Page 43 of Daddy's Reluctant Queen

“I’m glad you were there,” I tell her. “Angela… his mother would probably have been the one to try and show him how to cope. I don’t know if I’m the right person to handle those sorts of things.”

“Sure, you are,” she says with a little laugh. “I mean, I might be good at this, but in the grand scheme of things, I’m nobody. You’re his father. He thinks the world of you, you know.”

I tilt my head curiously. “He told you that?”

“Didn’t have to. Don’t get mad at him or anything, but he’s pretty good at breaking out of his room too. Does it all the time, actually.”

I laugh. “I’m aware. He’s been doing it since he was five. I started calling himpauchokbecause I kept finding him hiding in the dark corners around the house.”

“You’re not afraid of someone finding him?”

“Not anymore, no. He’s relaxed on it now that he’s older and understands that he can’t really be seen by my men. He chooses his times to escape.”

“How does he feel about his situation? I mean… doesn’t he want to go to school? Be like other kids?”

I sigh. This conversation is getting a little heavier than I expected. “Of course he does. It’s just not possible right now.”

I think she’s going to poke at me about this, but she doesn’t. She stares for a moment, pursing her lips, then she looks down at her plate.

“You don’t have any comment on that?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know the whole story, do I? You’re trying to protect him. That much is clear.”

And that’s all she says. I guess it’s enough. More than enough, actually. I feel a sense of respect from her that wasn’t there before.

“After breakfast,” I ask her, “Do you want to take a walk with me around the grounds?”

She smiles. “That sounds lovely.”

15

SOFIA

The walk with Titus was nice, even though we didn’t say a lot to one another. Or rather, I talked and he just listened. For an hour out of the day today, he felt less like a warden and more like…

Well, honestly, I don’t know. Not exactly a friend, certainly not a boyfriend. Somewhere in between, I guess. It was just nice. And that’s something that I haven’t had in a while.Nice.

I’m back in my room, lying on my bed and looking up at the ceiling. That talk over breakfast has me thinking about Adam and the last time he and I talked. I can’t believe he actually went to the Feds. The odd thing is that I understand it and yet I don’t.

We’ve both heard stories from members of our Bratva about snitches who thought they got away with it. There’s one, in particular, that’s always scared me. A brigadier who disappeared for a week and when he came back started acting strangely around us, asking us questions and talking about things that we all knew he knew. At the time, Adam and I were batting around the idea that he’d turned into a pod person or something.

And then he was arrested. Adam and I heard that when he was in jail, they found out he was an informant for the Feds for about six months. A week after we heard that, there was a news report that he’d been found in pieces in his cell.

You don’t snitch. If you snitch, there’s no hope or escape for you. You’ll be a marked man for the rest of your considerably shortened life. That was the lesson we learned from that. It’s something we’ve both known better than anything else.

And with all that knowledge, he did it anyway. He thinks that the Feds will protect him, hide him or whatever. I guess if I were as scared as he seems to be, I might think the same. And that’s the one thing that I’m sure of. He’s terrified.

Adam never learned to survive the way I did. He never took to our lessons, never sought out ways to defend himself. He’s been sitting pretty in soft sheets of our version of royalty for his entire life. The two of us being separated feels like I left a newborn on the side of the road. Actually, I should have expected that he would decide to rat if left to his own devices.

I start chewing my bottom lip while I consider that… He’s still my kid brother. I was always there for him when the nightmares came. I should try and help him if I can.

IfI can.

Titus has warmed up to me considerably. Our relationship is changing and… and maybe I can sway him to bring Adam in and protect him. Or at least call off his dogs.

He might if I ask. As long as he doesn’t know for sure that he’s a rat. I doubt he’ll do a thing if he finds out for sure. How would it look to his men if he protected a rat?

Maybe no one knows yet. If I pull Adam out early enough, no one would have to know. This could be easy… right?