Page 11 of Finding Redemption

Even with the tension in the room and my own mind in chaos, my lips twitched in amusement.“Then maybe not have it inmyoffice, kitten.”

“Kitten,” she repeated, those dazzling emeralds spitting flames at me once again.I soaked up the warmth.

“Pax, man,” Luck groaned.“You don’t want to go there with her.She’s not like other girls.She’s too much like her grandmother.”

I ignored him and how irritated it made me that he knew so much about her.

“Shut up, Luck,” Brooke snapped.“You don’t know anything.How could you when you walked away just a few weeks after meeting me?”

“Sweetheart—”

“I am not your sweetheart.”She didn’t shout, yet Luck flinched at her tone.“And I’m sure as heck not your kitten.What I am, is done.”

Walking to the door meant she had to pass me.Head held high like the princess she was cosplaying, she leveled me with a cool glare.“Please apologize to Bella for me, but if I stay, it might ruin her party.”

“You’re not leaving,” Luck reached out to grab her, but he froze when she turned her head in his direction.“Brooke, goddamn it.Just let me explain.Please.”

“The time for explaining has passed.I’ve moved on.You should too.”

I couldn’t watch her go, but when Luck would have followed her, I stepped in his way.She wouldn’t get far, and even if she did, I knew exactly where she lived.“How about you explain it to me?”

He thrust his fingers into his hair in agitation.“She’s my niece, my twin sister’s kid.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, and he nodded, knowing I understood now.

“When Maggie got pregnant, our parents disowned her, thinking she would fall in line if they cut her off.We thought she married the douchebag, that she was happy.She cut all ties to us, including me.God, if she’d just come to me, I would have helped her.But she was scared.Fuck.Several years later, we found out the motherfucker had married someone else.They already had a few kids of their own by then.But there was no sign of my sister or the baby.My mom went crazy, realizing Maggie had been left pregnant and alone.She blamed my dad since he was the reason they’d tried to manipulate Maggie into terminating the pregnancy.”

“That’s why they divorced?”

Luck shrugged, his face haggard.“One of the reasons.You know how my old man was.”

I nodded.No one had mourned when Luck’s dad died.But his mother passed soon after.Luck had never shared much about his parents’ marriage—and even less about his sister who had disappeared while Luck was in college.But I’d been there when he’d gotten the news years later that his sister had died.He’d taken off without a word to anyone for weeks, and when he’d come back, he was a wreck.All he would say was that he’d met his niece, but he wasn’t able to have a relationship with her.

Not long after that, Bella had been born, and my life had been tossed upside down and right side up in one fell swoop.Luck had helped me through it, and in a way, it seemed to have helped him too.He hadn’t mentioned his sister or his niece again.

“Why does she think you abandoned her?”

He hung his head.“Because without realizing it, I did.She was only sixteen when her mom died.Her father said he wanted custody of her.He was married, had kids around her age, a more stable environment than I had going on at the time.”He clenched his jaw, and I sighed.

What he meant was that his reputation had worked against him.He’d been lost, broken.Drinking.Drugs.Women.They were all how he’d chosen to self-medicate back then.And the world knew it.How could they not, with the way people ate up every crumb of celebrity news they were given?

Even with his money, a judge wouldn’t have been stupid enough to grant Luck custody of a sixteen-year-old.Fuck, we’d had to grease a lot of palms just so I could get Bella.

But we’d both changed our lifestyles when Bella was born.Started our business, gotten away from the darker side of being in the spotlight.

“Her dad and stepmother wouldn’t let me be part of her life.Said I was too much of a bad influence.They were from prominent families, had their own money.But I sent support checks every month, hoping it would count for something.It didn’t.Because they shipped Brooke off to some all-girls boarding school up north.Or what I thought was a boarding school.I had no clue what was going on until the cops showed up at my place one night to see if she was with me.”

Every muscle in my body tensed.“The cops?Why?”

“She ran away.Completely disappeared.Her dad figured she would come to me.She didn’t.”His eyes were haunted when he met my gaze, and I realized just how crappy of a friend I’d been.

He’d gone through that shit, and I hadn’t had a clue.Admittedly, I’d had a lot going on at the time.Between Sariah and then getting custody of Bella, I’d felt like I couldn’t breathe.But fuck, Luck had been at my side the entire time.If it weren’t for him, I didn’t think I would have survived any of it.

He swallowed hard, looking green.“It wasn’t a boarding school.”

“Then what the fuck was it?”

“Hell on earth.”

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