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“I’ll go. You lie up here. Absorb some much-needed endorphins from our Pack Alpha,” Leo whispers, pulling Gray to his feet. He’s rewarded with a soft kiss on his forehead before Grayson presses up close behind Jay. Their leader hugs him with an awkwardly bent arm behind him.

On his way to the front, he passes a sleeping Luca, whose head is in the unconscious Rowan’s lap, one of the alpha’s fingers in his mouth, and a hand under his skirt in between his thighs.

“Ah, Leo, my love. Feeling better?” Gideon asks, signaling to make a left turn along a road with dense trees along the roadway. “Can you see where the hell we are on that map? Who the fuck reads maps anymore? What was Lauren thinking?”

What was his mother thinking? Don’t ask Leo, that’s for damn sure.

Turns out he didn’t know his mother was a well-connected super-spy.

I mean, sure, she spoke all the languages; she was certainly confident in every situation. But she read himJames and the Giant Peachand did all the voices when he was six. She sometimes watchedThe Real Housewives of Miamiwhen she thought no one was looking.

Did he even know who she was at all?

And if he didn’t know who she was, then who the hell was he?

Even his Mama Frankie seemed to know, because her comments on the phone this morning surely showed she knew what her wife had been up to all those years.

Does his Dad know? What about his sister? Was he the only one who hadn’t known?

Leo hates feeling like a fool almost as much as he hates feeling like the butt of their joke.

It hurts like nothing else has in a long time, maybe ever, and the hurt simmers into a slow boil.

“Stop it right now, Leo; you’re making my nose burn, and you’ll wake Finn or Rowan up. We need them on solid ground before that happens. Tell me what’s got you smelling like someone died.”

“Why would you say it like that?” Leo hates the words, but is it so far from the truth?

Surely his perception of his mother has crashed and burned.

“But…youdidn’t know, right?”

“What? That your mother was a super-spy? Ha. Fuck no. She was always just a pain in my ass. I think she kept it pretty close to her teeny-tiny chest.”

“Ew. Don’t talk about my mother’s boobs. And also, don’t be mean when she’s not even here.”

“Sorry, force of habit. What I mean to say is that she is probably out of the business. Why would she tell anyone?”

“Because I’m her son, and she didn’t tellme. Doesn’t she love me?”

Ouch.He hadn’t thought about the words before he said them, but he couldn’t even dispute the truth in them.

Gideon slams a hand on the steering wheel, risking a glance in Leo’s direction.

“Of course she does. That’s why she didn’t tell you. You’re…fuck…you’re a fucking light—pure and sweet and honest. You don’t have a mean bone in your body. I don’t want you tainted by the dark stuff, either.”

Leo turns in his seat at the words, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

Gideon had saidI, notshe.Oh.

“You have dark stuff you don’t want me to know about, alpha?”

The van swerves a bit, and there is a thump and a distinctive groan as Grayson falls off the bed.

“Shit,” Gideon says under his breath.

“Nothing to say?”

“You know my past is…and I’ve been—” Gideon’s voice trails off, and he doesn’t pick it up again. He just shakes his head and locks his jaw.