Retribution: An Alpha Billionaire Romance (Secrets & Lies Book 3) Read Online Free Page B

her blanket in the middle of the kitchen, everything carefully moved out of her reach as she's started crawling, and can pull herself up to a standing position. She seems content though with her teddy bear and a floppy thing that I realize is actually a book that's made out of cloth. Right now, she's chewing on the letter E and the elephant printed on the cloth, turning it a darker shade of white than it was before.
    “So how did you learn about the threat?” Nathan asks. We know the basics, Peter's coming after us again. Now it's time to find out the details, and Katrina works best when she can start at the beginning and tell the story at her own pace.
    “I've been using my digital connections as well as Darcy to learn what I could without having to go to New Orleans itself,” Katrina says, sipping at the green tea that Nathan made for everyone. “I was also able to hack some of Peter's financial connections, things like that.”
    “And what did you learn?” Carson asks. He's already typed out a message to the movers, they'll be picking up Ascension in a few hours. With that taken care of, he's focused on our family, his face calm.
    In fact, looking around the table, I feel like everyone is calm other than me. After the initial excitement of hearing about Andrea's pregnancy, my anxiety is worse than ever. What if Peter comes after us when Andrea's having problems? What if she has a miscarriage because of the stress of all this? What if...
    Katrina's voice interrupts my frenzied thoughts as she answers Carson. “For most of the past few months, Peter's been relatively quiet. Until about three weeks ago, when he called on financial markers he has left, scraping together about two and a half million dollars. I couldn't find out what it was for at the time, so I had a couple of friends put tracers on it.”
    “Nothing came around until today,” Jackson says, spurring the story along. He knows his wife, and knows that if we let her, Katrina will bore us all except Andrea to death with her detailed descriptions about how her tech wizardry works. “Then we got a message.”
    “What was it?” I ask, trying with all my might to at least be somewhat helpful. I know my family tries to take care of me, but it hurts to feel like any time something related to Peter comes up I'm left with nothing more than watching Baby Andrea. I know I have my challenges, but I have to overcome them. I need to be more than just dead weight.
    Katrina takes a deep breath and looks around. “My parents are dead.”
    I'm not the only one who gasps, as Andrea looks like she's about to drop her teacup before she sets it down carefully. “What happened?”
    “Heavy-caliber rifle shots taken at a long distance. My mother had been released from federal custody a month ago as part of the deal to testify against Peter, while my father was transferred to protective custody and transferred. She was visiting him in prison, a minimum security place in Arkansas that allows conjugal visits,” Katrina says, her voice calm. “They were walking toward the trailer that the prison has for the visits when they were hit by two shots, both in the chest.”
    “Jesus,” Carson whispers, and my breath is nearly whistling in my lungs. I can't focus, I can barely breathe. I'm paralyzed, unable to do anything but sit there and listen as Katrina continues.
    “The prison investigators found the weapon six hundred yards away, a German G22 sniper rifle,” Katrina adds, taking another sip of tea. “Along with a note that simply said one & two. It was printed, no fingerprints or other marks so far.”
    “But the note obviously means that whoever killed them isn't finished,” Jackson adds. “And we got another whisper, a friend of Katrina's in that area who'd been keeping an eye on the Grammercys. Apparently there was a new woman seen in town around the same time as the killings, one who's disappeared in the twenty-four hours since then. The cops don't suspect