the way those men had sacrificed their children, because there was nothing—nothing—he wouldn’t do to protect that little girl.
“Anyway,” he finally said. “I understand why you set up your foundation. It’s a good cause. I’ll be back volunteering as soon as they let me.”
Damien nodded, but didn’t say anything more. Jackson hadn’t expected him to.
“My point is that after all that shit hit the tabloids, I understood your issues. But I still thought you were a shit. I knew all about you after Brighton, remember? Or at least I thought I did.” He’d recently learned, to his chagrin, that Damien’s last-minute land buy in an Atlanta-based development deal five years ago had saved Jackson’s ass, not screwed him. If Damien hadn’t swooped in and destroyed the deal, most of the key players in the Brighton Consortium would have been sucked into a RICO case, their fortunes and their reputations destroyed.
Most of the players, however, didn’t realize that Damien had saved their ass.
“As far as I was concerned,” Jackson continued, “you were heartless. Ruthless. You had to be. How else could you climb so far so fast?”
“I can be all those things,” Damien said easily.
“Can be, yeah. But it’s not who you are.” He downed the last of his scotch. “I’ve seen what you’ve done for Syl’s career. I’ve seen how fiercely you watch after your wife, and I’ve heard about what you’ve done for her friends. And I know now that you weren’t trying to fuck me or anyone over on Brighton.”
He flashed his most charming smile at his brother. “Make no mistake, I’ll call you out the second I think you’re doing something to fuck up Cortez, but as for Damien Stark the man? Maybe you’re not the devil I thought you were.”
“Don’t spread it around,” Damien said. “I have a reputation to protect, after all.”
“My lips are sealed.” Jackson glanced down to check his watch. “Should we head back?”
“In a minute. Detective Garrison asked me to see him tomorrow,” Damien said flatly, referring to one of the two detectives who’d spent the morning grilling Jackson.
A cold, hard knot formed in Jackson’s gut. “Why?”
“Presumably because they think my half-brother committed murder. More specifically, because you also work for me, and as I think I mentioned once, I’ve met Reed a time or two. But all that is just speculation.”
“Well, shit. I’m sorry.”
Damien’s brows rose slightly. “Sorry?”
“That this mess is screwing with you, too.”
“Murder isn’t the kind of thing that stays contained.”
“So what are you going to say to him?”