“I’d like to make you promise you won’t leave me if I tell you everything, but I can’t do that.”

“Okay. Now you’re scaring me a little.”

I put my hand over hers. “I’m sorry. But I can’t lie to you. It’s some pretty scary stuff.”

“Are you in any trouble?”

“No. I don’t think so, anyway.”

“Have you done anything wrong?”

“Not regarding my father’s murder.”

“Okay.” She bit her lower lip.

“I’m just going to get out with it. All of it.”

She drew her hand away from mine. “I think that would be best.”

I cleared my throat. “I was sent to military school when I was fourteen.”

“I know that. Your brother Reid explained all of that to me.”

“You mean my father didn’t?”

“No. He just said you’d left the family when you came of age. I asked him for more details but he wasn’t forthcoming. All he’d tell me is that he wanted you at the head of Wolfe Enterprises, and if you didn’t do it, the company and all of your other assets would be sold and his children would get nothing.”

“Nice guy.” I rolled my eyes.

“We all know who he was, Rock.”

I sighed once more. Lacey only thought she knew who he was. She knew a ruthless businessman who made enemies through deals. She didn’t know he abused his children, sexually abused his daughter. Sent his sons off to school to be violated. “Lacey, my father used to beat the shit out of me.”

She gasped. Was she truly surprised by this revelation?

“I’m so sorry.” She put her hand back on mine.

“I’m long over it. I never forgave him, but I got far away as soon as I could, and I never looked back. But that’s not what I need to tell you.”

“All right…”

“My parents sent me away when I was fourteen because…” Damn. This was hard.

“Because why, Rock?” She squeezed my hand.

Blurred images catapulted through my mind.

My lack of thought, only instinctual actions—had to protect my sister—as I grabbed a chef’s knife from the kitchen.

The resistance, like the thick skin of a grapefruit, as the knife sank into my father’s flesh.

The panicked treble voice of my sister.

“Don’t hurt Daddy, Rock!”

Then my father’s strong body overpowering my adolescent one.

Thud to my jaw. Thud to my brow. Thud to my groin.

Lying in a fetal position in Riley’s room.

No tears.

No fucking tears.

Bastard would not make me cry.

Days passed in a blur, locked in my room. No brothers. No sister.

Then…

Military school.

The hazing, the beatings, the sodomy I luckily escaped but witnessed perpetrated on weaker students.

The emotional abuse.

Then senior year.

I became the monster.

All because I’d failed in killing an evil bastard.