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“I can hazard a guess.”

“I was ready to go on a manhunt to find out whoever was responsible. And it turns out it was you. The entire time. She’s been through enough, Adonis.”

“You don’t have to tell me. But if you think for one second that what happened between us wasn’t entirely consensual—”

“Of course I don’t think that. I’m not stupid. I know that my sister has a crush on you. I know that she’s had a crush on you for a very long time.”

That stopped Adonis in his tracks. Given what had happened between the two of them at the club, he could never consider her feelings for him anything as anodyne as a crush. She wanted him. Just as he had wanted her. But there was no softness in those feelings.

He did have soft feelings for her, but they were nothing like the feelings that had come up on that night. They were separate.

“But that is the problem. She doesn’t know who you are. Not really.”

“And you do?” Adonis asked.

“Of course I do, you idiot. You really think I don’t know about the underground fighting? About the drug running and all of that? Do you really think I don’t know where the money for the company came from? I’m not an idiot.”

It was a shock to hear those things come out of Alex’s mouth. Because Alex seemed…untouched and somewhat disconnected from the hardness of the life they’d lived sometimes.

But of course financially he was very smart. So of course he also didn’t believe that Alex thought the money had materialized magically.

He’d done his best to keep all these things from Alex because…he didn’t want Alex to reject him.

But now he was acting like his past was nothing. Adonis didn’t know how to handle that.

“I assume you want me to leave her.”

“Oh, I definitely thought about that. Demanding that you walk away and never come back. You know, in the five minutes that I’ve known about this. I’m angry that neither of you told me.”

“Are you honestly surprised that your sister didn’t come to you about her sex life?”

“Of course not,” Alex growled. “I just wish that I didn’t… I don’t want to have to think about either of you that way.”

“She’s a woman,” Adonis said.

“Clearly. But you’ve known her since she was a child. And I’m allowed to take some issue with that.”

“You’re welcome to take issue with whatever you want,” Adonis said. “But it’s clearly not helping you. Think of your mental health.”

“I will fucking kill you,” Alex said. “So, yes. I did think about it. Because she certainly has the money to do this without you.”

“She does.”

And the truth that neither of them had ever seen the value in a father hung heavy between them.

“But then I thought a little bit deeper about it. About what I think she actually deserves. She deserves something good. Something…normal and whole.”

“You know I can’t give her that.”

“I know that you can do better. I know that you can put on a mask and be as civilized as you have to be. So if you have to do that for the rest of your life to make my sister happy, then I need you to do that.”

“What is it that you’re suggesting?”

“I’m not suggesting anything. There’s no discussion to be had. You’re going to marry my sister. Or I may well have you murdered.”

He found that he couldn’t deny Alex. Yes, he had decided to leave without Alex’s blessing. But those circumstances had been different. He had done what he needed to do because he thought he was giving them a chance at freeing themselves from their past.

He was trapped in that past. Too broken by it.