Zarya rolled her eyes at his assumption. Most likely those conversations came while Darling was on pain medication for the beatings Arturo routinely gave him.

Or the meds they pumped into him whenever he was in an institution.

Drake laughed bitterly. “By the time I hit fifteen, I was basically psychotic from everything I’d been through. I couldn’t stand any of them. Not my mother, my sister, and definitely not my brother, whose every scandal rained down on my ass like a firestorm. I didn’t want to be in school anymore and deal with that shit, and I hated Darling in a way you can’t imagine. The handful of times I’d seen him over the years, he was either so effeminate or so terrified of his own shadow that he repulsed me. Every time I turned around, Lise would call saying Darling had tried to kill himself again. I prayed every night that his next attempt would not only be successful, but come sooner rather than later…”

Wanting to slap him for that last comment, Zarya gaped at another tidbit no one had mentioned. What else didn’t she know about Darling’s past?

Drake drew a ragged breath. “I never saw Darling that he didn’t have his head down and his arms wrapped around his body as if he was trying to become invisible. He’d cower and cringe if anyone came near him. He wouldn’t look anyone in the eye. Not even me. I thought he was a worthless coward, and I have called him every insult you can imagine.”

Tears welled in her eyes as she realized that what Drake had seen was the aftermath of Darling’s rapes and abuse. The times in his life when he’d needed his family most of all.

The times when they’d all let him down and left him to face it.

Alone.

She tried to tell herself that Drake, who was three and a half years younger than Darling, had been far too young to realize what was going on, but still she was mad at him for being so selfish and stupid.

“The summer I turned fifteen,” Drake continued, “if all of that wasn’t bad enough, I found out that Arturo was syphoning off our inheritance. When I asked Darling if he knew, he sounded wasted as usual. He told me to let it go and not worry about it—that it was no big deal. Furious over his cavalier attitude, I signed myself out of school and came home. I’d intended to stay here and be taught by a tutor like he was so that I could keep an eye on our money before Arturo stole it all. Darling met me at the front door on my arrival and told me I needed to leave immediately and go back to school. He had bruises all over his face and a busted lip. I asked him what had happened, but he wouldn’t answer. He wouldn’t even look at me. You know what I said to him then?”