I caught her arm. “Stop that.”
“You’re stupid, Papá.”
“I know.”
Cam watched the exchange with a curious gaze. “How the fuck did you get away with it so long?”
“What do you mean?”
“This.” Cam waved a hand between us. “I appreciate she’s old enough to understand now, but what about when she was younger? Toddlers talk shit. What if she’d told someone about her magical dad hiding in the bushes?”
“I stayed out of sight for a couple of years when she was super young.” The tightness in my chest flared. “I saw her, but she never saw me. Then, when she was older, Juana told her everything, and we got her to call Raulpapátoo, in case she ever slipped up.”
“That’s a lot for a kid to take on.”
It was. But... “She ain’t an ordinary kid.”
I nuzzled Liliana’s hair, breathing her in, a habit that had always calmed me. Charcoal and bubble gum.
Didn’t work now, though. Cam was being as nice as I could hope for, but he had a motive. He wanted information before he made a decision, and I knew him. Iknewhim. He was our leader. Ourpresident. He had more than himself to think about. More than Saint and Alexei. Orla and River. Cam had the entire club to protect, and the best way, theonlyway, to do that was to kick me to the kerb.
They’re going to take my bike.
A bike I didn’t give a shiny shit about. That I’d spent next to nothing on and expended minimal effort to maintain over the years, but still held a tiny, insignificant emotional attachment to because it was the only thing I owned.
“Brother.”
Cam’s voice held such gravity my stomach sank into my feet, and it made me think of Embry and how it was for him now. How extreme emotions caused him physical pain.
I wasn’t about to double over and puke, but I felt like I’d been running backwards my whole fucking life, waiting to fall over my own feet and get hit by a bus.
Losing my brothers would be as close to death as I could take.
Losing my daughter? Watching her die because me and her mum had used an expired condom to get busy behind the cricket pavilion?
I had a plan for that too, and it involved a bottle of Jack and a high cliff.
“Papá?”
Liliana squirmed in my arms—I was holding her too tight. A fucking luxury I’d fought my entire adult life for.
I let her go.
She slid from my lap and stepped closer to Cam.
This time, I felt no need to shield her. I let her square up to a man who was as much of a killer as I was and point her tiny finger at him.
“He’s my dad.”
As if it explained and excused everything I’d ever done.
It didn’t, but Cam gave her a respectful nod all the same, waiting to shake his head until she’d slipped into the bathroom where Juana was and shut the door behind her.
“You’re gonna have trouble with her.”
“If I get the chance, I’ll be the happiest man alive.”
The air heavied again. Cam dropped his friendly social worker act and spun his chair around, taking a seat again, leaning forward, elbows on his knees while I remained perched on the edge of his bed.
