He leans in closer to my ear for what I’m assuming is a privacy precaution. “Wells and Ivy are leaders in a cabal called KORT. Liam and I are the seconds-in-command, and Gage is the enforcer.”
“A cabal?” I whisper, trying to grasp that information. It seems heavier than the Mafia roles I suspected. “Powerful?”
His scruff grazes my cheek as he responds, “The most.”
“And the name? Is it a family or—”
“It’s inspired by Knights of the Round Table—an acronym for it. There are five seats—three belong to Mafia families, another to a secret society, and another to a financial tycoon.”
So, the Mafia wasn’t completely off base. But something else hits me as a far bigger consideration in light of this.
My heart thrashes, and my throat grows dry as I strive to click the pieces together. “And my birth father—you know him? Who is he?”
“Johnny Balzano. He’s a leader of KORT.”
The name aligns with my findings. But the position … no wonder Axel lied. It sounds messy. And the death threat comes into sharper focus. Ty said involvement with his family was a death sentence, so maybe the threat from Balzano that I overheard Axel mention boils down to KORT involvement. I’d like to know if my birth father is at all a decent person, but Ty would assert that even he and my brothers aren’t good people, so I ask it the only way I know how to get to the root of what I’m searching for.
“Does Ivy respect him?”
“No.” He leaves it at that until my head lolls back, my gaze imploring his for more, so he expands. “She hates him.”
It’s as though this tower crumples around us, demolished and dusty in a heap of wreckage. I’m weak and lightheaded andsurrounded by ruins. I trust Ivy’s read on people more than anyone’s. She always just knows. It makes not being a Noire even worse somehow. I’ve always been proud of my lineage. Although maybe this isn’t so different. My other father wasn’t good by any stretch.
What the hell was my mom tied up in?
“What does that all mean for me?” I ask, the full weight of my upended reality cementing me to this balcony, teetering on the ledge.
He said once I knew, there was no way out. A death-sentence secret.
“Aside from you needing to work through your feelings about Balzano, everything and nothing.” He grips the sides of my face, dropping his forehead to mine with a promise and a petition. “I won’t let the rest touch you. Not completely. I would die first before I allowed it to rob you of anything you want.”
There’s a mournful melody between his words, heightening their already-sinister nature. The notes that don’t escort lyrics often set the mood and are more telling than the story. It all has me poking.
“There’s still so much unsaid between us. You’ve got scars all over your body, and I have no idea what they’re from. And I don’t even know what happened to your parents or your sisters.”
“The scars are from when I was a POW,” he supplies with ease. “And my father died in a car accident when I was a little kid.”
“And your mom and sisters?” I probe even though it’s evident he purposely left them out. He can’t be suggesting marriage and hide from me.
He sighs and chews on the inside of his cheek. “I’d prefer not to discuss it on our wedding night, but I will if you need me to.”
There’s no doubt that his willingness to tell me is a grand gesture. It’s written in every strained line on his face, erasing all the joy and sweetness that used to be synonymous with Ty. And of course there’s the revelation that he has expectations for our wedding—that he wants this to be special—tugging at my heartstrings, so I settle on the minimum.
“Give me the abbreviated version.”
He works through a laborious swallow. “My sisters were molested by my stepfather. I noticed something off with the girls, something that told me they were ashamed, hiding, nervous around him, but they wouldn’t talk to me. Instead of … I confronted him so he killed them, my mother, and himself while I was at baseball practice that afternoon. I found them. It was three months before my eighteenth birthday.”
A handful of obliterating sentences.
“Oh my God, Ty.” The words tumble out, and the anguish drips uncontrollably.
I’m not sure what I thought he’d say. The terror and torment were clear the other night, but … not that.
His passion for the women’s shelter and the way he put Mercy’s needs first mean even more now. All these years later, he’s still trying to save his family.
“Don’t do that,” he demands, collecting my grief on his fingertips. “I can’t have—”
“Okay,” I cut him off because he doesn’t want me to pity him, and I understand that because pity feels weak, and Ty is certainly not weak. “But see?” I contend. “We’ve spent three nights together. We need more time.”
