But that was a big fuckingif. And since Yorke had already confessed to lying about who he was with—and what he was supposedly doing—at the time of the shooting, Brody wasn’t about to take him at his word.
As if reading his mind, Yorke’s next comment was, “You don’t have to take my word for it. I have…proof.”
“Really?” Jagger grinned, his voice rising higher than normal with the man’s exaggerated excitement. “Well,thisshould be interesting.”
“Where’s this so-called proof?” Brody demanded.
“Remove the gun from my head, I’ll show you.”
“Fuck you.” He kept that gun right where it was. “Tell us what it is and where to find it, and we’ll do the rest.”
Yorke’s lips pursed, but after a beat of hesitation he realized he was in no position to negotiate. “There’s a false bottom in the second drawer of my nightstand. Inside it is a safe.”
“What’s in the safe?”
“Several things, actually.” The other man thought better of his smartassed answer almost immediately. “There’s a phone.”
“Burner?”
Yorke nodded. “Tommy got them for us to use a couple years ago, right after we started seeing each other.”
“What’s on it?”
“Texts. Pictures. A few voicemails I’ve saved.” He drew in a stuttered breath. “Everything you’ll need to know I’m telling you the truth.”
“I’ll go,” Christian offered.
Falling in line behind him was Cade. “I’ll go with you.”
Both men listened closely as Yorke spouted off the passcode to open the safe.
“Can you please put the gun down now?” Yorke begged. “Come on, man. Look at me. Even if I wanted to, it’s not like I’d have a chance against the five of you.”
“I’ll put the gun down once they’re back with the phone and can confirm your claims.”
A few minutes later, Christian and Cade returned.
“Found it.” Christian tossed the phone to Liam, who caught it with ease. “Right where he said it would be.”
Powering it up, Liam entered the password as Yorke spouted it off. Once the device was unlocked, Brody and the others watched and waited.
His gun never left Yorke’s head the entire time.
“Holy shit.” Liam’s gaze found Brody’s. “He wasn’t lying.” Several swipes and taps later, he walked over and held the phone up for Brody to see for himself. “There are texts on here going back two years. Pictures, too.”
He studied the images and words, his gut tightening when he realized his teammate was right. Yorke was clearly in an intimate relationship with the man Liam confirmed as Tommy Carrigan. And, from what he’d just seen, it had been going on for quite some time.
“I’m sure, if you haven’t already, you’ll be looking over the event center’s security footage,” Yorke spoke directly to Liam. “If you watch closely, you should be able to see Tommy slip backstage at the same time I walked on stage. That was the plan, you see. When he saw me go up for my speech, that was his cue to go into the storage room and wait.”
“You penciled in storage room sex during your own party?” Jagger shot the man a look.
“Judge if you want.” Yorke’s backbone returned. “It’s not like Tommy and I have a lot of opportunities to meet up, so we have to take advantage when we can.”
The man had a point. But while the evidence of his and Carrigan’s secret affair appeared to be solid, Brody wasn’t quite ready to let him off the hook. And until Liam had a chance to look over that footage…
“We’re taking the phone,” he informed the man still shoved against the wall. “We’ll check out the footage, and we will be having a conversation with your boyfriend.”
A flash of fear raced across Yorke’s face. “Please. You can’t expose Tommy. His family’s just like mine. They’ll never understa—”