I gave him a single nod.
“Never again, brother. I’ve got you,” he promised, sincerity in his voice. He meant it. Though, that didn’t mean I believed him.
I turned away, not willing to see the woman that was wasting away inside. I wanted nothing to do with that place ever again.
Stretching my neck side to side until it popped, I took a moment to calm my nerves. I was the one who brutalized men in the ring but I’d never taken a life like this.
If I agreed to what Ronan was offering, it was only going to be one of many. Was I willing to give up any shreds of humanity I had left? Would Aries even want me if I found her again?
I didn’t know the answer to that, and if I believed what they said, she was gone anyway.
It was just me now. This half-life was all I would get.
I didn’t bother knocking. She was too stupid to lock her own damn door, so I shoved it open and stalked in, my steps sure and quick. I moved straight to her, merely three steps away. When she opened her mouth to scream, I slapped her face, hard, before pushing a blade to her throat.
“Make a noise, and I’ll gut you like a fish. Do you want to test me?”
It looks like Aries’s mother had aged about twenty years in the last four. I knew it wasn’t guilt or worry for her daughter. Hell, from the arrangement of old bottles and new ones resting side by side on her coffee table, she’d wasted her years drowning in drugs and alcohol.
Her skin was cold and clammy under my knuckles, the wrinkles pronounced. Stray gray hairs mixed with the blonde, giving it a strange dull combination. Sunken eyes glared at me. This woman was a wraith.
“I knew you’d come,” she spit out, voice hoarse.
“Why, because the police let you lie?” Ronan drawled in that easygoing voice of his.
It was only then that she realized we were not alone.
“Who the fuck are you?” she bit out, her eyes still slightly unfocused and hazy from whatever she had pumping through her system.
“Your worst nightmare,” he sang out, taking pleasure in the fear that had her entire body quaking now.
“The only way that you’re going to live,” I told her, “is if you tell me the truth.”
She swallowed hard but managed a laugh.
“Don’t lie to me, boy. I know you have no intention of walking out of here with my heart still beating. I’ve expected you to come for years. Some alpha you are. It seems your mother was right about you all along.” I let loose a snarl that was more animal than man, shifting forward until I stopped myself. It felt too much like letting her win and that wasn’t going to happen.
Ronan snorted, but I didn’t confirm or deny her worries. I wasn’t here to absolve her of guilt.
“It’s confession time. Care to tell us your sins?” Ronan asked as he drew his own blade. He tossed it in the air, watching it as it spun before grabbing the blade. It was a parlor trick meant to get in her head, and from the whimper, it hit its mark.
The fear chased away some of the booze until her eyes cleared. I knew the drugs weren’t completely fading, but enough that she was about to grasp and feel everything we gave her.
That realization had a grin spreading across my face. Her eyes met mine over my brother’s shoulder. Her chest started to rise and fall rapidly, the whimper turning into a full omega whine that wasn’t going to work on us.
He finally took a seat in the worn and ripped armchair across from her to watch the show. He looked out of place there, too refined for the state of the chair he was in.
“They said they found her. I want to see the report they gave you, the oneyousigned off on.”
“I didn’t take a copy,” she said a little too quickly.
I stared her down, waiting for her to give it away. When her eyes flickered over to the kitchen counter, I stood up and let Ronan take my place. There was no discussion, he simply had my back now, a concept I wasn’t used to.
My gait was slow and purposeful as I walked across the floor. My shoes stuck to the sticky, soiled tiles with each step. She hadn’t bothered to clean it in years it seemed.
Her purse was thrown out among the debris. A roll of papers stuck out of it. With shaking hands, I reached for them, unrolling it slowly.
DNA results. A direct match. She had signed off on a cremation already, meaning I’d never see her again.
