“Surely he’d just fallen on hard times.”
Luke laughed harshly. “Hard times. Right. The only hard times he fell on were of his own making because he couldn’t stay away from the drugs and the alcohol long enough to hold down a job. Maybe it all started when Celia died. I don’t know, but that man had no business raising a child.”
With his elbows propped on the table, he buried his hands in his hair and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to remember the fear and pain that had been his constant companion, but they coiled around him like razor wire, lacerating him. The knowledge that John wasn’t even his father somehow made it worse, and he wondered if John had known. If so, had some of his terrifying aggression stemmed from that betrayal?
“Did John ever know?” Luke heard himself ask.
“Allen do
