“The day I let you go in the maze. I wasn’t supposed to.” His eyes squeeze closed.

“Wait.” I push up from the car, searching his eyes. “You were locked up in that den because you let me go?”

“It was you or me, and because K Diamond didn’t have a beef or need for you, I knew I could negotiate so long as it happened before Skully came back. Only he never came back…” He frowns, looking out the window as if lost in thought.

“I’m sorry—” The tears fall down my cheeks and the emotion that I’ve tried so hard to keep on track releases. It’s as though the floodgates tear through me, and I can’t do anything to stop them. “I was such a brat too.”

He chuckles, pressing my head against his chest. “Just how I like you.”

We stay in silence all the way back to the clubhouse. I can feel the tension rolling off of him, and by the time we pull up, he’s agitated to the point that I can see it.

“What’s wrong?” He takes my hand gently and slides me out the back of the car.

“Nothing. Come, Betty has Wolf asleep in her room so that he doesn’t get to see any of this.”

I let him direct me through the clubhouse, upstairs and into our room. I don’t waste time heading straight for the shower. Wicked turns it on for me before his fingers graze the edges of my spine. I step under the water, letting it turn red as it washes over my body. Over the last couple of months, I’ve lost my mother and who I thought was my father, and gained yet another, but this time, I feel he’s much worse. How could someone raise a child that long as their own and not share any compassion or care at all? Everything he told me. The act. A lie. I know I’ll have to take this to the Commission this coming week and tell them what has happened, which is going to leave the La Rosa family in a volatile position.

The thing is, I don’t want it.

This was Victor’s world. I don’t want anything to do with it anymore.

I scrub up, get dressed, and once I’ve reentered back into the bedroom, I see Wicked placing a still sleeping Wolf down onto his bed.

He walks over to me, wrapping an arm around my back and pulling me in close. “I have to go down for church with the brothers. You okay here?”

I nod, resting my head beneath his chin. “I don’t want it, Wicked.”

The silence stretches between us, and I know he understands what I mean. “I know, baby. We’ll figure it out.”

I push away from him, bringing my eyes up to his.