Over and over again, my arms pumped the metal bar above my head, the heavy metal music blaring into my eardrums fast enough to make me forget the burn in my muscles from the tenth rep and I didn't stop until my spotter tapped me to let me know that I was probably over doing it.

"You good man?"

I wasn't sure.

Lydia hadn't come home the night before, and while she'd called me and we talked most of the night, it still felt like there was something she wasn't telling me, and that didn't sit right with me. I made sure to let her know that I wanted her to sleep over later and I would try and figure out what was on her mind.

In the meantime, however, I planned to focus all of my attention on my career and my livelihood, and part of that was basically killing myself in the weight room.

I was soaking in the ice bath when the phone rang. It was an inconspicuous phone number, not anything that looked like spam. It could have been business, so of course I answered.

"Hello?"

"Emmett. Nice to hear your voice."

Ice flowed into my veins that the sound of the gruff voice that reached my ears from the other line. It was so familiar that it sent memories flooding to the surface.

A lamp was thrown across the room in that particular memory, the lightbulb shattering on the ground upon impact. It all happened in such slow motion that I hardly had a chance to breathe before my father's words reached me.

He called her a slut, told her that she was worthless. Then he started in on me.

I was a waste of space, resources, money...then the first punch was thrown.

"Who is this?"

A tingling premonition slithered down my spine and I knew before even asking the question just who was on the other line of the call. My uncle.

"Don't recognize your own kin? Have to say I'm disappointed. Not in your accomplishments, though. Your old man woulda been proud if he'd been able to see it, that's for damn sure."

"Don't talk about him."

There was a beat of silence where I thought he'd hung up, but I wasn't quite so lucky.

"Touchy subject. Okay, I get it, I get it. I'll back off, no worries. Listen, I talked to that hot girlfriend of yours. I have to say, you sure did one hell of a job there. I've seen the pictures, but hearing her voice...damn. I'm jealous, that's one thing for sure."

The amount of strength that it took for me to keep my composure after his words was superhuman. It was almost impossible, but somehow I held back on completely crunching the phone in half right there in my hands.

"You spoke to Lydia?"

The words ground out of my mouth like I was spitting out metal that I had just chewed up.

"Yeah, she didn't have a lot to say though. Maybe what they say about her being so smart isn't all that true, huh? Still a good catch though. Listen, me and my old lady have been having some issues here lately and I got myself into a bit of a bind with the divorce and she's trying to take half of everything I own! Women, man. So listen, I was thinking that since you and me are kin and that means something nowadays that you wouldn't mind helping me out."

"Helping you out? You leak private information about my past, harass me and my girlfriend, and pain me with this ridiculous phone call just to ask for money? Are you insane, or just completely fucking stupid?"

If this were a cartoon, there would be smoke and fire coming out of my ears, nostrils, hell, even my eye sockets.

"Look man, you already know how much I know. I don't know how much you told that gorgeous little girl of yours, but I know more than the press does. That can all change in an instant, and I don't mind opening this mouth to get what I want. I can sell a story just as easily as I can ask for money from you, I just thought since we were blood and all that you'd want this consideration first. Guess not. Wonder who I'll call first-maybe-"

"Shut the fuck up. What do you know?"

"What do you think? I know everything. From the arrests, to juvie, to-"

"Those were all expunged from my record. I was a minor."

"Maybe so, but I have the proof, the arrest photo, even some of your letters to your old girlfriend at that foster family of yours. Wonder how Lydia will take that news? Not so well I'm guessing."

The begrudged silence on my side of the line basically told him all he needed to know.

"Good, so we're on the same page. I'll call you later to discuss payment options. Have a good night, nephew."

I hated him. Despised him with a vehement force that was akin to the hate that Christians spurned onto the devil.

How dare he try and use that one instance against me- something from when I was only fourteen years old?!

All I'd done was kiss my foster sister and suddenly I was a monster! The family that I'd been staying with-her parents, had called the police and that night I was sitting in a jail cell.

There was no helpful social worker anymore, it was all hard glares and everyone looking at me like I was a criminal. She'd kept insisting that I'd done nothing wrong, that it was innocent, but it didn't matter. I was evil in their eyes, and worthless.

The court case was swift and a brief stint in juvenile detention for something I hadn't even done in the first place was all I needed to prove to myself that my father had been right along- that I was worthless. I vowed that I would never be worthless ever again.

Once I got out, I forgot all about that torturous existence and focused solely on football and I never even looked at another girl until Marnie- yet another mistake.

Something in my subconscious was yelling something at me, or trying to at least. Every single time there was a girl in my life, I lost sight of my career- of football. I needed football. It was everything that my father never was- steady, consistent, punishing yet rewarding at the same time, it was something that could redeem me and destroy me all at the same time.

I let that one stupid girl in my foster home throw me off that path first, then Marnie. Was I going to let Lydia do the same thing, after I'd achieved so much success? I had put everything on the back burner for her already...

But she was worth it.

I was just scared, the commitment phone inside of me trying to steer me away from going all in with her, but who the hell was I kidding? I was way more than all in with her, I was all in and around the corner with her. I'd ask her to marry me that day if it weren't for all her health problems, family issues, school and personal traumas in the way of her being clear headed.

I wouldn't do anything drastic until we were both in that position in our lives to be able to handle that sort of thing, but her keeping her conversation with my uncle a secret was more than a little concerning, and it already felt like she was pulling away from me- maybe not on purpose, but maybe as a defense mechanism to make sure she didn't get hurt?

I needed to talk to her, and I needed to do it before she changed her mind, because everything felt chaotic, like something could break it apart in one single instant. There was a crack in the fabric of everything that held us together, and one wrong move and it would all shatter.

The texts had been from Layla. She was obsessed with this Nate thing, and I was glad that it wasn't something terrible that had happened in terms of life and death.

She was tracking his every move and sending me pictures of his whereabouts, something that I definitely hadn't asked for. He was at a strip club, going to bars, making out with countless women, etcetera, etcetera.

I rolled my eyes at her last paranoid texts, and I was starting to realize that her cheating with my fiancee was probably the best way for our relationship to end, because if it had been me to be the one to end the friendship by way of doing her wrong then I'd probably be six feet under or close to death- by her hand. That girl was nothing short of unhinged.

I reminded myself to text her that she needed to give this up and move on but I had more pressing matters to deal with.

I surrounded myself with notes from the case and anything I could find on Christian- surveillance photos of him in Texas with his family after the court case where he'd been given house arrest instead of remand to a prison awaiting trial. I even had some shots of his father yelling at someone on the phone a few days after the murder of Christian's best friend, but I had absolutely nothing concrete to prove that he was in the state when the murder occurred.

Until...

A quick survey of social media once more led me down the rabbit hole of all rabbit holes. I started on Christian's page, which then led me to his acquaintance from school who was also close with the victim. He had posted a picture with a pretty girl just a few days before the murder.

She was also friends with the victim and had posted a picture with him the day before he was killed. The rest of her page was filled with Rest In Peace photo collages and apparently they'd taken more than one photo together the day before the murder, she just hadn't felt the need to post them previously since she hadn't looked her best in them.

Maria was her name. Thank you Maria, because your prolific social media presence delivered me a goldmine.

There in the background of the picture from the same day- the day before the victim was murdered- was a very familiar face.

Christian.

They were at a coffee house and sipping his coffee and watching the laughing pair take candid shots was the killer himself.

I finally had actual proof that he had been in the state the day before his best friend was murdered.

His name was Josh. Josh Stenson. I hadn't put the name to his face because it was just so much easier to call him a victim, but I had finally gotten proof that would provide him justice.

He'd been shot in the neck. Of course, the killer had been aiming for his head, but his hand must've twitched and the bullet went through an artery in his neck. If it had been on any other part of his body, it would have just been a graze, but it killed him. It was a bloody, grizzly scene, his dark brown, dead eyes staring up at the photographs. I shivered as I remembered them. But I finally did it. I solved his murder.

I took screenshots of all the evidence and emailed it all to Malcolm and exhaled a sigh of relief just as I heard a knock on the door and I was happy to find that Emmett was on the other side of it.

He looked decadent, with a sweatshirt pulled over his workout clothes, dark hair wet from the shower he'd inevitably taken right after his physical endeavor.

My smile quickly turned down as I realized his attitude was sour.

"What's wrong?"

"We need to talk."

I hated those four words.