I cut her off, tilting my head. “Papa wouldn’t want me there.” I don’t bother to wait for her to answer, shifting my weight around to look through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that overlook the city below. “He hated me toward the end.”

“He didn’t hate you, Ruby!” Mama scolds, entering into my space. I can feel her anxiety shiver over me as she lowers herself down onto my bed. “He didn’t understand you, and that is different from hate.”

“I can’t do this…” I whisper so harshly I almost choke on the words. “I can’t—”

Warm hands come to my cheeks and it is then that I realize I’m crying. I turn my eyes back to hers. “Mama, I can’t do this. I am not him. I can’t—”

“Ruby!” Her hard tone shakes me. A wake-up, if you will. I knew my obligations and agreed to them a long time ago, but it doesn’t mean that I’m not scared. I’m allowed to be scared around Mama, right? That’s what she’s here for. To allow me to be able to be scared.

I’m not so sure anymore.

Her blue eyes soften as her hands fall to either side of her. “Pack what you both need and meet me downstairs.”

Before she reaches the door to my bedroom, I stop her. “And what about Wolf?”

“Your father wanted everything for that child, Ruby. It was you who took him away from us, so remember that as you move into your new position.” The door slams closed and a single tear falls from my eyes. I can hear him rolling around in his crib. Leaning over the edge, I smile down at him, picking his little body up from the mattress.

“Little wild one…” I press a gentle kiss on his forehead. “Sorry in advance for the family lineage you have and for the things I’m going to have to do to keep us safe.” I know as I whisper those words into his little bed of hair, that I’m not talking about Papa.

Part Two

Chapter Thirteen

I watch the ice melt into the golden liquid in my glass. I don’t often think about my life leading up to the point where I was patched into Wolf Pack MC. Do I feel like a traitor? Fucking definitely, but my life before K Diamond doesn’t mean shit going forward. That everything in my life needs to be superficial because having anything of value only means people can take it.

“Wicked!” Royce calls out from behind me. “We need you down here—now.”