The scent of scorched rubber and motor oil sticks to me.I sniff my armpit and sigh.No wonder Wolf prefers Jag over me.Stray animals smell better than I do.
I wipe my hands on a rag that’ll never come clean, pull my phone out of my back pocket, and thumb the screen awake.
Still no texts from Wolf.
His radio silence chews a hole through my ribs.Because I know where he is and who he’s with.
The thought makes me itch.Not just because Jag is a narcissistic, homicidal manwhore.Not just because he can and will hurt Wolf.
It’s more selfish than that.
Jag has taken everything from me, and I can’t stand the idea of him stealing Wolf, wrenching Wolf’s savage protection away, and hoarding all that wild devotion for himself.
I shut my eyes.Squeeze the phone until it creaks.Open them again.Swipe down, and check my notifications.
One new message.
Carol.
Of all people.Carol-fucking-Samuels.My ex’s mother.The woman who never looked at me without pursing her lips like I was a sour sip of boxed wine.Too cheap.Too dirty.Too rough around the edges.Too much of everything unworthy for her perfect little Gavin.
I hesitate.What could she possibly want?I haven’t talked to her since I fled my wedding and left her with the bill.Maybe she wants reimbursement.
That’ll be a cold day in hell.
I tap the screen, and a link pops up.
An obituary.
Gavin Michael Samuels, 34.
Beloved son.Cherished friend.Taken too soon.
My breath strangles.My knees turn to wet paper, and the greasy rag slips from my fingers.
Dead.
He’s dead.
The shop carries on with the din of ratchet guns, clanking wrenches, and the guys shouting across the bay.But it all fades beneath the resounding toll ofDead, Dead, Dead.
How?
I scroll down, scanning over the funeral home address, candle emojis, and phrases likeIn lieu of flowers…
A quick Internet search doesn’t confirm how he died, but I know.The last year of my life is buried, six feet down, because that’s what Jag does.
There was the foster brother who fingered me behind the garage when I was fourteen.Two days later, a car accident.Hit and run, they said.Jag was stealing cars by then.
And the soldier who took me out for beers when I was fifteen.Deployment cut short by a bar fight gone too far.Stabbed.
And the mechanic who taught me how to rebuild a carburetor when I was sixteen.He was twenty years older than me, and I shouldn’t have had sex with him, but he gave me hope I could be more than an unloved orphan girl.Then he hung himself.Rope burns on his neck.But I know that knot had Jag’s fingerprints all over it.
And there were more.Every man who’s ever looked at me, touched me, or tried to love me is gone.
Jag circles my life like a man-eating beast, tearing out throats in the dark and ensuring no one stays long enough to matter.
He doesn’t kill me.He kills them.One by one.
