high opinion of me. But I owed it to Deb, kid. So I've been doing some digging."
My heart leapt. "Have you found anything?"
Zane blew out a breath, like he was still deciding how much he wanted to tell me. "Yeah, or maybe. I found some interesting inconsistencies, but I hit a dead end when I tried to dig deeper."
The vagueness of that statement made me want to snap at him, but I bit my tongue. Zane was under no obligation to help me, and I didn't want to test how far his sense of duty to his dead girlfriend went. "What does that mean?" I asked, trying to maintain a calm tone of voice.
"It means someone has done a hell of a job covering up any trace of your mother’s family line. I think whatever motivation there is to kill you, it has to do with Deb's family. Do you know anything about your grandparents that might help? All the government records have been doctored to look like Deb was an orphan, abandoned as a baby and raised in a group home. Everything has been tampered with. Birth records, so-called state documentation, all of it." Zane sounded pissed off by that, and I was inclined to agree. Because it wasn't true.
"Why?" I asked, confused as fuck. "Why would someone want to erase her family?"
Zane barked a laugh. "Money, kid. It's always about money. So? Can you give me anything that might help? Names or places?"
"Um, yeah." I frowned, searching my memory. "I met my grandmother once when I was really little. I don't remember much; I was probably only five or six."
"Sounds right," Zane muttered. "Deb mentioned her mother had died a few years before we met. Do you know her name or where she lived?"
I screwed my eyes shut, trying to remember. It was so fuzzy though, just flashes of music or glittering earrings or floral perfume. "I can't... I can't remember," I admitted, frustrated as hell. "I can't remember any of it. Why? Why would—" My stomach sank. "This is my father's doing, isn't it?"
"Probably," Zane agreed. "And my little brother just stuck him on a world cruise with Cherry for the next six months to keep him away from you, so I doubt you'll be able to confront him anytime soon."
"Fuck," I cursed, feeling the familiar burn of bitter resentment fill my veins. "Fuck!" I shouted the curse, kicking at a pile of snow and sending the dirty white slush flying.
"My sentiments exactly," Zane commented in my ear.
"Just give me a minute," I snapped. I squeezed my eyes shut again, pinching the bridge of my nose while I tried to force my brain to recall that brief meeting with my maternal grandmother some thirteen-odd years ago. Why had I never thought about her since? Why didn't I even know her name?
Strong fingers snatched the phone out of my hand, and I gasped, my eyes snapping open to meet Steele's angry gaze head on.
He had Luna's phone to his ear, his jaw tight and his brow creased in anger as he listened to whatever Zane was saying to "me" on the other end. Anger burned through me, and I snatched for the phone, only to have Steele twist out of my reach.
"Zane," he said in a voice of clear warning. "You broke the rules."
I tried to grab the phone again, and he held me away with a hand on my chest. The look in his eyes said it all, though. It was a deadly serious don't-fuck-with-me expression, and I stopped trying to reach Luna's phone.
"Well," Steele replied to whatever Zane had said, "loopholes aside, Archer will have words for you. Expect his call later today." He then hung up the phone and tossed it back to Luna who caught it with fumbling hands, her cigarette dropping to the snow.
"Inside," Steele ordered me. "Now."
I scowled in defiance, my lips parting to argue with him, but his expression shifted to something dangerous and somewhat frightening.
"Go!" he shouted, pointing at the door. "I need a word with Luna."
I hesitated a moment, glancing nervously at the red-haired photography assistant, but she gave me a small headshake of assurance.
"It's cool, MK," she told me, "go back inside."
I still wanted to argue, but the way Steele was glaring at me was pissing me off and I wasn't in the mood for the drama. He was standing barefoot in the snow, for fuck’s sake, wearing nothing but a robe and underpants. Whatever he needed to