I turned the glass around on the tabletop. “My father’s guilty as sin.”
“So he’s the one doing all this shit to you?”
I nodded. “Looks that way. John still isn’t sure, but I am.”
“What makes you so sure?”
I snickered. “You know my old man’s a piece of work.”
“Well, yeah. But what’s his motivation? Did he at least give you that? Because what we’ve brainstormed doesn’t really add up.”
“My gut tells me he’s working with another crew. That’s why we haven’t had work in months. And it conveniently started when that bullshit client we almost got ourselves killed for up and decided not to pay us a penny.”
He paused. “You think that shit has something to do with all of this?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I do.”
I finally looked back up at Rupert and saw confusion littered across his face. Yeah, I know. We didn’t have all the pieces. But the pieces we did have all pointed toward my father. My father stood to gain the most and lose the most, no matter what angle we looked at this situation from. My father was the only one who knew my stomping grounds well enough to be able to send a professional team directly to where I was. Hell, he was the only one with enough money and enough anger in his heart towards me to hire multiple professional teams in the first place.
I leaned back. “It’s him. I know it is.”
Rupert shook his head. “Knowing and proving are different.”
“We don’t have to take this to the police. We aren’t putting the man on trial. We’re trying to figure out who’s trying to get me killed.”
“And you’re accusing your father of it, Max.”
“Are you telling me my father would do anything but kill me? You’re really trying to sell that point?”
He shook his head. “No. I’m just trying to play devil’s advocate as best as I can.”
“Might want to leave that to my father. He’s a professional at playing devil’s anything.”
I finally took a pull from my beer and I didn’t stop until the glass was drained. I set it back down onto the table and Rupert filled it up. Then the glass returned promptly back to my lips. Part of me wanted to drown out all of this nonsense. Part of me was ready to wake up from this massive nightmare with two random women in my bed, searching for a third round. But the rest of me knew this wasn’t a nightmare. Everything good--and bad--happening right now was real.
And Dani was the only thing I had going for me.
“So let me ask you this.”
I nodded. “Sure.”
“If you think your father’s in play with all of this, should we start doing drive bys on campus? You know, for Bambi’s sake?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. I honestly--”
I cracked my neck before my eyes fell back to my beer once more.
“I honestly don’t know where the hell to go from here.”
Rupert sighed. “Oh, boy.”
I shook my head. “I just need some time to process all this shit. I need some time to pilfer through what my father said to see if he might’ve hinted at anything I didn’t catch in the heat of the moment.”
“What exactly did your father say?”
“He was cryptic. As always. Warned me about slinging accusations around and that he didn’t appreciate me coming to his place only to accuse him of what I was.”
“What did he say that proved his guilt to you? That’s really all I’m concerned about.”