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“Impossible is the word,” he gritted. “Mom told me the whole fucking story of how Adeline drove her away. Then all of a sudden, after fourteen years of nothing, she swooped into my life playing Saint Adeline, the patron of long-lost brothers.
“It was all pancake breakfasts, expensive private schools, new clothes, new room, new life. On the day they finalized the adoption, she had the fucking nerve to say how happy she was that we could finally be a family. She and her husbands never said they expected me to be grateful, but their kids did all the time.
“They couldn’t understand why I wasn’t falling over myself to kiss her feet. We fought every time I reminded them she was full of shit. It was really bad between me and Sunny,” River confessed. “He’d come at me swinging, and I fought back. One day, we got into it at school. He threw me through a display case. I kicked him down the stairs.”
“Holy shit,” I cried, clapping a hand over my mouth. Listen, Kenzie. Just listen.
“It took five security guards to break us up and we both ended up in the hospital with a lot of broken shit.” Opening his eyes, River met mine. “That’s when Adeline decided something had to change. She’s started saying crap about the Fairfield not being the best environment for me and maybe we needed space while we worked on our communication in therapy.
“The subtext: she was kicking me out to live in some apartment with Fuller until I convinced a therapist I was ready to play nice with her kids,” he said. “She was doing exactly what my mom knew she would. When shit got tough, the first one to go would be me.
“I didn’t give them the chance. The second I was released from the hospital, I packed up my stuff and moved out. I’ve lived on the streets ever since.”
“How old were you?” I whispered.
The word forced out of him. “Seventeen.”
“Oh, River.” Wetness flooded my lids, blurring the man I was finally beginning to understand.
The whole thing was exactly what River said: impossible. There were two sides to this tragedy and I could see it from both. A young, beautiful woman in a relationship with my wealthy, elderly father. That woman cheats on him and then gives birth nine months later. Would I have done any differently than Adeline? Wouldn’t I demand a paternity test and then find it suspicious when she refused?
But then there was River’s mom. Assumptions and judgments were made about her from the minute she walked through the door. Whether her intentions were true or not, there was one thing that couldn’t be denied, pride and mistrust robbed River of his right to know his father. A father who wanted to raise him, and died without getting the chance.
That made me so fucking sad I sobbed. Burying my face in River’s shirt, I squeezed him tight, crying for the little boy who lost so much before he knew it.
“So what do you think, Kenzie?” A warm hand settled on the back of my head. “It’s okay. I want to know. Was I wrong for hating them? Should I have understood Adeline’s point of view?”
“There is... one thing I want to know.”
River stiffened. I don’t think he realized he was bracing himself, waiting for me to tell him what the Merchants have for most of his life.
“What was your mom’s name?”
River’s face changed, transforming in front of my eyes from the hard, resourceful leader to that young boy—fourteen years old, and the one person who’d always been there for him... gone.
“Liliana,” he croaked, eyes bright. “Her name was Liliana.”
Cupping his cheeks, I brought him down to me, resting his forehead on mine. “I wish we had been neighbors, River. Together, we would’ve run away.”
SUNNY
His head snapped around, spraying blood across my shoes. Rocking on my heels, I tipped my head toward the club entrance, brows furrowing.
“Damn, this song is good. Who’s the artist?”
“Boss,” Ryker said tightly, straining against his charge. “Should we get back to what we’re doing?”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah.” I nodded at Makai. “Hit him again.”
“No, no, no—!”
Makai buried his fist in Yusuf’s gut. He doubled over, saved from hitting the floor by Ryker and Athena locked under his arms.
“Sunny, p-please.” He pleaded with me through two rapidly swelling eyes. “I’m paid up, I swear! Seventy percent cut every month. I haven’t skimmed.”
“Yes, your deposits have been prompt.” I kicked over an empty Chinese food container pacing the alley. “Found out your brother has been taking care of that and the family restaurant while you moved out to Rockchapel. An odd thing to do,” I mused. “You lived two streets over from the restaurant. Now you’re a forty-five-minute bus ride away. Got me wondering if you moved out of Merchant territory for more than the shit commute?”
