I’m speeding down the highway toward a motel located in town in the middle of fucking nowhere, where I’ll meet up with El, Ens, and Gaige. I have a bag of weapons in my trunk, and Holden is in the passenger seat, giving me directions to the motel. How I got in this position is beyond me.

Well, okay, that’s a lie. I know exactly how I got here, I can backtrack it all the way back to when I drove off from the grave-in-question I had been digging for Nicholas and Winston.

After I left the woods, I made sure no one was following me. Then I drove downtown to Gregor’s office. I didn’t park near the office, though, too afraid one of Winston’s men would spot my car and rat me out.

Unfortunately, when I walked into the office, Ruby informed me that Gregor was currently on a plane that was leaving the country; that he had an urgent business complication that needed to be handled. She said she maybe could set up a conference call while he was on the plane, but insisted she needed to supervise it. I didn’t like that she was going to know so much about what’s going on, but arguing with her was completely pointless.

“I’m his business associate.” She reclined in the desk chair and crossed her arms. “What Gregor knows, I know as well. That’s how businesses work.”

“I hate to break it to you, but that’s not how businesses work. I work for my father and I don’t know half the shit he does—and I really don’t want to either.” I sank down in a chair across from the desk and yanked my fingers through my hair. I was veering toward a panic attack, knowing Ensley was out there, unaware that the mafia was coming after her. I wanted to protect her, wanted to be near her, wanted to know she was okay. Wanted to have her, but that was a completely different problem. One that could wait. “But whatever. I don’t have time for this. I need to talk to your father ASAP.”

She slanted forward in the chair and overlapped her hands on the cluttered desk. “Why?”

“Because…” I didn’t want to tell her the entire truth, mostly because it was my fake father and real father going after her. “Look, Ens’s life might be in danger, and I don’t know what to do.”

She grew serious then and picked up the receiver of an old-school phone. “Let me see if I can get him on the line. He’s on the plane right now, but I still might be able to reach him.” She pushed some digits then put the phone to her ear.

I tried not to flip out as I waited, but I was freaking the fuck out. I needed to get to Ensley. Needed to protect her. But I had no clue how to outrun the mafia without help. I just hoped Gregor knew what to do. And Ens or El would call me back.

“Carter needs to speak to you. Says it’s an emergency… Hold on, I’m going to put you on speakerphone,” Ruby said, causing a tiny drop of relief to wash over me.

She pressed a button then put the phone down.

“Carter.” Gregor’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Ruby said there was an emergency. I’m hoping that’s the truth and that you didn’t just make my daughter take time out of her busy schedule to call me.”

I didn’t know where to start, so I decide to get straight to the point. I gave him a quick recap of what Winston and Nicholas had spoke about in the woods and how I had been digging a hole I was pretty sure was Ensley’s grave. I also accidentally let it slip that Winston was my real father, at least according to my mom. He didn’t seem too surprised by that.

“I knew it was him,” Gregor said after my slip up.

I shook my head. “How?”

“It was in the file I’ve been using to blackmail you with.” The way he dropped the word, “blackmail” so casually made me grind my teeth. “Your mother had a DNA test done on you two a little after you were born. I’m not quite sure how she managed to get some of Winston’s DNA, but your mother’s always been good at manipulating and tricking people into getting what she wants. Like telling your father she was pregnant with his twins so he would marry her.”

“Why would she rather marry him than Winston, though?” I wondered, anxiously bouncing my knee up and down. I just wanted to know where Ens was, if she was okay. I wanted to get to her, be near her. “Winston has more money.”

“Yes, but Winston is a dangerous man,” he explained. “And more than likely, he wouldn’t have married her. He might’ve even tried to get rid of you and your sister. He still might if he finds out the truth.”

I worked my jaw from side to side. “Why? We’ve never done anything to him. Never asked him for anything.”

“You sound upset about it,” Gregor noted. “Were you hoping he’d step up and become your new father?”

“No,” I answered truthfully, glancing at my phone. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Neither Ens or El had responded to my messages or voicemails. Where are they? “But that doesn’t mean I want him to kill my sister and I either.”

“I’m sure he won’t as long as he doesn’t find out.” He paused. “I know this is probably not something you want to hear, but I’m going to do you a favor and tell you anyways… Winston Maerriellie has been preparing for his oldest son to take over as boss for a very long time—since before he was born. He chose his wife based solely on her bloodlines and her last name. It gave him connections and ties to other families—families that have a lot of power. But you and Elodie were born a few months before his oldest son, which means you’re technically his oldest son, which means, according to Fareland mafia tradition, you should be taking over as boss. But Winston wouldn’t want that to happen. Not only does your mom not have the right last name or bloodlines, but it’d mean all the time he put into training who he thinks is his oldest son would be for nothing. He’d either have to start over and train you, or he could get rid of you. And considering your mom kept this a secret for eighteen years, my bet is Winston will go with the latter choice if he finds out. Or he may know you’re his son already and has threatened your mother to keep quiet about it.”

I didn’t know what to say. I felt sick to my stomach. “And what about Elodie? Why would he hurt her? She’s not a threat.”

“He might not. Who’s really to say. Mafia bosses can be unpredictable.” He dragged out a pause. “But anyway, enough with the small chitchat. We have an emergency that you need to handle—my daughter’s life depends on it.” He sounded freakishly calm about it.

“You act like you’re not surprised this happened.” I rested my elbows on the desk.

“That’s because I’m not,” he replied simply. “From the day Ensley was born, I knew eventually my line of work would put her life in danger. It’s why I kept my distance—why I left her mother in the first place. Her mother was relieved … after what she found out what I did for a living, all the illegal stuff I was involved in. She wanted nothing to do with me and wanted me to stay away from Ensley.”

I guess that made sense. Sort of. Although, it felt like he had omitted some of the details. “If that’s true, then why didn’t you leave Ruby too?”

“Ruby’s different,” he said. “I didn’t have a choice with her since her mother died giving birth to her. It was either let her go into a foster home or take care of her myself. But don’t think I let her go unprotected. It’d take an army to get to her.”

“Why not give Ens the same protection?” I asked bitterly. “And actually see your daughter?”

“I thought about it, but by then, her mother wouldn’t have any part of it. When she found out the truth about what I do for a living, she didn’t want to have anything to do with me. She even got a restraining order, which is part of the reason why I had you get involved. I figured if you had Ensley come to me then not only would her mom not be involved, but Winston might not find out about her.”

Just what exactly does Gregor do that would make Ens’s mom get a restraining order? And how did she even get a restraining order when a lot of the police are being paid off by Gregor?

Something wasn’t adding up.

While I knew some stuff about Gregor and his business, I didn’t know everything. When we’d made the deal, I didn’t dare ask him for a lot of details, fearing he might call off the deal if I did. But with everything that was going on… With what he was saying… With Ensley being in trouble… I needed to know more.

“What do you do, exactly?” I asked. “Because with all this shit going on, I’m really starting to wonder.”

“Father, as your advisor, I’d advise you not to answer that question,” Ruby interrupted, glaring at me.

“I appreciate your advice, Ruby,” he said. “But if Carter is going to be working for me, he should know what he’s getting into.”

Ruby crossed her arms, slumped back in the chair, and her eyes shot daggers at me. But she didn’t utter a word, which was probably a first for her.

“As you know, I own a lot of underground clubs,” Gregor said. “But what most people don’t know—at least people out of my clientele—is that inside those clubs, I run a side business that focuses solely on giving people their hearts truest desires.”

Okay, that wasn’t what I was expecting at all. “What does that even mean?”

“It means I make people’s desires come true, and a lot of people will pay top dollar to have that happen. Of course, the people who come to me usually desire illegal stuff. It also gives me a lot of power because I get to keep their secrets. That’s part of the reason Winston has harbored a grudge against me for the last decade—I have more dirt on him and his little worker bees than even his worst enemy. But you’ll learn more about that later, when you start working for me.”

“Am I still going to work for you?” I questioned, unsure if I even wanted to anymore. I mean, part of the reason I was even going to work for him to begin with was to escape Nicholas’s corruption. But Gregor sounded almost as bad, maybe even worse. Plus, my real father was apparently his enemy. But I didn’t want to point that out yet and piss him off. I wanted to help save Ensley, needed to more than my lungs needed oxygen. Not only because I couldn’t stand the idea of losing her, but to make up for all the wrongs I did to her. “I messed up this thing with Ensley pretty badly. And… what about my father? My real father? I mean, he’s going after your daughter.”

“As far as I’m concerned, Winston isn’t your father. And you should look at it that way too.” Silence. “This war going on between Winston and I has been going on since Ensley or you were even born. I can’t hold that against you. Besides, I need you to protect her.”

“But I fucked up. I’m not sure if she even trusts me anymore.” I slumped back into the chair. I fucked up multiple times, by not bringing Ens to him, by fucking up the plan, by lying to her. The last one is what really bothers me, what makes my chest ache.

If I could go back and do everything all over again, I wouldn’t have made the deal with Gregor. I would’ve just told Ens the truth about how I felt about her. And maybe, just maybe, I would’ve stood up to Nicholas and told him I didn’t want to work for him. Then I would’ve left. Left and been with Ensley. God, talk about heart’s desires.

“You did fuck up, but your mistakes can be erased. And from what you’ve told me, my daughter is the kind of person who will forgive you,” Gregor told me. “And if you make this right, you can still come work for me.”

“How do I make this right, though, when the mafia is after her?”

“By following these instructions.” Then he told me a plan that would help me erase the mistakes I made with him. A plan that would, hopefully, protect Ensley.

I just hoped I could trust him. Trust that he was telling the truth. But… I don’t know. Something still felt off. But I was still going to go to Ensley—I needed to be close to her and make sure she was protected. Then I’d try to find out more about Gregor, his business, and this war going on between Winston and him,

“And I’m sending one of my men to help you,” Gregor said after he was finished explaining the plan.

“Who…” Before I could finish, the office door swung open and in walked Holden.

Yeah, to say I was fucking surprised would be an understatement.

Holden didn’t seem the least bit surprised, though, a grin plastering across his face. “Carter, glad to see you finally decided to man up and join the other team.”

“You’re making it sound like I came out of the closet or something,” I grumbled, shaking my head.

“Yeah, maybe that wasn’t the right way to word it.” Holden entered the office and smiled at Ruby. “Ruby, as always, it’s nice to see you again.”

Ruby flipped him the middle finger.

Back in the parking lot on graduation day, Holden had seen me arguing with Ruby, and he acted like he didn’t know her, only of her. Clearly, he’d been lying. What else had he been lying about?

Holden must have sensed where my thoughts were heading because he said, “Sorry, but I had to keep it a secret.”

“Why?” I rose to my feet.

He shrugged, stuffing his hands into his back pockets. “The less people who know about what I do for a living, the better.”

“What do you do exactly” How did I fucking not know about this?

“What do you do exactly?” Holden retorted, making a subtle but valid point.

That we both had secrets.

So instead of having a pity party over the fact that my BFFFB—yeah, thanks for that, El—had been lying to me, I asked, “Does your dad know?”

“ “Nope. Yours?”

Which one? “Hopefully not.”

He didn’t ask questions, which made me wonder how much he knew about me. “We should get going.”

I said goodbye to Gregor and then we left the office. Before we hopped into my car, he went to his truck and grabbed a large duffel back from the backseat. When I asked what was in the bag, he told me protection, which meant weapons. I’d spent enough time around Nicholas and men like Winston to know what a large duffel bag usually carried.

After we’d peeled out onto the road, El had finally called me back. I’d never been so relieved in my life to hear from her. No, I take that back. I’d never been more relieved in my life than when Ens had got on the phone with me.

I just hope everything goes according to plan. That Ensley will be safe from Winston. That I can protect her. That she’ll give me the chance to protect her. Because, with everything that’s about to happen, she’s going to have to trust me more than she’s trusted anyone. And considering our history…

I have my work cut out for me.