Pit: The A**hole Club Series by Saffire Blue (summer books txt) 📕

walked away from that jewelry store, none of this would have happened. Nicky felt like he couldn’t offer me more than danger.

“He swore I wouldn’t have survived him, or his family’s life and I knew I wouldn’t have survived being out there on my own. I knew nothing, I had nothing but a small child on the way.

“I had to weigh my options. Thaddeus was younger, he seemed to be able to provide a more stable life. His father pulled a lot of strings and granted a ton of favors to get him his first appointment to the DA office. He probably would have gone far too, if he wasn’t so greedy and his father hadn’t had a heart attack and died.

“Thaddeus lost his favor with most city officials and those that kept the Pitman’s controlling the little they did. That’s when he started making deals and finding things to hold over people, what he’s best at.

“No one ever liked him, before his father’s death they tolerated him because of his father. This burned at him. He always had a loose hold on everything.

“He thought he had something to prove. He was so jealous of Nicky. It was like he wanted to be him but hated everything about him at the same time.

“Nicky was an excellent prosecutor. If you want to know the truth. He should have been the district attorney and would have been if not for all the dirty moves Thaddeus made every four years to get back in office.

“Augustine Knight, your grandfather, didn’t like the idea of Nicky holding that office, so he didn’t block Pitman’s efforts. The Pitman family never controlled Vander the way the Knight family did, it was something Thaddeus envied and talked about all the time. Gordon had tried, but the Knights were always stronger. Vander was built on their family’s back—”

“So, what happened?” I ask getting impatient.

“I married Thaddeus and Nicky married Willow. I don’t know what Thaddeus hated more. That you were Nicky’s son or that he couldn’t have children of his own.

“His father hadn’t cared who the father of my child was. He never asked. He was gone by the time Thaddeus figured it out. He never gave you much attention, but when he came across your birth certificate and saw your full name and from that day forward…” Mom trails off and falls silent, tears start to fall.

“He hated my guts,” I finish for her.

She nods. “I wanted you to have a part of him.” She sucks in a breath. “Willow was murdered not long after she gave birth to their son, Anthony. They were married barely a year. Nicky was devastated. She truly was his best friend. He hurt for her loss.

“There was some corruption or something. He never explained it to me, but he vowed to take them all down. I… I was there to comfort him.

“From time to time, I would take you to see him behind Thaddeus’s back. Years had passed, Nicky and I had fallen in love all over again. You and Anthony would play together and had a bond just like brothers should.”

I furrow my brows. I sort of remember a friend I used to have when I was little. One day we just didn’t go to see him or the man anymore.

I pull a hand down my face. “He used to give me quarters to ride the race car. The one outside the hardware store in Vander,” I say.

Mom beams and nods. “Anthony would ride in the spaceship and you would always have to be in the race car. If we tried to switch the two you would throw a tantrum.”

I reach to brush the tears from her cheek. I wish I weren’t so curious. If I didn’t have this burning need to know, I’d stop her from reliving this.

“Nicky started to build us the house out by the mill. He was going to take us away from Thaddeus. He promised he had a plan. Then one night, Nicky was murdered,” she chokes out.

“He… he… he had pictures,” she breaks into a sob and wrings her hands together as tears soak her cheeks. “Of Nicky and I making love. They were grainy. You know we didn’t have the technology you all have now, but I was pregnant with the twins. All Thaddeus had to do was prove he couldn’t have children.

“I would have been so humiliated and the memory of Nicky… I couldn’t have his name dragged through the mud. Thaddeus promised if I divorced him, never told a soul who my children’s real father was, and kept his image up with the elite, he would keep me comfortable and make sure you kids had the proper schooling and were provided for.

“I never put two and two together. I didn’t know he had Nicky murdered. I was so naïve and again I was pregnant with only one sensible option.

“Thaddeus never wanted to be married. He just wanted the optics of the marriage. With his father gone, he decided we didn’t need to be in our marriage any longer. I was fine with that.”

“You were also fine with him treating us like shit,” I growl.

“I was never okay with that. The way he treated you made me sick to my stomach.”

“Then why’d you let it happen. Why not send me to my real family?”

“He wouldn’t allow it. It was a part of no one ever knowing who your father was. I never told anyone. Blake figured it out. He came to me, but I was so afraid. He was more involved in that life than Nicky was. We both agreed not to place you children in danger.”

I laugh bitterly. “I wasn’t already in danger in our own home? At least my uncle would have taken care of me, cared for me.”

“Really. William? Do you understand their world? You would become a mobster?

“For what, so I could lose you too? You were so determined to make something of yourself just like your father. I