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He kissed her temple. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Dani. All I can think about is how many things in my childhood he ruined because of his gambling addiction, and I didn’t want him anywhere near you. He’s like a plague. Everything he touches turns to shit.”
He sighed deeply and shifted the truck into gear. As he turned toward Honey and Jeremiah’s home, he continued, “He promised me a birthday party when I was eleven. I had invitations and everything. When I got up that morning, he was gone. He’d never come home the night before and the money he’d set aside to pay for my cake was gone. I went next door to stay with the neighbors until he came back, which wasn’t for two days. When he came home, he apologized and said thatmybirthday made him miss my mom and he couldn’t deal with it.”
“Oh, Adam,” she said.
“He showed up at my high school graduation with a broken hand, doped up on pain pills. He’d failed to make a payment to a bookie and gotten beaten up for it. I found out he gave my car to the bookie as a down payment on the debt.”
“I’m sorry you had such a crappy childhood.”
He shook his head. “I feel like an asshole. Your family was killed. You could have died out in the woods when you were little. I have a dad, I have actual family, and I stopped trying to help him years ago, and that makes me feel guilty.”
“I don’t think your dad really wants help, Adam. I think he wants a way to stave off the wolves so he can keep gambling. Giving him money wouldn’t do anything but make the problem worse.”
“I sure as hell don’t want my father anywhere near us.”
“Me either.”
“Good.” He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, the tension melting from his body. “Let’s put this behind us and concentrate on tonight.”
“You got it.”
* * *
Richard Cruz swallowed hard as three vehicles swooped in on him just outside of Wilde Creek and forced him to the side of the road. The car in front of him stopped short, and thankfully the shitty brakes on his beater stopped him before he nailed the back of the expensive sedan.
His door opened before he could even turn the engine off, and a large male who smelled like a mixture of grizzly and wolf grabbed Richard by the collar and pulled him from the car. Richard crashed to the cold pavement, his hands scraping on the gravel as he tried to get to his feet. A boot connected with his stomach, and he flew a few feet before landing in a pile of snow. Coughing and groaning, he rolled to his knees and gripped his side. He wasn’t wearing a coat, and his jeans and shirt were threadbare.
A pair of shiny black shoes came into his field of vision. He knew who they belonged to: Bradik, a grizzly shifter and the enforcer of the loan shark Richard was currently in the shit with. Richard looked up to see Bradik tugging on the cuffs of his dress shirt. “Boss wants to know why you think you can just skip town whenever the fuck you feel like it.”
Hands gripped Richard’s shirt and hauled him onto his knees. He shook his head as his vision swam for a moment. “I was trying to get the money from my son.”
“A piece of shit like you actually bred? I’m surprised you could get a female to touch you,” Bradik said, chortling. The two males with him—one wolf and one grizzly—laughed loudly.
Richard scowled. His mate had been a good female. Her memory was the only thing that kept him from putting a gun in his mouth some days. But he knew better than to say anything to piss off Bradik. The guy had a hair trigger.
“You owe fifteen grand. You’ve got twenty-four hours to come up with the cash or we’re going to start breaking bones.”
Richard shuddered. He’d had bones broken before. They did it slow, letting the pressure grow until the bone shattered. It was excruciating. He didn’t want to go through that again. His mind spun as he struggled to come up with a way to get the cash he needed to pay the debt.
Suddenly he knew.
The female.
“Make sure he remembers what will come if he misses the deadline,” Bradik said. He turned away, and Richard shouted.
“Wait!”
Bradik faced him slowly. “Yeah?”
“I know a girl the boss can have.”
He snorted. “He has zero problems getting girls.”
“No! I mean, she’s a unique shifter. I heard that unique shifters are worth money on the black market.”
Bradik’s brows rose. “That depends on how unique she is.”
“Reindeer.”
