Page 28 of Dark Wolf Soul
Marriage… to Grey? No way. It’s not like my life was anything special before, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to tie myself forever to a man willing to toss me into a trunk.
He’s on the couch, his head hung low, his hands propped on his knees.
When I step into the room, he lifts his eyes to mine, and the look he wears punches me in the gut. I see nothing but pure, raw pain, and layered over that is utter hatred.
“If that’s what family’s like, I guess I’m better off.” It’s a horrible joke, but the bleakness in his eyes lightens just a little anyway.
“Yours is no picnic either,” he shoots back.
“So you say.”
He drops his head again. A moment of silence passes between us.
“Would he really kill you?” I ask quietly, but I think I already know the answer when he snorts.
“Who knows at this point.”
I bite my lip, thrown by the idea that a father could kill his own son. I’ve never had a family before, but I’ve always imagined something, well, better than this.
“Will he be home anytime soon?” I ask, already dreading a round two with that asshole.
He looks up, his brows furrowing. “He doesn’t live here.”
“Oh. I thought—”
“My father has multiple houses so that he can be in one while his family members are at another.” His voice twists in a way that tells me he’s learned this the hard way.
“Do you have siblings?” I ask, finding myself wanting to know more about this guy—as fucked up as he is.
He shakes his head then looks down again. “No, and that’s a good thing. I don’t want to think about what it would be like to watch anyone else be hurt.”
I want to ask what he means by that because there’s a haunted look in his eyes that is at odds with his answer. Instead, it makes me think about my family. The parents I never knew and apparently were taken from me, thanks to my supposed grandfather.
“Did Franco really kill my dad?” I ask.
He looks up at me again. “That’s the rumor.”
I sink onto the oversized chair beside me. The leather is cold enough to make me shiver—or maybe it’s the hard truths that have been continuously dumped on me today.
Grey’s sharp eyes don’t miss it. “Cold?”
“A little.”
He hesitates then reaches over and pulls a blanket off the back of the couch. Then he stands, makes his way over to me, and drapes the blanket across my lap.
“Thanks,” I tell him softly. He sits again, and I shake my head. “You don’t seem like a mafia type.”
His brow arches. “I wasn’t aware there’s a type. Or that you know so many of us already.”
“I just mean… my friend Violet, her brother took a loan from a mafia guy in Indigo Hills once. Apparently, he couldn’t repay it on time and was never seen again. I thought you were all criminals and murderers.”
“What makes you think I’m not those things?”
“Your dad is scary and mean. He sounds like a killer. But you…”
I trail off, biting my lip as my thoughts jumble on the possible ways to end that sentence.
He leans forward so that our knees are nearly touching. “What about me?”
