“No idea.”
“Was her murder premeditated?”
“They said it was a random burglary gone sideways.”
“What doyouthink?”
“I was only eight, so everything is jumbled.I remember David and Celeste fighting off the intruder, probably guarding what little we owned.”
He nods, listening the way only Wolf can, ears perked, eyes locked, endless patience.
“And Jag?”He keeps his voice low, safely inside our private pocket of sound.“What does he think?”
“Who knows?He never talked about it, no matter how much I pressed.”
“Where’s his bio mom?”
“She died when he was a baby.David married my mom when Jag was nine.Celeste is the only mother he ever knew.”
Wolf presses closer, brushing his cheek against my temple, encouraging me to continue.
“Jag was close to his dad and my mom.Really close.I remember that much.”My chest constricts.“But he never talks about them, not about their lives or their deaths.”
“Why not?”
“Losing them messed him up.When he pulled me out of the pantry after he stabbed that man…” My voice thins.“The way he looked at me, it was like the world was dead, and I was the last thing he had to drag through it.”
“He shouldn’t have put that on you.”
“It wasn’t his choice.But it became his curse.He was wanted for murder, so everything we did was about survival.Running.Hiding.More murder.He turned himself into a death-dealing fortress, and I was the stray locked inside.”
“What about your bio dad?”His thumb traces the bones in my hand.“Did you try to find him?”
“No.My mom never told me his name or why she left him.Only that he didn’t deserve our love and wasn’t worth the space in our heads.”I loosen a breath.“The concept of family died with David and Celeste.I don’t remember what being part of a family feels like.”
“You do now.”
My throat stings.
“That’s not just my family.”He nods toward Monty and Kody.“It’s yours now, too.If you want.”
I look at the two men inside the cabin, one lecturing about muddling mint, the other pretending not to care.Then at Leo and Frankie asleep on the lounger, curled around each other in perfect tranquility.
It feels unreal, like stepping into someone else’s dreamy life.
Except their lives have been anything but dreamy.
I read the journals and can’t help but think about the hell they lived through.So many harrowing moments plague my mind.Like the wolf attack that shredded Kody’s body, and Frankie’s quick reflexes with the blood transfusion that saved his life.The scar across Leo’s abdomen, and eight-year-old Wolf’s revenge against his mother.Monty’s year-long hunt for his missing wife, and the discovery that his depraved brother had taken her.
And Wolf… Abused by not one, but two monsters.The things they did to him, no one should survive that.But he did.And now he’s lying beside me, warm and alive and looking at me like I’m the celestial light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
I swallow hard and push my fingers into the cushion to steady myself.
“And me.”He tugs at my hand, bringing my eyes back to his.“You get me.”
“And you get me.”
“I plan to take full advantage of that.”His smile is devastating.
