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Please, for the sake of my boys, even if I don’t deserve it, don’t make him publicly denounce me, Leo. Please, let me have been a woman he loved. Maybe not the way he loved you, but please.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE READING OF the will took place at Opal’s old house, the fortress one with the pool in the back. We were in the same study where Hank talked to me about being a scent-matched omega, but it was not set up like a study anymore.

There were still shelves on the walls, covered in books, but there was no desk in the room anymore. Instead, there was a polished dark wood rectangular table in the center of the room. Damian and Vincent were there. The lawyer was there. A woman named Matilda Avery was there, but I found out that she was there representing a non-profit historical preservation society, because they’d been left money from Opal, apparently.

Both Damian and Vincent looked at me and then flinched and looked away, and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

I sat down and resisted the urge to scroll on my phone while the lawyer droned through all sorts of information.

He went through the stuff with the historical society first. Opal had left them both money and a building.

I realized that I hadn’t quite made sense of exactly how much Opal owned, but she was the last heir of the Hardesty line, and they had been the cynings of the pack for generations, and it wasn’t an exaggeration to say that they had owned half of the town. A lot of the buildings in the square were owned by that family, and the businesses in them paid rent.

Damian worked full time, but he probably didn’t need to. He probably could have just lived off the rents from the buildings that Opal owned. Not to mention the fact that she had money, that she must have inherited everything from her father.

When the lawyer got to me, he told me that Opal had left me the deed to 101 River Street, and I licked my lips. “What? She left me a building?”

“It’s the building that houses Bistro St. Francis,” the lawyer told me. “Upstairs, there are three rental units, all of which are currently occupied. There is an empty space in the bottom that she has noted she thinks you should turn into an art studio.”

I was speechless. An art studio? I didn’t even draw anymore. I had basically stopped drawing when the bond sickness started, and I’d never really picked it back up.

He slid a piece of paper to me which listed the monthly rental income I would now be getting from that piece of property. I was stunned. I touched the number, running my forefinger over it and over it.

What the hell?

The lawyer continued to talk, but I didn’t hear anything, because I felt as if the sound had dropped out of the room.

I couldn’t help but envision the future that I could have with this place. I could quit my job and I could live on this money, easily. I could come back to Riverside and set up a little space to make and sell art, and it wouldn’t have to be lucrative. I wouldn’t need it to be. I could be here, with my wolf, and I wouldn’t have to go shove myself back into the metal and smoke and crush of the city. I could come home.

“Sorry, Damian,” Vincent was saying.

Damian shook his head at him. “No, it makes sense. You were the reason she bought it in the first place.”

I looked up at them both. “What’d she leave you, Vincent?”

“Cork’s,” he said. “The building where Cork’s is.”

Damian shrugged. “A few years back, it was in trouble, and the people who wanted to buy it were going to turn it into something else, and Vincent said there should be a place for live music and people gathering and all of that, and he said Opal should buy it, and she did. So, it makes sense she’d give it to you. She knew it was important to you.”

“Well, I’ll sell it,” said Vincent.

“That’s stupid,” said Damian. “You know no one else will protect it like you.”

Sell it. That was what I was going to have to do with this inheritance. I’d get a big chunk of money, and that would be just as good. Of course, I couldn’t come back here. I needed to get away from Damian.

The only good thing about all of this was that I had gotten closure, which was what I’d wanted. I could move on now.

I would go back to the city, and I would get on the dating apps, and I would find someone, and this would all be over.

ON THE DRIVE out of Riverside, I called Casey to tell her that I was heading back.

“I knew you were going to end up staying longer than you said you were,” said Casey. “I’m glad I planned for you to be gone through the weekend. But maybe you can pop in tomorrow or Sunday, just to get up to speed?”

“Sure,” I said.

“So, what happened?” said Casey.