54

MILA

“HOW DID YOU KNOW?” I asked Ronan, who walked away from me, the lines of his back as tense as granite. He knew I was asking about my mother and that my papa murdered her practically in front of my eyes.

“I don’t know anything,” was all he said before going into the bathroom and slamming the door shut behind him.

I stared at his absence and realized he didn’t want me to know the truth. He was trying to protect my view of my father. He knew how much my papa meant to me, and while I had no doubt Ronan was going through with his revenge, he still didn’t want to mar the vision I had of my father.

My papa killed my mother.

He callously shot her in the same house I was in.

My chest held an ache so sharp, the pain searched for holes to spread through. It was hard to fathom how the father I knew and loved could do that—though, in the back of my mind, I must have always known. The knowledge warped everything I thought I understood. Thinking about it sent a harsh throb through my head.