was overwhelmed—guilt over unknowingly causing a man his life and woe for Vaughn feeling like he had to go to those lengths to be with me. “I didn’t ask you to—”
“That’s the thing you need to understand. You’ll never have to ask me to protect you.”
“Protect me from what?”
Vaughn’s gaze flashed with impatience. I didn’t fight him as he led me through the family room that had been deserted into the breakfast room and through a door out onto the veranda. We were away from prying eyes and ears. “My father isn’t racist,” he announced. “He’s far worse, and I don’t say that lightly.”
“What could be worse?”
His hand lifted and brushed the tear I hadn’t realized had fallen away. I couldn’t help but be sad for Vaughn. “Hating you because I love you.” Vaughn took his hand away, and I almost snatched it back. “He would have taken the one thing that kept me whole and then used me to wreak that same havoc on the world.” I stayed where I was when he moved toward the stone railing. Something told me he needed the distance to share what I could only imagine was his shame. “My father couldn’t kill me, so he spent my entire life searching for the perfect pawn. Someone I cared about enough to make me come to heel. Sometimes I wondered if my mother left me and moved to Paris, not to save herself, but so that he couldn’t have it. Even if she’d been here, I wouldn’t have been allowed to care for her.”
“Your mother’s alive? You never talk about her. I thought that maybe she…”
“That she’s dead?” He shook his head as he stared at the green lawn below us. “She’s alive, but she might as well be a stranger. I haven’t seen or heard from her since I was six.”
I gulped at that. With his father dead, Vaughn was as good as an orphan—unless he decided to reach out to her. I already knew his pride wouldn’t allow him to, so I hoped that, eventually, when she heard of his father’s death, she’d be strong enough to reach out to him.
“Your father wanted you to work for him…what was it that he wanted you to do?”
Vaughn studied me for a long while, debating how much he should reveal or if he should reveal anything at all. His father was gone, and he still didn’t feel safe. Was it a sin to hate the dead? If so, I’d burn for sure. “Have you heard of Thirteen?”
Warily, I nodded. I wasn’t sure where this was going. Surely, Vaughn’s father—I couldn’t finish the thought for fear of knowing the answer even when the man was dead. Everyone feared Thirteen, even people like me who’d been lucky enough never to encounter that kind of danger. Or so I thought.
“He was their leader.”
I pressed a hand to my stomach, feeling it twist and turn. It was so much worse than I imagined. “He wanted you to murder people?”
“And sell guns and drugs and…people.”
“People?”
Slowly, Vaughn nodded. “Thirteen is responsible for nearly ten percent of the trafficking in and out of the United States—women, men, children. It doesn’t matter to them.”
“Did you do any of this?” When he simply stared at me, I had my answer. Children? What if it had been River? My legs almost collapsed from under me. Sensing this, he closed the distance between us and held on to me.
“I wish I could make excuses and say that I didn’t have a choice, but the truth is I did choose, and I chose to keep you safe. I was willing to do whatever it took to make that happen.” Instead of pulling away, I clung to him tighter. I was glad Franklin Rees was dead because I just might have killed him myself. “And when River was born,” he continued, “I knew bowing to my father wouldn’t be enough. One of the expectations he’d made clear to me was that I would have sons to take over when I fell. He was going to do to River what he did to me, and I couldn’t let that happen. I no longer had a soul to protect, but I had you and River. It was more than enough.” His eyes moved back and forth as he searched my gaze for resentment and disgust. “But if it makes you feel any better, I didn’t pull the trigger. I didn’t actually murder my father. I simply commandeered fate and