a girl pregnant at eighteen, left her with the kid, and disappeared without a word.
“When he came back smiling and charming and singing a tale of rehab and rebuilding his life, she was so happy, Ember. Her only child had come back to her whole, healthy, and ready to make amends. She hugged him and cried in the kitchen, saying how much she loved him as I watched from the doorway.”
A fist clamped around my heart. “It was a trick, wasn’t it?”
“In his head, it probably wasn’t. Rio did get clean. He taught himself business and economics, and then he revamped his entire image. From street thug to businessman dealing in the finer things. I’m sure he believed he was ready to be a father.”
Tilting my head back, I kissed his throbbing jaw. “He came back for you.”
“Yes,” he said simply. “Rio couldn’t just take me, of course. The guy fucked off and abandoned me. Gran had full custody. But he wanted in my life. Picking me up from school. Nights at his place. Long stays with him so Gran and Eddie could take vacations. He sold her the dream.”
“She wanted you to have a father,” I said, putting myself in his grandmother’s shoes. “And she wanted to believe the best in her son. So, she said yes.”
“I did too,” he said so softly the wind almost snatched his words away. “I never truly hated him. Gran did not frame Rio as a person to be hated. He was the man who did the best he could in a situation he couldn’t handle. He returned for a chance, so I gave him one.”
“What happened?”
“At first, nothing. I was thirteen. You remember how it was five years ago?” he asked. “The Horsemen were always around, but back then, they were at their worst. That’s when they started to consolidate power. As in when Rio came back, took over, and approached other gang leaders to unite under one name.
“Gran and I didn’t know about any of this. He was just the cool guy who took me for ice cream after school, let me stay up past my bedtime, and bought me a car two years early when I got into the academy. He said it was incentive for me to come home and let him give me driving lessons.”
“Oh no,” I breathed. My stomach twisted realizing where this was going.
“It started small,” Royal said. “One day he picked me up from the academy and said he’d teach me how to break into my car in case I ever locked the keys in. Another day, he taught me how to hack his car’s internal computer—just for fun.
“That’s what no one tells you, Ember. You don’t just wake up one day and decide to throw everything you learned about good and wrong out the window. It’s a bunch of little things you know you shouldn’t do, that you rationalize away. ‘If this was really wrong, Dad wouldn’t ask me to do it.’ Or ‘they can afford to buy another one.’
“Those little things add up and then you don’t know which way is right anymore. You’re numb. Looking at the world behind glass, and nothing is real because nothing can touch you.”
I squeezed his hand tight, too wretched to find the right words. How could Rio believe he had nothing to answer for? He came into a happy, innocent boy’s life and dragged him to the depths.
“Rio had me stealing cars by fifteen. He let me keep most of the money too. I was his son. I didn’t pay the pot. I did whatever I wanted... as long as I did what he wanted.”
“When did you find out he was a leader of the Horsemen?”
“After he got me dancing to his tune, he didn’t bother hiding it. He’d go on and on about the Raveners being happy to see the OB sink into hell. We had nothing to do with them and their”—he gestured at our tranquil haven—“perfect lives. The Horsemen would save the Outer Borough because they were the only ones who could.”
“But you couldn’t have bought that nonsense?” I sprung up, finding his chestnut eyes in the dark. “You must have seen him for the megalomaniac psychopath he was.”
“I couldn’t see that. By sixteen, he was keeping me in the dark about most of the stuff he was into. All I saw was exactly what he was spouting about—the Horsemen helping people. I hooked up with the triplets. Heard my dad was responsible