Page 5 of Pocketful of Us

My.

Life.

2

Presley

Slumped between two strangers and clad in another stranger's clothes, Sketch looked completely lost while I blew his world apart by asking him to believe the impossible; that his life was a lie.

His beloved twin wasn't even his freaking brother and the people he had called his parents for the majority of his life were fraudsters.

Add to the mix that Sketch's bio mom had been murdered and his bio dad had been tossed behind bars, leaving him the last target from a family of mafia kings that had been overthrown from power – by Cal Dillon, no less – and you had a prescription for about thirty years' worth of therapy.

Yep.

This was more than a pickle.

This was a freaking watermelon!

I felt like crying for the boy he used to be – the one Chris had written about in his journal. The little boy that had been ripped from his mother's arms only to be tossed into hell on earth. Beaten and starved, drugged and branded, he had been subjected to inconceivable childhood torture, intended to strip him of his sanity, and in doing so, his identity.

Sketch had no memories of his life before the age of four – he'd said so himself.

Because they had needed him to forget who he was.

They had wanted a blank canvas so they created one.

Fucking monsters.

Against all odds, that same little boy had learned to fight for himself. He learned to love without being shown how, to care without having anyone care for him, and somehow morphed into the man before me now.

But I could see the broken child buried just beneath the surface of those finely carved muscles and tattoos.

Sketch Capaldi was beautifully broken, hauntingly vulnerable, and tragically alone in the world.

A lifetime of neglect, abuse, and castigation had been forced upon him for a secret he was unaware of.

An identity he never chose in the first place.

His only reprieve from the suffering, his one crutch in his lifetime of misery, had been the one person who loved himback.

Until they took her away from him, too.

And just like that, all of the guilt I held inside for keeping what I caught Romi and Sketch doing on the night of the Winter Formal a secret from Chris disintegrated into nothingness.

At the time, I couldn’t understand how Sketch could betray his brother like that, but after spending so much time with him in Houston and discovering the harrowing reality of his life, I got it now. Loud and clear. Romi Dillonconsumedhim. She was all Sketch ever had, and Chris, for all his good looks and intentions, had helped Cal Dillon take her away from him.

Hell, it was a miracle the poor bastard hadn't snapped and blown up the town.

"Are you okay there, buddy?" I dared to ask, knowing it was a ridiculous question to ask him, but needing to hear him say something. Fifteen minutes had passed by without Sketch uttering a single syllable and I was growing antsy. Patience wasn't a virtue I'd been gifted with and I loathed awkward silences.

"Am I okay?" Sketch repeated flatly, attention locked on his hands. "Let me think about it for a sec. My girl is missing. I've just been told that my name isn't actually my name. My parents aren’t my parents. The brother I was raised to believe was my twin wasn't my brother after all, and he wasmurderedto keep my identity a secret – more likely than not by the same man that killed my birth mother, framed my birth father, and shot me… Oh, and did I forget to mention that same prick just so happens to be my girlfriend'sfather!" He blew out a shaky breath. "So, no. I think it's safe to say that I amnotokay, Pres."

"Yeah, that was a stupid question," I wholeheartedly agreed. "Sorry."

"Where's my dad?"

My brows shot up in surprise. "You mean your adoptive dad, right?" Wincing, I chuckled nervously. "Because we've already established that Cal exterminated your birth dad from your life. And your birth mom from the earth –"

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