“Oh?”
“I found some things of his on the boat that made that clear. I didn’t know you knew.”
His father nodded, solemn. “It was right after that day he grabbed you by the throat. You were, what, twelve or thirteen?”
“Yeah,” Emerson said.
“After dropping you boys at home, I went back to confront him. I planned to give him an ultimatum. Stop the drinking or I was cutting him out of our lives.” His father paused, his gaze distant. “He broke down. Told me there was nothing left to live for if he couldn’t be a firefighter anymore.” Tears glistened in his father’s eyes. “He begged me to help him end things because he couldn’t do it himself.” Creed pursed his lips for a moment. “Nearly broke me to think he’d tried.”
Emerson stiffened. He wasn’t sure which thing shocked him more. Lenny’s request or his father’s unshed tears. He’d never seen his father cry. Not once.
“When I refused, Lenny told me he was alpha-attracted. I think he told me that in hopes I’d be so disgusted that I’d do it. Instead, I told him that he was still my little brother and I loved him, no matter what.”
Emerson fought his own tears threatening.
“That night, he told me he’d started drinking to ease the pain after the alpha he’d loved deeply had broken things off to mate an omega. He couldn’t get over the loss. So, he’d drowned his sorrows. I begged him to get help for his drinking and eventually, he agreed. Your papa and I packed him up and sent him to rehab. We got a call two weeks later. He and another alpha in the program had been caught together. The guy running things gave Lenny two choices. A specialty therapy program that supposedly cured men like him—or he’d call the Guard to arrest him. Lenny didn’t want either.Iconvinced him therapy was better than prison.”
“Conversion therapy,” Emerson said flatly, resting his bottom on the narrow table near Dash’s front door.
Tears shone brightly in his father’s eyes. “I never would’ve convinced him to go had I known what they’d do to him there. They’d tortured my baby brother and then had the balls to call him cured. Hewasn’tcured. He was even more broken than before—and it was allmyfault.”
“You were trying to help him,” Emerson said.
His father stared, eyes glistening. “Ifailedhim.”
Emerson stared at the pain in his father’s eyes. “Lenny somehow limped along after that. I was scared to send him to rehab for the drinking again because he might end up in prison the next time. I kept him as close as I could, but he just got worse and worse. He rarely left his boat. Slept all day. Drank all night.He’d barely eat if I didn’t stop by with a plate of leftovers every morning on my way to work.” Creed sighed. “Every time I let myself in to drop it off, I feared I’d find him gone. Then one day, I did. He’d finally reached the point he didn’t need me to do it for him.”
Emerson shook his head. “I always assumed he’d drank himself to death.”
“In a way, but no. He took matters into his own hands,” Creed said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Emerson frowned at his father, shocked.“Onthe boat?”
“Underit,” Dad replied.
Emerson winced.
“After I heard the attorney say Lenny had given you his boat,that’swhy I suggested you sell it. I sensed why he’d chosen to give it to you—and I didn’t want you cursed by what happened there.”
“I assumed he gave it to me as an apology for choking me.”
“Maybe,” Dad said. “But I assumed it was because he thought you were like him.”
Emerson’s gaze flew to his father’s. “Youknew?”
“When your kids are born, you notice hints that suggest which class they’ll grow up to be. Big boys tend to become alpha, and you and Harry werebigbabies, even for twins. And you never stopped growing. But something happened when you and Harry were about nine or ten that had us second-guessing you. We had a barbeque in the park—and this group of older teenaged omegas walked past and set up a birthday party in the shelter next to ours. Harry and Fitzimmediatelyturned around and took notice. Heck, I think Luke and Rand even reacted and neither one was older than five at the time. But those omegas might as well not have existed for you. You didn’t reactat all.”
Emerson’s cheeks burned.
“When their alpha boyfriends showed up a couple of hours later—that’swhen you started looking—and so did Harley and Bayley.” His father sighed. “Later that night, I mentioned it to your papa. He’d noticed your reaction, too, and we thought, ‘well, maybe he’s not an alpha after all. Maybe puberty would prove us wrong.’ Puberty came and you were, in fact, an alpha. Yet you still never reacted to omegas. Your gaze was only drawn to alphas.”
Emerson blinked a few times. “I can’t believe you’ve known all this time.”
“When you were maybe fourteen or fifteen, I tried talking to you about it. We went fishing, just you and me. Remember?”
Emerson nodded. “Of course I do. It was rare to do something with you or Papa alone.”
“Do you remember what we talked about that day?”
