The Kings

31

Fred

[To: Jo & I
From: Adeline]
stop by my place tonight. merry Christmas btw ;)

I threw my phone down and walked back over to the punching bag, throwing a punch at it.

Boxing had to be one of the best exercises. It cleared my mind and also made my heart rate skyrocket.

"You good?"

I looked back at Dad, who was standing in the doorway of the basement.

"Yeah," I said, dropping my hands, "I'm good."

He sat down on the bench and I flexed my jaw muscle. I still wasn't the happiest with him or anyone, to be exact, for never telling us the truth about what really happened.

"Ari's going to be up soon, wanna come see what Santa got you?"

"Unless it was the truth, I don't know if I'm too interested," I said, pulling off my boxing gloves.

He sighed. "That kind of situation, it's heavy on a twelve year old."

"It's heavy on anyone," I said, furrowing my brows down at him.

"I didn't think it would ever come back up," he said, "and if it did, Adora and I taught ourselves how to hide it."

I just flexed my jaw muscle. "Well, is there a way to get the truth now? Six years later?"

He just looked up at me. "I never intended for it to come back up."

"It's not my fault it did, Adora asked what her last name was."

"It's not Adora's fault, either," he said, "it's no one's fault."

"So tell me," I said, "tell me the truth."

Dad was a secretive person. He liked living his life in private so much that over the years, he'd even gotten used to keeping his life private from us.

He hung his head. "I want your brother to be here, too."

"No," I said, "he'll have his own different way to go about things, this is me and you talking."

He just looked over at me. "You know, Mateo has an intense history. He's known her dad since he was a teenager, he's been in business that long."

I was all ears. I was curious to hear the truth.

"The thing that started it all," he said, raking his hand through his hair, "I knew he was getting himself into trouble. He was sixteen, he was a kid. He got left in an alley, I went to get him, they showed back up, left me for dead this time."

I'd always thought Dad had superpowers, still did, to be honest.

"Your mom, she was with me at the time," he said, "she's had it out for Mateo since then. Weird, right?"

I just let out a sigh and leaned back.

"So it went away, he got his life right," he said, "he went away."

"And then he came back," Dad said, flexing his jaw.

"He wasn't really affiliated with the gang after he came back, you guys were about three or four," he said, "he kept himself out of it for about seven, eight years."

"That's after Mom had Rose, yeah?"

"And she was pregnant," he said, nodding, "he got laid off, he went back to the gang to make money. I offered him a job, he wouldn't take it, but eventually, he wanted to take the job, so he had to go to Portland to tie up loose ends, finish up a few jobs."