Page 151 of What Started In Deception

She’d asked him point-blank if he and Nick knew anything new, and he’d said nothing because he had no idea what the hell was going on, but whatever it was, it was big. Will had ditched his date with his wife to meet with Richard Russo. That meant something. Until he knew exactly what, he was keeping his mouth shut.

He moved past the kitchen, then the playroom, stopping in the living room doorway when he found Will sitting on the couch with his elbows on his thighs and his face in his hands. “Hey, man.”

Will glanced up, looking like shit. Messy hair, his pale, drawn face, and exhausted, shadowed eyes left no room to question that he was at his breaking point.

Ty moved farther into the room. “What’s going on?”

Will scrubbed at his face. “She’s gone. She texted me to say she was on her way to Connecticut with the kids. She won’t pick up my calls. She won’t answer my texts.”

Ty sat in the chair adjacent to the couch. “What happened with your date?”

Will shrugged. “Something came up. I had to cancel at the last second.”

“I thought you were trying to fix things. What was more important than dinner with your wife?”

“I can’t talk about it, man.” He exhaled a shaky breath as he shook his head. “And of course, I got a call last night from my client—the one who we played golf with the other day.”

Ty nodded, letting Will say whatever he wanted to say for the time being.

“He decided that today of all days was when he wanted to pull the trigger on his fucking multibillion-dollar merger. I’ve been at the office for hours, drafting shit up so my co-worker could close it up for me instead of being here, trying to fix things with my wife.”

“From what Lydia told me, I don’t think Mac was going to let you fix things.”

Will covered his face again and exhaled several more shaky breaths. “God, man. Everything’s a mess.”

“I guess the good thing about a mess is that you can clean it up.”

Will shook his head. “Not this one. I’m in so much fucking trouble.”

Ty clenched his jaw, knowing that Will was on the verge of telling him everything. “Talk to me, Will.”

“I can’t.” But then he lifted his head after several tense seconds. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Ty nodded, understanding that this was it. “Tell me about it. What’s going on?”

“I’m in trouble with the wrong people, and I don’t know how to get out of it.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I owe someone money. A lot of it.”

“Why do you owe someone money?”

“Because I’m broke.” A tear trailed down his cheek. “Because it’s all gone.”

Ty frowned. “What’s all gone?”

“Our savings. The money that we set aside for the buy-in.”

“What happened to it?”

Will blew out a long breath as he shook his head. “I gambled it.”

Ty struggled not to frown, trying his damnedest to keep his expression neutral. Because of all the things he’d been expecting to hear, this wasn’t it. Will and Asher’s argument now made sense.

“She’s never going to forgive me,” Will said next. “I’m never going to get my wife back.”

“That’s not necessarily true.”