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our faces.”
    “I’m done caring! I lost everything trying to fix this and I’m done!”
    “You haven’t begun to lose, you ungrateful bastard,” Walter said in a threatening growl. “I should have never claimed you as my son. No son of mine would be such a fuck up. I should have let your mother run off with the fucking loser that fathered you.”
    Oh shit!
    “I’ll keep that in mind when the FBI comes knocking.”
    I heard some shuffling and grunting and the unmistakable sound of fists hitting flesh. I ran from the room and nearly froze when I found Walter pushing Kyle around and throwing punches at him. What gave me pause was that Kyle was not fighting back. He blocked what he could but he was allowing himself to get his ass kicked.
    What the hell!
    “Stop!” I yelled, running into the room. I ran full force into Walter, shoving him so hard he fell back onto the dining room table. “Get out of here!” I yelled even though it wasn’t my home.
    Kyle grabbed me around the waist and pulled me away from his faux father. Walter stood upright. He was glaring at me, but he spoke to Kyle.
    “Nice guard dog,” he said. He walked past us to the door. “You’re fired for illegal drug usage and fucking your assistant,” he said to Kyle. “You’re banned from the estate and I will find a way to cut your ass off.”
    “I don’t doubt that you will,” Kyle said dryly. “Now get out and leave your key.”
    Walter reached into his pocket and then threw a key on the floor before slamming the door.
    Kyle released me and I spun around to look at him. His mouth was bleeding again and there were bruises forming on his cheek. His right eye was already tur ning colors and starting to swell. This time I pulled off my own shirt to hold to his lip.
    “Why didn’t you fight back?” I asked as I led him to a chair. I made him sit down and hu rried into the kitchen to make him an icepack. I almost felt let down that he didn’t fight back. I never believed Kyle Sterling to be someone’s little bitch to beat up on. Not even close.
    “I wanted him to get it out of his system,” he said when I returned with the icepack. I car efully put it over his eye and held it there.
    “What do you mean?” I asked.
    “He won’t go home and beat the shit out of my mother instead,” he said darkly as he stared straight ahead.
    I felt like he had just punched me in the chest. While this was new to me, it most likely was not a new development in the Sterling family. Most likely Kyle had been witnessing such b ehavior since he was a child and probably experienced a good deal of beatings himself.
    “Even if I knew that beforehand, I’m not sure if I would have been able to just stand there and watch him do that to you,” I admitted reluctantly. I felt sick knowing that it was a possibility Walter Sterling had not finished getting “it out of his system” and he would finish with his wife.
    In well under twenty-four hours, I had learned that Kyle had beaten Emmy, but he couldn’t remember it because he was high and drunk. He was an addict, still struggling to stay clean. He had a brother that died as a child and Kyle believed he was responsible. His father was defrau ding some people. Kyle couldn’t dump Jess and commit to the woman he really loved because he was trying to fix the mess and keep Jess from bringing it to light. Walter Sterling was an abusive husband and clearly an abusive parent, but apparently he was only Kyle’s parent in name only because Kyle was fathered by someone else.
    It was a lot to learn about a man who seemed to live a fairly private life. I was never meant to know any of it, but now that I did, I didn’t know what to do with it. It should have been a clear indication that he had too much going on in his life, and now with his faux father out to destroy him, things weren’t going to get any easier anytime soon. I had my own problems and demons to fight and skeletons in my closet. I wasn’t sure if I