unsurprising. "He's been working hard lately; I'm impressed."
Cass grunted a sound of agreement. "He told me he wants to start doing practical labs as soon as his high school exams are done. Kid doesn't wanna waste any time."
"I hope he's not doing it because he feels like we need him to upskill," I commented thoughtfully. "I hope he isn't feeling pressured to do this just to be more valuable or something."
Both Cass and Zed stared at me for a moment, then Zed grinned.
"Seriously?" he asked. "Fuck, you're cute when you're clueless."
Confusion rippled over me as I sipped my drink. "Huh?"
Cass leaned back in his seat, pulling his weed pouch out to roll a joint. "That's exactly why he's doing it, Red. He wants to impress you. Doesn't make it a bad thing, though. Gave him a goal to strive toward."
The doorbell rang, interrupting whatever I might have said back to that, and I frowned. "That's too fast for pizza. They said they were slammed right now."
"I've got it," Zed murmured, pulling his gun as he moved inside the house.
I turned my attention to Cass, ready to argue the fact that Lucas wasn't doing all his EMT training just to impress me, but Cass met my gaze with a knowing smirk.
He got up from his seat and came to settle beside me as he lit the joint. He took a drag, then passed it to me as he draped his arm around me.
"Lucas is one hundred percent trying to impress you, Red," he rumbled, "but there's nothing wrong with that. He seems to enjoy the course material, so who cares what his motivation is?"
"I guess," I mumbled, drawing a deep lungful of smoke.
Zed returned then with no pizza in his hands but a manila folder instead and a curious look on his face. "That was Dallas," he announced. "I didn't invite him in because, well"—he waved a hand at Cass—"but he left this. Said it's the info on Lucas's genetic match."
I sat up straighter, passing the joint back to Cass, and held my hand out for the folder.
Zed handed it over, then sat back down. "Should we wake him up?"
I hesitated a moment, my finger under the envelope flap. Then I licked my lips and shook my head. "We can show him in the morning; it's not time sensitive."
And yet I wasn't exactly putting it down. Zed arched a brow at me accusingly but didn't stop me when I tugged the paper out of the envelope.
"Oh shit," I breathed, my eyes scanning the first page before handing it to Zed. The second page was a photo of the man who was not Lucas's sibling... but his father. Or that certainly seemed to be what the results suggested.
"Captain Brant Wilson," Zed read aloud from the paper. "Date of birth and genetic matches suggest he would be Lucas's biological father. Says he was enlisted in the US military until around ten years ago when he made the switch to working for... Ah fuck." Zed had spotted the part that’d made me curse.
"The suspense is killing me, guys," Cass drawled, sounding anything but tense.
"Ten years ago Brant Wilson took a position within the FBI. All records past that date have been redacted beyond Dallas's capabilities." Zed held the paper out to Cass to read for himself and gave me a grimace. "That can't be a coincidence. Right?"
I snagged my drink from the table and downed the whole thing in one gulp. "Nope," I croaked, handing Zed the photograph of Brant Wilson that I'd been looking at. "Recognize him?"
Zed frowned at the picture a moment, then his eyes widened and flicked back up to meet mine. "Is this—?"
"Yup," I replied, feeling sick.
"Fill me in," Cass rumbled.
My mouth felt dry again, so I swiped his whiskey for a sip. "That"—I tapped the photograph that Zed handed him—"is someone who was caught snooping around the Cloudcroft docks a few months ago. He was caught taking pictures of incoming shipments, and when questioned, he claimed to be a spy for the Diamondbacks."
Cass blew out a breath, grimacing. "You killed him."
I nodded, dying inside. "I killed Lucas's dad."
38
Seph and the pizza interrupted any more discussions we could have about Lucas's bio-father and the fact that I'd put a bullet through his head just four months ago. Only one decision was made, and that was not to tell Lucas about my part in Brant Wilson's disappearance. We would give him the packet of information Dallas had delivered and leave it