Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 123212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
He stares at me and for a moment, Eli, Sebastian, and Kairo fade away, leaving just me and Nic—real, raw, and lethal. He swallows hard and I watch as he mentally goes through his options. He knows damn well that I will follow through on my threat and considering his reaction to the thought of me moving on this morning, I’m going to go ahead and assume that he doesn’t want me to walk away.
He lets out a loud breath, realizing that he’s backed into a corner and the second he does, the three boys stiffen as admitting that he knows something is admitting that they do too.
“Your father was a Wolf,” he starts, his eyes never once leaving mine, and upon seeing the lack of surprise, his brows furrow right along with the rest of them.
“You knew,” Kairo says, like an accusation, stepping a little closer.
My eyes cut to his. “Is it such a surprise that I knew something about my own fucking father? Hell, you guys all knew so why shouldn’t I? I fucking found out during an appointment at school when someone recognized my father’s name. Do you know how fucking stupid I looked sitting there and accusing this woman of not knowing what the fuck she was talking about?”
“Babe,” Sebastian says, reaching for me and trying to be that voice of reason that’s always been able to calm me during the worst kind of storms.
“DON’T,” I snap, stepping just out of his reach and watching his features break. “You all kept this from me. How could you do that? For fucking years. Tell me, did you know from the very beginning? Is that why you guys just suddenly popped into my life?”
“It’s not like that,” Nic growls.
“You know what? I don’t even care about that right now. I want to know if the shit in this folder is fucking true,” I demand, hating what I read and refusing to believe it. “I want to know just how low you can get, Dominic.”
“Well,” he says. “You have the papers in front of you. Read it for yourself.”
“I already have read it,” I yell at him. “I want to hear it from you. I want you, the guy who’s supposed to have my back to tell me that he’s always known the very reason why mom and I ended up in Bellevue Springs. I want you to tell me that you’ve known the answers to the questions that I kept asking and I want you to fucking tell me to my goddamn face that you’ve lied to me over and fucking over again.”
“O–”
“FUCKING TELL ME.”
“Alright,” he roars. “Your father was a fucking scumbag who stole from Carrington to put food on the fucking table for your ass and he got caught. He was offered two choices. Either pay the money back or lose his life, and that prick decided to pay up, but all he had was you and that fucking prick sold you to Carrington to save himself. You paid off his debt. That’s why you’re in Bellevue Springs. That’s why Charles called you his goddamn property, and that’s why I haven’t taken your ass out of there. Is that what you wanted to hear? You wanted me to break your precious little heart and tell you the truth about the man who you hold on a fucking pedestal? I was trying to protect you.”
I step into him, clenching my jaw. “I don’t need your protection. You lied to me. You could have told me from the start.”
“How could I have told you? If you knew you were a Wolf, you would have turned your back and walked away from us as some fucked up way to protect us. I wasn’t willing to risk that.”
“And just like that, you get to make that decision for me? So, every day you put my life at risk by bringing me into your world. You’re a fucking Widow and I’m a Wolf. We can’t be … whatever the fuck we are. I can’t be anything to any of you, yet every day you risk me like that. If they knew that I’m a fucking Wolf, I’d be–
“Dead.”
My eyes whip over to the chilling voice to find Kian striding toward me. My heart races. I’ve never had this man actually come to talk to me before. I’ve always had Nic’s protection from that, but I don't need him. Not any more. Not if he could hide something like this from me.
I turn back to Nic, not giving a shit about his father right now. “Does my mother know? Colton?”
He shakes his head. “No. Neither of them.”
I let out a breath, not realizing how badly those questions had been plaguing my mind since I first scanned through these papers, but now it all makes sense. Why my boys have been so shady about Bellevue Springs, why Charles so suddenly took us in, and why he took an interest in my schooling. I wasn't just staff to him, I was his actual property. Yet in all of this, there's still one question that sits heavy on my heart.