AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Trey didn’t know how to answer. What should have been a minor infraction for anyone else was monumental for Dahlia, but she was completely unaware of it all. If anyone was the problem in this situation, it was him.
He felt her hands slide over his hips and up his bare chest, pressing her breasts to his back.
“Can I make it up to you?” she whispered.
Her hands trailed over his stomach, going in a direction he knew would lead to the ultimate distraction. He grabbed her wrists, tightening them over his stomach.
“I grew up with Rogue and Oz.”
It wasn’t the best timing, but this conversation was imperative. It had to happen now.
Dahlia stilled, and he knew why. He was giving her a part of his past. Up until now, he hadn’t given her much of anything personal. He wasn’t prepared to lay it all out for her tonight, but this would be a start. A way of easing her into his life and how he came to be with the Underground.
“You mean like when you were kids?”
Trey unraveled from her hold and walked across the room, taking a seat in the chair in the corner. He pulled off one shoe, then the other, and she curled up on the bed with her legs tucked under her butt, waiting on him,
“Yes. We were in the same foster home for a while until we left.”
“Adopted?”
“No.” Trey paused, knowing he’d have to be careful with how much he gave her. This wasn’t just his story. It was theirs. “When Oz left at eighteen, he took Rogue and me with him.”
“How old were you?”
“Eleven.”
Her eyes widened. “So, he became your legal guardian?”
In time, Trey would give her everything. But for now, he’d keep the details to himself.
“Something like that.” There was nothing legal about anything from that day on. “We started working for Sal.”
Dahlia’s face brightened. “I knew he had good energy.”
Trey smiled. He couldn’t help himself. If she knew the real Sal, she wouldn’t be saying that. But her naïve and ingenuous perception of one of the most deadly and ruthless men he’d ever known was almost refreshing. She was seeing the man Sal was today.
“What about your family, though?”
“I don’t have any family.” He swallowed the knot in his throat. “Rogue, Oz, and Sal. That’s the closest thing I’ve got.”
“But what about your parents?” Dahlia cocked her head.
“They’re dead.”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was somber, feeling a loss that even he hadn’t connected to, but somehow she did. “So Sal raised you three?”
Raised? It was a stretch, but he’d offered an opportunity. A chance most weren’t willing to give. It saved Trey. It saved all of them.
It was Sal’s first act when he allowed the three of them to work under him. Their names were changed, and their history was forever erased, so there was no way anyone could come looking for them. Trey had been fully on board with the move. Sal had given them a complete rundown of the history of their families before he carried out their massacres. Trey’s young brain hadn’t fully comprehended it all at the time, but he had known they were never coming back for him, nor did they want him. The one item he remembered from everything he’d read in the report was even after his mother had given birth to him, she’d refused to hold him, referring to him as a bastard and an abomination.
“I’m sorry, Trey,” Dahlia whispered. She slowly got up from the bed and sauntered over to bend down on her knees, looking up at him. “It’s a shame they couldn’t see the man you’ve become. I bet they’d be proud.”
They wouldn’t, but he couldn’t help but devour her sweetness. Dahlia had an amazing gift of seeing good in people, even if she had to look into the depths of their souls. Sometimes, that was the only place it could be found.
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
Again, he was reminded of her soft, caring heart.
