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Grandpa Prinze was a powerful man, and it’d been the relief of I think all of us that he’d chosen to stay away. My grandfather had ended up making roots outside of Maywood Heights gratefully.
He’d gone upstate.
“I know how powerful he is.” Wolf’s eyes had gone hard, his frown harder. “Mine is too, but you don’t see me going to see him.”
His words sobered, chilled. He got up, and I followed him with my gaze. “Wolf?”
“We’ll find another way.”
“Ares—”
“I said we’ll find another way, Dorian,” he gritted. He directed a finger toward the letter. “Going anywhere near that guy would be like unleashing Pandora’s box. Not to mention hurting your dad. Your mom.”
I knew what he was saying. I knew that, and I’d never in my life want to hurt my mother. I was doing this for my mother. She’d want justice for Charlie.
She’d want the truth to come out.
That bitch Mayberry was running around like she hadn’t done anything. She looked like nothing but the suffering widow and not the filth who’d gotten Charlie killed.
That was only the last of her sins.
She’d been with him when she’d had no right, a secret affair, but the world was going to know who she was. They’d know about her place in all of this. The bitch had gotten off completely scot-free and left the rest of us to suffer the fallout. I had no uncle because of her.
My brother was dead.
Coming out of those thoughts, I got up and joined Wolf by the window. He was framing his face.
“They’ll understand once we find out the truth,” I said. “I’m not sure what other choice we have, Ares.”
Slowly, he looked at me. He swallowed hard. “We do have a choice,” he said, leaning in. “Just like he and my grandfather had a choice back then. Like my great-uncle had back then.”
I chilled again. “This isn’t the same.”
“But it is, man.” He got in my face. “My great-uncle Leo murdered your aunt Paige, Dorian. That was a choice, and you know what else was one?” His eyes scanned mine. “The choice our grandfathers made to help him cover it up.”
I stiffened, my buddy speaking hard truths.
Wolf wet his lips. “That’s our reality, that’s the backlash from what the patriarchs in our families did. You don’t think back then they all had a choice to do something different?” He shook his head. “Thank God my great-uncle is serving double life for that shit. He may be a monster. Our grandfathers may be monsters, but I refuse to be that way too.”
But it was different. His great-uncle killed my aunt because he was psychotic, facts. He’d believed she’d gotten in the way of his jealous rage involving another woman. These details were cemented in the town’s history, any paper readily available with the information.
It was Wolf’s and my dark legacy. Even made worse when our grandfathers had helped to cover it up to serve their own self-interests. They’d believed, at the time, the scandal could damage our families for various reasons. They were all monsters, but Wolf and us guys weren’t.
We were the ones making things right.
We were the ones finally righting some wrongs in our families. Our grandfathers had served some time, but not nearly enough for what they’d done.
Wolf and us guys were the good ones.
I swallowed. “I wouldn’t even be proposing this if I didn’t think we had another option.” I pointed a fin
ger. “We have to get that woman. We have to find her. I have to find her. I have to make this goddamn right. Why can’t you fucking help me!”
I said the words before they could be taken back.
The reality of them shone all over my buddy’s face. His eyes twitched wide, shocked by what I said.
But I wasn’t.
