My whole body simmered with rage that threatened to choke me.

“Then why did you put me through all this bullshit?” I hissed, my teeth clenched together. “Shut me down every time I tried to warn you about him? Made me go through dozens of sleepless nights of listening to the fucker, on top of doing college work and working full time for your asses? I jumped through hoops and lived on zero sleep to prevent this bullshit…and you’re telling me you knew about it all along?”

My father stood, stepping around the desk and opening his arms. It occurred to me, albeit sadly, that no matter how badly he treated me, I still referred to him as Da, even in my head.

“Hence, you passed the test.”

“Fuck your test!” I seethed, pointing at him. “Fuck it in the ass with a twelve-inch dildo. I almost killed myself trying to save you. I bent over backwards for you. I went to war for you. I was willing to burn, to die, to perish. For. You.”

It was Cillian’s turn to stand. “As I said, it was your dirty job to pull. Pull you did, and in a timely manner. Something that, fortunately, has never been a problem for you, judging by the lack of baby mommas knocking on our door.”

“Go to hell, Cillian.” I dragged my fingers through my hair.

“Already there. It’s called life.”

“So you trusted me to crack this riddle, but not enough to rely on me?” I turned my attention back to Da.

Troy Brennan was about as ruthless and skillful as they came, and Sam Brennan was the golden child of the underworld. Those two could win a cold war with a decade-old laptop and a BB gun. That’s what they did for a living. Of course they’d unveiled Syllie’s plan before I did.

“Correct,” my father said, a twinkle of warmth in his eyes. “Needless to say, the will shall be altered accordingly. You are my heir. My child. A Fitzpatrick. You will keep your job at Royal Pipelines. And you will get a corner office, the one next to Cillian’s. You proved yourself a true member of the family, Hunter.” He opened his arms, expecting me to…what? Jump right in?

I smiled tightly. “Fuck you, your money, and your last name, old sport. If I have to earn being your family, I never will be.”

We rented a car and drove the four hours back to Boston. Hunter was silent the entire time, save for the first ten minutes, when he rehashed everything that had happened with his father and brother in a strange, detached voice that didn’t belong to him.

“That’s how little faith they had in me.”

“You didn’t exactly give them prime reason to trust you before, though.” I argued their point, not necessarily because I agreed with them, but because I knew how miserable it would make Hunter to be estranged from his family. No matter the complexities of their relationship, he loved and adored Cillian and Gerald, looked up to them. He always wanted to be like them and never thought he could.

“You sound like them.”

“You mean, logical?”

He scoffed. “Did you know about my dad hiring yours?” He sent me a sidelong glance, scowling as he continued zipping through the open road.

“Are you insane?” I asked. “Of course not.”

“And if you knew?” he pressed.

I was hoping he wouldn’t ask that. I shook my head. “I don’t answer hypothetical questions.”

“Newsflash: you’re about to answer this one,” he shot back.

“You need to calm down.”

“What I need is someone on my fucking side.”

“I am on your side,” I growled.

“You’d be in my bed, if you were,” he had the audacity to say, no trace of guilt or remorse in his words. “Yet you aren’t.”

“That’s because I’m on my side, too.”

“Meaning?” He scoffed.

“Meaning I don’t want to be any more attached to you than I already am, because you obviously don’t feel the same.”

“And if I do?” he asked after a charged pause.

I shook my head. “You don’t. You’re incapable of that. You come from a long line of adulterers. How would you know any different?”

He sat back, shaking his head. I immediately knew how awful that sounded. How disgusting I was to him. “Cat’s out of the bag now. So if I’m a serial adulterer like my parents, does that mean you’re going to be carving people’s faces like a pumpkin like your daddy? Are we playing the gene game now? ’Cause rest assured, darling, we may not be the same brand of fuck-up, but we are both far from the realms of normalcy.”

I said nothing. He was right.

Hunter continued, “What would it take for you to know I’m serious about this? About us? A grand gesture? A binding contract? A fucking ring?”

“Maybe stop being ashamed of me. Of us,” I bit back. “That could have been enough.”

I referred to the night with Knight and Luna, to all the times he’d minimized whatever it was we’d had. I was sure he caught the reference.

Hunter got a text message. He opened it, driving.

“Fuck,” he muttered, throwing his phone to the central console as more text messages poured in, lighting his screen in white. His screensaver was a picture of a woman’s ass with the saying: Go hard or go home.