“Why?” I mumbled against his now-soaked shirt. He should have yelled at me for messing it up with my tears and snot, but he merely pulled me closer, not letting me go.

“Why did your mom hide the money? Or why did I tear down your father’s company?”

I sniffled and pulled back to look at him through my blurry vision. No. There was so much more to it than that. Something far more important.

“Why did you help us?”

For once, it looked like I finally caught Warren off guard.

“He was my friend,” he said. “Regardless of…”

“Of what?” I asked. “What did he do that made him so bad? That made you want to tear him down and throw him out just like you do all those other assholes? He was your friend.”

I gripped his shirt. My hands were shaking, fear of what he was going to say rampaging through my being.

Yell at me. Get angry. Something.

Please stop being so gentle.

He cast his eyes downward before meeting mine again, but this time they were hardened.

“Your father was the best man I knew,” he admitted. “When my father died drunk driving when I was nine years old, he was the person I went to. He hid me in your grandmother’s house for a whole month before I was sent off to the orphanage.”

My entire body seized. The orphanage? This was something I’d never known about Warren. My dad never mentioned it either.

Warren was private about his family life; no matter who tried, they couldn’t dig up anything without being slapped with a lawsuit.

“It wasn’t until I was rehomed with my adoptive father that we met again.”

“I thought he was your real father. The media never said… I never knew…”

The donation to the orphanage made sense now. It made my heart break for younger Warren.

“For all intents and purposes, he was my real father.” Warren smiled as he reminisced and took a deep breath. “He was so important to me. By the time your father and I met again, we were both in high school, and we got close. All the way up through college and into our early careers, I was by his side. Graduation. First apartments. He was there when my first business failed. I was there for his marriage, but once he had you…”

His thumb wiped off a stray tear falling down my cheek.

“He’d changed into someone I didn’t know. Addi, I don’t want to ruin your image of your father, but he did some shady shit. Took advantage of the people in his company. Refused to pay them what they were due when they got sick or injured. Why do you think he was able to make all the money he did? And before me, even though we started at the same time? Because he was taking dangerous shortcuts⁠—”