Page 96 of His Sinful Need

“Max,” I confirm. “Max Pedretti.”

Dad laughs. A horrible, cold, mirthless laugh, his eyes fixed on me. I wish I’d never come here—but I can’t leave. Not yet. There’s something he’s not telling me. “What are you laughing about?”

He leans forward, gripping the edge of the table, ignoring the warning shuffle forward of the guard nearby, who noticed the loud, cruel laugh if nothing else. “Massimo Pedretti put me in here, boy,” my father hisses. “He’s the reason I’ve rotted away in this hellhole for the past twenty years.”

I pull back. “What? You’re lying,” I say hoarsely.

“Ask him.”

“He would have told me already if he—”

“Oh, he’s got you fooled alright. But he’s a traitor and a liar, just like all the rest. The second you lower your guard, he’ll put a knife in your back.” His eyes blaze with hatred. “He took everything from me, Bricker. My freedom. My life. And now he’s trying to take you, too.”

I can’t speak. I don’t know what to believe anymore. The man I’ve come to care for, the man I was ready to trust with my life...is he really responsible for destroying my father’s?

I can’t believe it.

Iwon’t.

“Don’t let him get away with it,” my father hisses. “Promise me, Bricker. Promise you’ll make him pay.”

I stare at him helplessly, wordless. This can’t be true. Surely. Maybe my father’s figured out what I was working up to telling him, maybe he’s still pissed about me being gay, trying to undermine me. “Things havechanged—” I start, but my father slams his fist on the table.

The bang echoes through the room, making the guard give a warning grunt this time. “Have you lost your mind, boy?” Dad snarls. “He’s poisoned you against me! Can’t you see that?”

“No. Max is…he’s…” I falter, unable to find the words.

My father’s eyes widen in understanding. Disgust twists his lips. “Oh, Jesus, Bricker. Don’t tell me you’refuckinghim.”

I flinch.

For a long moment, my father just stares at me. The revulsion on his face cuts me to the core. Then he laughs again, a low, choking sound. “My own son. Seduced by the man who destroyed our family.” He spits on the floor. “You’re no better than him. Get the fuck outta here.”

I feel something inside me start to break. The foundations I’ve built my life on—loyalty, family, trust—all of them are crumbling.

I don’t know who I am anymore.

I stumble from the seat in a daze, barely aware of my surroundings. The guard’s bang on the door, his call—”Visitor leaving!”—echoes in my ears as I stand and back away, but it’s distant. Muted.

And my father doesn’t even look back at me as he’s escorted back out of the room.

I get outside somehow, get to my car and slide inside, resting my head against the wheel. My heart is pounding against my ribs.

Max.

Not Max. Not the man I’ve come to trust more than my best friend, more than my entire crew.

Max has been lying to me this whole time? My hands shake so hard that I have to grip the wheel to stop them. If Max knew who my father was, why not say something? Why let me bare my goddamn soul to him, night after night, believing he was doing the same?

No. It can’t be true. But…

I need to find out for sure.

I start the car, peeling out of the lot. By the time I pull into the driveway at home an hour later, I’ve gone past feeling sick and straight into fury. I sit there for a long time in the car, glaring at the front door. Preparing myself for confrontation.

What if it’s true?

I can’t kill him, obviously. I can’t hurt him at all.

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