After gathering all the upstairs laundry into a hamper and dragging it downstairs, Darren caught a glimpse of Bobby sitting at the table. His food was untouched, and the book he’d been devouring the day before was sitting off to the side with the page marker in about the same place it had been then.

Darren put the hamper down and walked into the kitchen. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

Bobby looked up but he didn’t raise his head from his folded arms. “Nothing.”

Darren pulled out the chair next to him and sat down. “Hey, come on. It’s me. We don’t lie to each other, remember?”

Bobby sat up straight and the look on his face told Darren he was going to regret saying that. “You lie to me all the time.”

“What?” Darren stared at his son in shock. “Where’s this coming from?”

“You lied about why we came here. Why we moved out of grandma and grandpa’s house, too. You traded papa for Zander.”

Darren’s heart sank. He had known this moment was coming, but he’d hoped things would settle with the custody case first. “Who said that? Kids at school?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m five, not stupid.”

Darren reached out to touch Bobby’s hand but the boy yanked it away. “Sweetheart, please, hear me out.”

“I wanna go home.”

“This is our home now.”

“No! I wanna go back. Just because you picked a new dad doesn’t mean I have to.”

Darren swallowed hard. “We can’t go back, Bobby.”

“Why?” he demanded.

“We just can’t. You’re not old enough to understand yet, but —“

“I am!” he cried. “I know we left because you and papa fought. Because he pushed me and you got mad, but that’s not good enough. He got mad one time, but he loves us and it’s not fair!”

“One time was enough,” Darren said shakily. He couldn’t make Bobby understand the magnitude of what had happened, or the frequency of it without putting more on the boy’s tiny shoulders than they were meant to bear. He hated Greg for doing this to him, but more than that, he hated himself for not leaving sooner. For thinking that if he just stayed long enough, Greg would change and Bobby would have the father he so desperately wanted to believe existed.

“You should forgive him!” Bobby said with tears in his eyes. “If someone says sorry, you’re supposed to forgive them, that’s what you do.”

“Sometimes sorry isn’t enough.” He didn’t have the heart to tell his son that Greg never had and never would apologize to either of them. The Alpha saw them as his property and nothing more. The last few months with Zander had been enough to open his eyes to that. The contrast between the two men was like night and day.

“It was enough for Zander to forgive you!”

Darren was too shocked to respond right away. “What…what are you talking about?”

“People talk at school,” he muttered. “I know you loved Zander before you loved papa. I know you were supposed to be his mate, but you left when you had me.”

“I don’t…”

“Why do you get a second chance but papa doesn’t?” Bobby growled, standing from the table. He stalked out of the room and Darren followed him to the bottom of the stairs.

“Bobby, wait!”

The boy ignored him, stomping up the stairs.

“I said wait!” Darren snapped. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d yelled at his son without using the whole hand.

Bobby stopped, but when he turned around, the look in his eyes stopped Darren cold. “I hate you.”

With that, he stormed off into his room and slammed the door. Darren jolted, and it felt like his heart shattered inside his chest.

He’d expected to hear those words from Bobby as a teenager. God only knew he’d said them enough to his mother, and he’d never meant them, but this was different. Bobby meant those words, and Darren knew he deserved them. He knew he shouldn’t let him get away with the way he was behaving, but how could he call his son out on his mistakes when Bobby was suffering for all the mistakes he’d already made?

By the time Zander came in the door, Darren had dinner on the table and had managed to stop crying, but he didn’t have an appetite. He tried to put on a smile so the first thing Zander saw when he came in through the door wouldn’t be an emotional wreck, but it lasted as long as it took to meet his mate’s eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Zander asked, seeing through the fake smile right away.

Darren’s attempt at putting on a brave face melted into tears. Zander wrapped his arms around him and held him tightly, but the Alpha’s soothing words only made him fall apart all the way.

“Sit down,” Zander pleaded, leading him over to a chair. He gave Darren a napkin to dry his tears and knelt to take his hands. “Baby, tell me what’s wrong.”

“Bobby,” Darren choked out. He was such a mess he could hardly speak, but when he finally got the words out, Zander’s face fell. The Alpha listened in silence and nodded knowingly, but he didn’t say a word until a few moments after Darren was finished.

“We knew this would happen eventually,” he murmured.

“I just hoped by then, this whole custody thing would be over.” Terror filled him as a fresh possibility occurred to him. “Zander, what if he tries to go back? What if Greg’s counsel succeeds at getting Bobby to testify, and they take him?”

“Hey, hey,” Zander soothed, stroking Darren’s hair. “That’s not gonna happen. He’s a kid. He just found out his parents aren’t getting back together, and he’s pissed off. I know what that’s like, but he just needs time to calm down. He loves you.”

“He loves Greg, too. And he doesn’t know what he’s like. I kept him from that side of him for as long as I could because I thought I was protecting him.”

“It’s not like it used to be, when an Alpha could get away with abusing his mate and just taking the kids,” said Zander. “You heard Nicholas. Our case is stronger than his.”

“For now. Unless Bobby decides to lie about what happened that night to go back with his dad. Then, who’s the Tribunal going to believe?”

Zander hesitated. “We’ll figure this out, okay? That’s not going to happen. You’re upset right now, and you have every reason to be, but that doesn’t mean we have to jump to the worst case scenario.”

Darren nodded reluctantly. He knew Zander was right, but the mere prospect of losing Bobby filled him with such terror that it was impossible to think rationally.

Zander took the other chair and pulled Darren onto his lap. He kissed the top of the omega’s head, his arms wrapped securely around him. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to either of you. I promised Greg was never gonna lay hands on you again, and I meant it. Whatever happens with this custody case, I’ll take you both somewhere else if I have to.”

That option came with plenty of terrifying prospects of its own, but as Zander held him, Darren started to relax. He knew the Alpha was telling the truth. He’d been lied to so many times that the truth was all the sweeter and more distinguishable in contrast. He buried his face in Zander’s neck, letting the Alpha’s strong, clean scent comfort him. “I love you so much.”

“And I love you,” Zander murmured, stroking his hair. “Both of you.”