“You been thinking about her?” I ask, my eyes falling to her stomach.

She shrugs, a slight frown taking over as she focuses on the flower stencil covering Zoey’s wall. “If worrying I’ll suck as bad as she did at the whole mothering thing counts, then yeah.” A heavy sigh leaves her. “With every couple blinks,” she admits.

“What’s Maddoc say?”

“How I’m not her and would never allow myself to be.”

“He’s right.”

Raven scowl deepens. “She was a drug addict, Cap. I smoke weed, or did before I got knocked up. She sold her body for quick cash, I let people beat on mine for the same.”

“You didn’t let people beat on you.” I shake my head. “You found a way to take care of yourself, got in a ring and earned some money with your fists by winning. That’s nowhere near the same thing.”

Her lips pinch and she gives a jerky nod.

“Trust me, Brayshaw, you’ll be more than she ever could have.”

She looks to me with a small smile. “Or die trying.”

No doubt in my mind she’d do exactly that.

We eye each other, and with each passing second, her features soften.

She tilts her head, always knowing when I have something to say, but will never force it from me.

I ask her what’s been on my mind. “Why do you think our dad did this for her, why hide a Graven with the girls in the group home?”

She nods as if she was expecting this question at some point, proving me right when she speaks.

“I worked this shit out in my head so many times,” she admits. “I thought for sure it was to keep an eye on her, track trouble, you know?” She takes a deep breath. “But now that I know he’s not a total dickhead,” she says, making me chuckle. “I think he wanted to give her a chance in hell at a life.” She looks my way. “Who the hell knows what it was really like for her before this place. You saw the scars on her stomach, same as me. We can’t even pretend to know how she got ‘em.”

My lips flatten at the mention of the markings on Victoria’s skin, something we were never meant to see but did when her shirt was torn without her knowledge a few months back, giving my brothers, myself, and Raven an accidental clear view of the markings carved into her. She never offered an explanation and we never asked for one.

I’ve turned over every possibility in my head, but in our world, it could be the result of a million things. My thoughts could be tame compared to her reality, not that I have any way of fucking knowing.

“I think she has a lot to tell,” Raven says.

“Then why the fuck hasn’t she?”

A soft chuckle leaves her, and she shoves to her feet. “Asks the guy who shares his life with us, but his deepest thoughts with a paper and pen.”

I frown, pushing from the windowsill to stand in front of her.

“Why hasn’t she?” she teases as she pats my chest, her gray eyes meeting mine. “How about, why would she? She might be living in a big fancy mansion, but with space doesn’t come comfort for girls like us, and we’ve given her none.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’re fucked up rejects, and we know it. In case we ever start to forget, society is always game, set, and ready to remind us. We’re well aware the dangers hope can bring, so... we have none.”

With that, she moves toward the door, and my gaze follows, knowing she’ll pause to add something before she walks out.

She does.

Her hand plants on the doorframe as she shifts her body sideways to look at me. “Trust is normally a two-way street, Cap, but in our case it’s a four-lane, one-way highway. Imagine being on the outside of that.”

“You were, at first.”

“And I made mistakes.”

“You made selfless choices.”

“I made reckless decisions.”

“For us,” I stress.

Raven shrugs. “Who’s to say she didn’t do the same? Your dad brought her here, put her in the safety of your group home, on your property, in your town. Maybe she felt a sense of loyalty without realizing it. Or maybe she does and admitting is the hard part. All she knew of Brayshaw was the man she was raised with. Can’t be easy to suddenly hurt for one Brayshaw when not long ago you wanted to hurt another.”

Unease lines my throat, the thought having never crossed my mind.

Victoria had no clue what it meant to be Brayshaw, all she knew was what Mero told her, taught her.

Raven is right, that’s a hell of a change in mindset.

“If she’s serious about her place here, she’ll talk to us eventually, and she knows what follows once she does. We hide nothing from each other.” The corner of her mouth lifts into a grin. “Other than the saucy stuff.”

A chuckle leaves me, and she laughs, walking out.

I drop onto Zoey’s bed, knowing damn well Raven is right.

Both of us aware I won’t ask what I want to know—that would make it easy on her.

She wants to stay, she needs to be brave.

She needs to come to me.

She—

“Daddy!” Zoey yells from the media room. “Hu-mon!”

“Yeah, Daddy, come on or Imma press play without your word!” Royce’s shout follows hers.

I chuckle, grab Zoey’s blanket like I came in here to do before getting distracted, and head to watch a movie with my brother and my little girl.

As soon as I step out of Zoey’s room, Royce is at the top of the stairs.

I nod my chin in question, a frown following.

He jerks his head, indicating for me to follow him.

In the living room, Raven sits on the couch, Maddoc right beside her with a hand on her thigh.

There’s no sign of Victoria. She might have gone to her room while I was putting Zoey to bed—anything to avoid passing me in the hall.

“What’s goin’ on?”

Royce sets a Hot Wheel on the coffee table, a little blue sports car.

“That’s not Zoey’s,” I say what they already know. “Where’d you find it?”

“After the movie, I went for some playtime. It was on my hood when I came outta Tracy Parks’ pool house.” He wiggles his eyebrows. “Don’t worry, didn’t tell her when we were coming back to campus, not even when she came at me with some good ass incentive.”

Raven chuckles and Maddoc flicks a glare her way.

“It was just the toy?” I ask, knowing he’s already filled the other two in while I was busy with Zoey.

Royce nods. “Sitting on a torn piece of blank paper.” He tosses it down. “So I wouldn’t hunt the fucker down for scratchin’ my shit, I’m guessin’.”

Raven leans forward, picking up the item and inspecting it. “This is how people tell you when someone’s fucking up and shit needs fixing? They drop puzzle pieces and make you work for it?”

“They trust us to read between the lines.”

“And,” Royce adds. “We figure it’s ‘cause nobody wants to be a rat.”

Raven’s lip twitches. “Now that makes sense.”

Maddoc frowns. “We haven’t heard shit in a minute, nothing more than the petty bull Mac handled on campus while we were gone,” he says.