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“She will stay until we are finished,” Alexander warns, fixing his gaze on me. “And so will you.”

I look to Eli, who is watching this unfold with a bored expression. “She’s your mother too,” I say, my tone accusing. “How can you let him treat her like this?”

“She stopped being my mother the day she got knocked up with you,” he says cruelly.

My mother sniffles, and I see full-on red. “Fuck you, Eli. I should feed you your fucking teeth for—”

“Sitdown, Ezra,” Alexander bellows, slamming his fist on the table.

“No, I’m sick of both of you treating her like some kind of—”

“Sit down right now,” Alexander continues darkly, “or you will deeply regret continuing this little tantrum.”

Even with my heart beating a tattoo against my ribs, my blood pulsing in my ears with anger—I recognize the threat is not for me. Alexander knows that there’s nothing he can do to me. That it’s notmehe’ll make suffer.

I gulp down a breath, feeling like my chest is too tight, my eyes flitting from Alexander to Eli to my mother and back again before finally letting out a frustrated sound and sinking down into my chair. I could kill them both at this moment, I think. I could bury them both in the backyard and never lose a night’s sleep over it. But even that seems like too easy an end for monsters like them.

Lorenzo, having been quiet through all of this, lets out another annoying laugh after the dust settles, only fueling my rage. “You have quite the leash on him, eh?” He flashes a grin at Alexander conspiratorially. “If it had beenmywife who had gotten herself saddled with a bastard baby, I would have tossed them into the streets.” He fixes his gaze on me, leering. “You are very fortunate your father is such a giving man.”

“He’s not my fucking father,” I hiss.

The entire table goes silent.

It’s a truth we all know, one that has been the fucked-up glue to this broken dynamic that we’ve been suffering since the day my life changed and my mother practically lost hers—but I don’t think I’ve ever dared to say it out loud like this. Not to Alexander, at least. His response is immediate, his blue eyes turning frigid as he laces his fingers together, leaning toward me from the other end of the table.

“I think maybe youshouldgo,” he says darkly, his voice menacing. “Go home and reevaluate your priorities, and how much you stand to lose by falling from my good graces. I didn’t toss youout in the street like Lorenzo said, and you would do well to remember that.”

I wish you had,I practically scream in my own head.I wish you’d just let us both go.

I turn to my mother, and her gaze is pleading, searching mine and begging me not to make things worse. I feel like shit then, knowing that she’ll be the one he takes his anger out on. Not physically, since he’s never put his hands on her—I’d kill him if he did—but mentally. I know that he’ll twist and abuse her guilt until she’s more broken than she already is. It’s an art he’s perfected over the years.

“Go,” she says softly, squeezing my knee. “I will call you later.”

I push away from the table, my chair scraping loudly against the wood floor as I spin on my heel to leave. I don’t even spare a glance at the other men still at the table, wishing more than anything that I never had to look at them ever again. Wishing that I would have just skipped this farce of a family gathering in the first place; it would have been better to take Alexander’s chewing out tomorrow than put my mother through what I just did. I know how much it kills her to be reminded of what she did, even if I’m sure Alexander fucking deserved it.

I’m in my car when I feel my phone buzzing in the pocket of my suit jacket, and I tear it out and swipe it unlocked. The breath that escapes me upon seeing Dani’s name on the screen might be the first full one I’ve taken since I arrived here.

Sour Patch:I’m home. If you still want to go over things.

I even smile at the text that follows, which seems impossible.

Sour Patch:Work things. Work things only.

I drop my phone into the cup holder, suddenly desperate to get home.

Amazingly, despite the shit show I just suffered…all I can think about right now is how much I want to hear her voice.

Sixteen

Dani

I stare atmy phone for a few minutes after telling Ezra that I’m home, chewing on the end of my thumbnail as I wait and see if he’ll respond. When it’s clear that he won’t, I get angry at myself for even worrying about whether or not he would in the first place.

How in the hell did things get so mixed up in such a short time?

I shake it off, stomping down the hall to my bedroom and dropping my phone on my bed as I start to undress. I change out of my work clothes, briefly considering the University of Texas shirt I love before kicking it away and grabbing another one from my dresser drawer. I can only hope that Ezra hasn’t ruined my favorite shirt and that I’ll eventually be able to wear it without remembering last night.

My brain actually aches from the day I’ve had; between last night and this morning and Bianca and Ezra—it literally feels like there is nothing left but a puddle in my skull, one that throbs. I grab some Tylenol from the medicine cabinet over my sink, usinga bit of water from the faucet pooled in my hand to swallow them before straightening to regard myself in the mirror.