“How can you be so calm about this?”he nearly yelled.
She sighed.“Because I likely would’ve felt worse if she hadn’t killed herself.Because I knew the future that baby had in store for it had it been born.And, frankly, that was the greater of the two evils, in my opinion.Because I couldn’t have lived with myself knowing I left a baby in harm’s way with an abusive mother.”
He turned and headed for the closet.
“Where are you going?”she asked.
He snorted.“Not that it matters, but for a fucking run.Alone.I need time to process all of this.The baby’s asleep in her crib and I forgot the monitor downstairs in the living room, so you should probably go get it.”
Slowly, her soul feeling a thousand times heavier now, she walked downstairs and found the monitor.She turned to head back and spotted Badger in the kitchen, where he froze when their gazes locked.
Dewi bitterly laughed.“You didn’t turn invisible by freezing.”She walked over.“Did you hear that?”
He slowly nodded.“Enough.I take it some o’ that I shouldn’ta heard?”
She set the monitor on the counter.“Yes.Most of it.Please, don’t ask me.Just tell Peyton you overheard something if you want to know.”
“I didn’t hear a thing, fuzzball.”He walked around the counter and hugged her, holding her, and she didn’t care if it made her needy.She closed her eyes and remembered times when she was a kid, how he hugged her.Her dad.The only dad she really knew.
“I fucked up,” she whispered, hating the taste of those words.“I fucked up and hurt Ken.I had to do something for the good of the pack.But that doesn’t matter, because I still hurt Ken.And I don’t know how to make it right.”
He heavily sighed.“Ye’ll talk it out together when he calms down.Ye’ll apologize and mean it and ask what ye can do to make it up to him.And then ye grovel as long as needed.Yer mates.It’s not like either of ye’ll leave.But ye need to acknowledge ye know what ye did and the pain it caused him and give him time to figure out what he needs from you.”
“I wish I could just make things normal from now on.If I hadn’t done this, it might have led to another lab situation.”
“He’ll understand that.Doesn’t mean he won’t hurt, though.Bein’ in charge means makin’ difficult decisions for the greater good.If it were easy, any gobshite could do it, but it’s not easy, and only good people like you and Peyton are qualified to take care of the pack.”
“What about you and Da?”she asked.
He chuckled.“I told ye, I don’t want it.And Duncan already did it once.Ye need to learn how to lean on us and open up.Yer not Atlas—ye don’t need to be carryin’ the weight of the world on yer shoulders.”
“Thanks, Badger.”
“Hot cocoa, with the marshmallows?”he gently asked.
She started to nod when she burst into tears, his fatherly tone shattering her impenetrable shell into a million pieces.“Yes, please.”
He hugged her again before releasing her.She sniffled as she climbed onto one of the kitchen stools and stared at the baby monitor in her hand.
Enquist, if you were still alive, I’d happily kill you all over again for ruining my fucking family.
ChapterThirty-Six
Abundio
Abundio slumpedin the large leather chair behind his desk, his second glass of tequila in his hand.He stared at the ultrasound picture on his desk, the printout they’d received only last week.
Why?
That, above all else, was what he couldnotfathom.
All the priest could say—at gunpoint—was that she’d started to tell him she had an earth-shattering revelation and needed to share it.She started to say something about wolves…
And then she let out a cry and killed herself.
There was no one else in the confessional with her, no way for someone to shoot her from outside it.The priest hadn’t done it—that much was obvious from the crime scene evidence.The witnesses inside all said he didn’t emerge until after the shot, and there was no way he could’ve shot her through the partition because it was undamaged.
Plus, the gun was in her hand.Even the gunshot residue was on her, not him.
