Turn Up the Heat by Serena Bell Read Free Book Online Page A

she was older than everyone else’s parents. Because his parents had died and his grandfather had died and he knew people died, just like that, without giving you any warning. Without giving you time to get used to the idea or to make plans. But she’d told him not to worry. She’d promised him.
No matter what, Kincaid, I will
always
take care of you.
    She’d died only a handful of weeks after he’d gone to prison, had a fatal heart attack. And he’d blamed himself for that, too, for the stress he’d put her under and the beatings he hadn’t, in the end, managed to save her from.
    “It’s the only thing I can do for her. She took care of me, and the only thing I can do for her is make sure her money ends up where I know she wanted it to go. And not—”
    Not in Arnie Sinclair’s hands. Not in the hands of a man who did the opposite of taking care. Who hurt and destroyed.
    Grant sighed. “But there’s no will.”
    “He hid it, then. Or destroyed all the paper copies.”
    “So you say,” repeated Grant, his skepticism written on his grizzled, bearded face.
    Kincaid didn’t bother to fight him this time. The guy was a lawyer; he couldn’t help it.
    Grant poked a finger against the surface of his desk. “The reality, from a legal perspective, is that there’s no will, and Arnie Sinclair was married to your grandmother. He’s her next of kin, and the money and the land, everything, is his.”
    “He coerced her into that marriage.” It had been during the late stages of the trial, one of the final blows to Kincaid’s equilibrium.
I couldn’t save her from that, either.
    Grant shook his head. “No. She was just—she was a softie, Kincaid. She probably thought she could save him. You know, turn him away from the dark side.”
    Grant was almost certainly right. Nan had once said to Kincaid,
I’m a sucker for the wounded and the feral.
Arnie had been the latter, for sure. But that wasn’t the point. “He hid the will. He stole her money.”
    “Kincaid, I know how painful this is—”
    “I can’t just let it go.”
    “You can, and you have to. There’s
nothing
you can do.”
    “I can find that will.”
    “No, you fucking can’t,” said Grant.
    Kincaid had never heard Grant curse, had never seen him this angry.
    “You make one wrong move and you’re back behind bars. You so much as
breathe
near your grandmother’s property, you so much as bare your teeth in Arnie Sinclair’s direction—I don’t have to tell you the cops in Yeowing hate your guts. You’ll be back in prison so fast, you won’t even have time to call me. Ten years ago, Arnie Sinclair had everyone’s sympathy because he was an ‘older guy.’ Now he’s an
old man.
How do you think it’ll go down if you’re caught on
his
property? Messing with his stuff?
Threatening him?
”
    Kincaid knew Grant was right. And since the assault Arnie had spent almost ten more years in the town where Kincaid had grown up, establishing even more deeply his right to be there, the compassion of his neighbors, the “fact” that he’d been innocent of the abuse Kincaid had accused him of. The law had declared that Kincaid was a criminal and Arnie was above reproach.
    “Not well,” admitted Kincaid.
    “Caid. I know how you feel.”
    Kincaid couldn’t meet his eyes—too much pity there. And too many words in his own head:
I don’t think you do. I don’t think you know what it’s like to discover that the woman who raised you is being hurt, and you didn’t have any idea. I don’t think you know what it’s like to be the only thing standing between someone you love and physical pain. I don’t think you know what it’s like to be at the heart of rage and frustration, to lash out and to wake up from that place to realize you’ve become what you hated.
    I don’t think you know what it’s like to want even the feeblest semblance of justice more than you want sleep or food or sex.
    He flashed on the sensation of Lily’s lithe body