My world shatters, and I try to breathe around the broken pieces stabbing me from every direction. I try to look at him with his cruel, harsh face and pair it with the word “father,” but I can’t make it fit. I don’t want to. All I want to think about when I think of a father is Dad—his smiling face in the ocean picture, the way I always thought I looked like him and Parker looked like Mom.

And Parker. It means everyone was right when they said we didn’t look like siblings, because we aren’t—we’re only half-siblings.…

I force myself away from that train of thought. It doesn’t matter how much blood Parker and I share. Either way, he’s not any less my brother. Dad’s not any less my father. But I still don’t want to believe this man in front of me is anything to me.

“But you were going to let me bleed out,” I say, as if this is all the proof I need. “You blocked their magic.”

He sighs. “I interfered with a competition years ago. For Annalise. She was so powerful, but she lacked the mental strength for competition. I should’ve realized it meant she lacked the mental strength for this life. There’s a reason we began testing people first.” He almost sounds regretful. “It angered people. Xander and Roman were breaking the rules by trying to heal you. Blocking them was what I’d do for anyone else. You need to prove yourself without everyone knowing who you are. You needed to heal yourself. But I stepped in. I had to put my neck out for you.” He does nothing to hide the disappointment in his voice.

“So you’ve known who I was since I walked in.”

“Of course, Ava.” He says my name as if he doesn’t really like it. “I’ve been waiting many years to call you my daughter.”

His voice is still chilly, but did I imagine the thaw in it when he said “daughter”?

“Really,” I say flatly. “Then what took you so long?”

He gives a sharp laugh. “Your mother.”

He looked for me. She said it in that journal entry.

I want him to explain, but if he says one bad word about her, I’ll stick him with a knife. My fingers already itch for them. “She was running from you.”

He doesn’t deny it.

“Why?”