The glass in his hand shattered against the floor before I even realized he’d thrown it. I jumped at the sound, clutching the bunny so tight I was sure her stitches would rip.
Vinny paced again, running both hands through his hair, his breathing ragged. He didn’t look at me. He couldn’t, or maybe, he just wouldn’t.
I couldn’t breathe either, no matter how hard I tried. I just–I could explain, if I only had the words. But, I didn’t, so I couldn’t.
He stopped pacing, turned toward me, and screamed, “Get out of my fucking office! We’ll talk aboutthislater.”
I didn’t move, not at first. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand him, I did. But those words didn’t sound like Vinny.
They sounded like Logan. Like when he’d decide my silence meant guilt for things I may or may not have done. My throat burned with words that would never come, and my fingers twitched with everything I dreamed of saying, but couldn’t.
Instead, a fog of panic stole every coherent thought I could form.
Standing up, I clutched my bunny to my chest and nodded once before turning and walking out the door, and from there, I kept walking.
Not because I wanted to, but because running was what I did best.
Chapter 22
Vinny
My hands shook like I was trapped in an earthquake.
All I wanted–all I fucking wanted–was a glass of bourbon to take the edge off.
But the bottle slipped.
The decanter hit the floor with a sharp crack, glass shattering like ice beneath my feet. Bourbon bled across the hardwood, soaking into the edges of the rug. I didn’t move to clean it.
I just stood there like a fucking idiot, staring at the mess, as Reed’s words kept circling in my head like vultures.
Violet didn’t want to get married.
Our parents sold her off.
Logan Stellar broke her bones.
Raped her.
Forced her into pregnancies—over and over—and every one ended in a miscarriage.
All of that, and she never said a word to us.
Violet had lived through hell. Years of it. Alone. Isolated. Silent. And still, she smiled like none of it had ever touched her. She held it in so deep that I didn’t even see the cracks.
Reed said Logan marked her. Claimed her with a nonconsensual bite to the finger, one she kept hidden under that ugly ass ring, that’s why none of us knew.
And if she had told us? If I had known on the first night thatshewas Logan’s missing omega?
I would’ve sent her back.
Back to the Stellars and back to that monster because I wasn’t going to start a war over a girl I didn’t know.
I wouldn’t have touched her. Wouldn’t have brought her into my home. Wouldn’t have let her into my bed, or my pack, or my fuckingheart.
I wouldn’t have let her steal pieces of me every time she signed something sweet, every time she looked at me like I wasn’t the monster everyone knew I was.
I would’ve protected myself. My family. My peace.
