The man he was referring to hadn’t stepped foot in this building in nearly ten years, but I saw him all the time. In my nightmares, mostly. On the backs of my eyelids. It was difficult to forget his unfeeling eyes and the way they searched for me through shadows and puffs of breath.
The Wolf.
It was the nickname I’d given him as a kid, and back then, it’d been easier to pretend he was just a character from a page in a Grimm Brothers book.
Knowing his true name would’ve made him more real, and even as an adult, I still wanted to pretend he was stuck on a page somewhere in someone else’s story.
My father pressed his hand to the underside of my jaw, the way he used to when I was a kid. “It’s your name on that sign too.”
I scoffed and shoved him away. “Half of this business is a front so you can push dishonest money for dishonest men.”
“That dishonesty is the only thing that keeps this business from sinking right into the ground. You can walk out that door any time you want, but you’d be abandoning what’s left of this family.”
God.
Bile churned in my gut, and the coffee I’d been looking forward to might as well have turned into a bucket of sludge.
He did this weekly—turned himself into a predator that fed off my guilt and obsession with saving everyone.
Gnawing at the inside of my cheek, I winced at the pain I felt in my stomach and leveled my father with a firm look.
I was fuckingcertainI’d have an ulcer before I turned thirty.
“I showed up,” I said, wrapping an arm around my middle.
Fingers shaking, I walked them across the desk calendar and reached for a chewed-on pen. I used the blunt end to flip open a file I’d been working through yesterday. “Don’t forget I’m leaving after lunch. Today’s a dance day.”
“Do you think that’s appropriate, Marcos? You don’t even receive proper compensation.”
“I receive exactly what I asked for.”
Regal Ballet was hidden within the hustle and bustle of the city. Its prestige wasn’t what made it special, but it guaranteed a price tag with way more zeros than I had in my bank account.
For each class I taught, I could enroll in one of my own, though that wasn’t the reason I’d applied to become an instructor.
I just…lovedthose kids.
Their unbothered giggles and toothless smiles did for me what water did for flowers.
“I showed up,” I said again. “I show up every day. I sit on this stool, work for a shitty wage, and then watch you skim thirty percent off the top of my paycheck. Dance is the only good thing you and Mama ever gave me, and I will not let you take it away. Not now.”
“We gave you life.”
“For shit’s sake, Luis. Is this what you call a life? We all died the day Manny did, but the difference is that he got to be buried while the rest of us are still up here, paying for your fucking mistakes.”
“Marcos—”
I hated how my nose tingled and the way my jaw ached as my teeth ground together.
With eyes a shade darker than mine, my father watched me stand from my stool. Mustache twitching, I knew he was preparing the apology I didn’t care to hear.
“You take my money. You sold my car. I sleep next to a water heater.”
“I understand, Marcos, I do,” he said, quiet. “I… shouldn’t have implied you quit dancing. I’m sorry.”
Ialmostbelieved him.
“Your mother and I had no idea how much you’d come to love that sport.”
