But at fourteen, I wasn’t as strong as my father. Not as mean, either.

I got a few stabs in, but he overpowered me.

All the time, Riley was crying in her bed. “No, Rock. Stop it! Don’t hurt Daddy!”

Even after what he’d done to her, she still defended him. My bitch mother had brainwashed my beautiful little sister.

I’d ended up in military school. Sent away. No longer able to protect my precious baby sister. My mother and father didn’t let me speak to my brothers before I left. I’d written Roy, telling him he needed to protect Riley, but later he told me over the phone that he never got the letter.

To this day, I didn’t know if my brothers knew what had occurred. I’d detached myself from them, from my whole family. It was the only way to exist. For a while, I thought of them often, but it faded. Even Riley. I couldn’t protect my sister, so I couldn’t let myself think of her. Thinking of her, of what she might be going through, made me rage, and when I raged, I did things I couldn’t do in military school, or I’d have gotten my ass handed to me on a platter. I went through enough during those years as it was.

I smiled slightly. Seeing Riley again had given me some hope. She had grown into a beautiful young woman with a promising career ahead of her. She’d gotten through it. She’d found her strength and she’d persevered.

I could learn from her.

I knew where my strength was. The next thing was to harness it and pour it into Wolfe Enterprises, even though the thought nauseated me.

I left the gym after an hour, not feeling like I’d worked at all. How was I going to survive without the outdoors?

I sighed, heading back up to my suite. I’d do it. I had to.

I waved the keycard in front of the lock and then opened the door, hoping Lacey was still there. I’d love another fuck, and perhaps I’d been too hard on her. Now that I thought about it, maybe she’d just been trying to help me. To convince me that I could do what I had to do.

“Lacey?” I walked in.

She wasn’t in the living area. She wasn’t in the bedroom. Not in the bathroom.

I was alone.

Reid had texted me to be at the office at nine o’clock Monday morning. I arrived at nine fifteen, wearing a clean pair of jeans and my best shirt—a white cotton button-down. No tie. I didn’t own one. I stopped to tell the receptionist who I was, and she directed me to my father’s—my—office.

Reid was already there. “You’re late.”

A boyish-looking man stood next to him.