As soon as he says the word I know it’s true. They are aching, but he pulls his hand away. In between a single breath and the next he releases my hair and turns me back around to face him. We stand there, connected only by pain, by wanting. I’ve been to mass a million times, but this feels somehow more religious than every moment I’ve spent kneeling.

I want to kneel in front of this man. Want to worship him with my body.

He pulls me against his body, tight and secure, but I can’t stop shivering. It’s a different kind of shock than the one that comes after violence.

This is the echo of intimacy.

“More,” I whisper.

“I’m not going to fuck you in a motel room,” he says, his voice raw.

I breathe out a laugh. I’ve heard the antechambers called motel rooms before. Most of the cousins call them that, but I’ve never done anything here. Never even made out with a boy on these leather chairs. At this moment it seems like a massive oversight.

I’ve been too busy helping my mother.

Too busy being hurt by my father.

Footsteps sound outside the antechamber. Finn moves me behind him just as the door swings open. I peer around his arm to see my brother storm in, looking furious.

“Leo,” I say on a gasp.

“So glad you could join us,” Finn says, his tone unconcerned. “A family affair. Will all the Morellis be joining us? Not sure there’s enough seating for everyone.”

He’s always ready for a joke, even when my father was here. Except this is worse. Bryant Morelli is wild, uncontrolled violence. My brother is a sharp blade.

He doesn’t pause. He heads straight for us, straight for Finn, murder in his dark eyes. “Take your hands off my sister. I fucking warned you.”

I’m stunned. “You warned him away from me? Why?”

“Because of this,” Leo says, biting out the words. “Because he’s putting his fucking hands on you, another Constantine. He’s using you.”

“Another Constantine?” Finn says, catching onto that detail immediately.

There’s a dark secret in my past, something Finn can never find out about. No one can find out about it. It would humiliate me, but that’s not the only reason. It’s a loose thread in the black fabric of our family history. If someone were to pull, the whole thing could unravel.

Chapter Four

Finn Hughes

“Don’t fucking talk to her,” Leo says, advancing.