Diesel nodded. “Biggs and Tiny both said he was messed up for a long time, but then he became one of the best guys they knew, and my mother never gave him a chance to decide if he wanted to be part of my life.” Pain and sorrow laced his words with an underlying anger she understood. “She had three chances to tell him. She saw him twice when I was little, and she never told him the truth, and she never saw him again after that.” He made a fist and rubbed it with his other hand. “I trusted her my whole life, and now what? It’s all shot to hell? What the fuck, Trace? What do I do with that?”

She took his hand. “You do the only thing you can. You forgive her. It sounds like she was doing the best she could with the information she had. You read what he said to her, that he’d mess up a kid.”

He looked away.

Tracey touched his cheek, bringing his grief-stricken eyes back to her. “Diesel, we all make mistakes. Big, awful mistakes. But think about where your mom was in her life back then. She was so young, and she knew what it was like to live with parents who didn’t want her. Only a selfish mother would knowingly put their kid in that situation. She was looking out for your best interests, not trying to pull the wool over his eyes.”

“What if he would have changed if he’d known?”

“Would you have? From what I just read, it seems like you unknowingly followed in your father’s footsteps after your mom passed away. You took off just like he did after he lost his girlfriend, and you said you never looked back, never stayed in one place too long. If one of the women you’d had sex with had gotten pregnant, could you have suddenly changed your ways and stuck around? Become a good parent? Because I’ve watched our friends with their babies, and babies change everything. They take up all your time and energy, and you need a lot of patience and love to be that selfless. Even people who plan to have kids complain about how hard it is. I think it’s a blessing in disguise that Axel knew himself well enough to realize and to tell your mother up front what he wanted and for your mom not to have thrust it on him.”

Diesel’s whole body seemed to tense up, his brows slanting.