Ruby was talking like a cop. Well, she was a cop. What did I expect? My head no longer hurt, thanks to the drugs pumping into me, but it was still fuzzy, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to face what might be my new reality.

My father might be alive.

My father might be involved in some truly heinous stuff.

My father might have faked his own death.

Or…my father might have been forced to fake his own death.

That made more sense to me. Everything I knew about Brad Steel negated him faking his own death unless someone or something had made him do it.

I closed my eyes, urging my mind to work. Things were still hazy, but I thought about what Joe had told me from his time being held prisoner by Wendy when she delusionally thought he was our father.

Mathias had shown up, and he’d seemed annoyed with Wendy and her antics, yet he hadn’t harmed her even though he’d threatened to. He had demanded what was due him—our father’s money. He’d claimed that the Steels had ruined his life, and then he’d said something about our father’s will. Simpson had shown up, said their beef was never with us. It was with our father. Then he mentioned the will, said they’d made sure there were no loopholes…and one of them said they knew the consequences if they harmed Joe…

That’s all I could recall. I’d have to pick Joe’s brain when my own was working better.

We’d have to search for my father’s will. None of us had actually seen it. It had been read to us by an attorney after our father’s death.

Our father’s death…

Had Wendy been telling the truth? Was my father alive? And had she helped him fake his death?

Why would he fake his death? Unless…

He did it to protect his children.

“What’s churning in that mind of yours?” Ruby asked. “You’ve been quiet for a while.”

The pulse in my throat thumped. “Wendy. My…mother.” God, that was still so hard to say.

“What about her?”

“You said she’d do anything for my father, including helping him fake his own death if he asked her to.”

“Yeah. Do you think that might have happened?”

“A couple months ago, I’d have said ‘no way.’ But now…” I breathed out. “Now, I just don’t know. I don’t know who the hell the man who fathered me actually was.”

“Consider yourself lucky,” she said.

True. She knew who her father was and what he was capable of. He was a monster. But at least she knew.

“I’m not discounting what you’re saying, Ruby,” I said seriously. “I get what your father is. Oh, hell.” I raked my fingers through my hair. “I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

“You’re Ryan Steel.”

“But who is Ryan Steel?”

“He’s the man he’s always been. The man I…” She smiled. “Knowledge—and that’s all this is, knowledge about your mother and your father—doesn’t change your soul.”

I looked at Ruby, her pretty red lips, her rosy cheeks.

All this was big. Huge. And in the midst of it, all I wanted was to lick the smudge of spaghetti sauce off of Ruby’s chin.

She was dressed in her normal uniform of white cotton shirt and khaki Dockers. Her hair was pulled back in its tight bun. No makeup graced her face. Classic Ruby.

But I’d seen her in all her glory—walking down the aisle in a light blue sundress with an orchid in her hair, barefoot on the beach in a miniskirt and tank top, and—the best—naked, moonlight streaming over her tight body, her rosy breasts bouncing as we made love.

Made love.

I loved this woman—this woman who had no idea how beautiful she was. Or who did…and hid it for self-protection.

“Take your hair down, baby,” I said.

She widened her eyes. “I was in the middle of a sentence.”

Had she been? Right, we were talking about my father possibly being alive. Then I’d started thinking about Ruby naked.

“I’m sorry.”

“Once you’re feeling better, we’ll check your phone records and get the number of whoever called you. We’ll get to the bottom of this, Ryan. I promise you.”

Ruby didn’t make promises on a whim. I knew that much about her. She meant to solve this puzzle. After all, she was as involved in it as the rest of us were.

“You want to know something really weird?”

I smiled. “Always.”

“My father called me yesterday too.”