Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 109853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
“And he agreed to give Iris the sculpture too.”
That comment surprised him. “I liked the idea of her having one of your pieces without even knowing it.”
Frankie narrowed her eyes. “You sensed that Cruz was jealous of my parents’ mating. You saw an ally. You used him.”
“I encouraged him to push her to leave the pack, sure, but that’s all.”
Frankie shook her head. “You gave him the gun.”
“Frankie—”
“You gave it to him,” she insisted. “You’ve fed me enough lies over the years. No more.”
Brad closed his eyes for a moment. “He was only supposed to drive Caroline out of the pack. If anything, she became more determined to stay. I told Cruz to be patient, but he wouldn’t. He asked for a gun. Said if he couldn’t have Christopher, then no one would have him.”
Her wolf swiped out her claws. “And the idea of him shooting my father suited you just fine.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“Really?” Frankie shrugged one shoulder as she asked, “Why not? You hated him. He was a shifter. An animal. What would be so bad about putting him down?”
Brad let out a ragged sigh. “There are things you don’t know.”
“Explain them to me, then.”
“Christopher planned to take you and your mother to Canada!” he burst out.
She lifted a brow. “Canada?”
“Yes. He didn’t like that we were in her life. He wanted to switch packs, to take her and you far away.”
“Far away from you and your ‘You need to leave the pack’ bullshit, you mean? He was tired of you trying to make her leave him. Tired of seeing her so unhappy about the way you were acting.” Like Trick had been unhappy with how the Newmans treated Frankie. “He wanted to put distance between you.”
“I’d have rarely seen her, Frankie. I wouldn’t have been able to watch you grow up. I’d have been a damn stranger to you. I wasn’t going to allow that. I wasn’t going to allow him to take her away from me.”
A disturbing amount of possessiveness coated his latter words, and Frankie stilled as the truth hit her. “Did she know?”
“Know what?”
“That you loved her a little too much?” It explained why he’d never been in a relationship and didn’t have a family of his own. All he’d wanted was Caroline. It even explained why he thought of Frankie as a daughter. “I’ll bet my father sensed it. No wonder he wanted her far away from you.”
Brad swallowed. “I was never going to allow him to keep her from me.”
“So you gave Cruz a gun, even knowing that if Christopher died, she’d die.”
He scoffed. “That’s what shifters say, but it’s not true. The bond isn’t some magical thing.” He paused at the beep of a remote car lock, but the owner of the car didn’t even look their way as they hopped into their vehicle. “She was convinced that the bond was unbreakable. Convinced that she couldn’t live without him. I knew that when he was dead, she’d see the truth. See that he’d fooled her, lied to her, manipulated her.” He swallowed. “If I’d known that Cruz really meant to kill Caroline, I would never have given him that gun. I would never have urged him on. You have to believe that, Frankie.”
“Do I?” She sneered. “You say you hate that pack because they stole Caroline from you. But you knew exactly who killed her. You knew . . . and you didn’t tell anyone. You protected his identity to save your own skin and because it suited you just fine that I was taken from the pack. And then you used him in other ways—maybe even threatened to expose his secret if he didn’t do things like steal her belongings, pass the sculpture to Iris, and God knows what else you asked him to do. By that point you’d truly convinced yourself that you played no part in my mother’s death.”
“If she hadn’t mated with him and joined that pack—”
“Oh, everyone else is to blame but you, aren’t they? The person who you should be angry at is yourself. You played Cruz. You armed him. You, you, you. If you’d have exposed Cruz for what he was, I wouldn’t have almost died yesterday. That’s right, I almost died. That’s on you.”
“And you deserve to be dead for that alone,” Trick rumbled.
Brad swerved to face him, eyes widening as he noted that both Ryan and Marcus were closing in on him. Brad turned to her. “You wouldn’t let them hurt me, Frankie. I’m your uncle. Hell, I’ve been a father to you all these years—”
“Because you helped Cruz murder mine,” she snapped. “And now you’re going to pay for it.”
Fear flashed across Brad’s face, but he jutted out his chin. “You can’t prove that I did anything. There’s no evidence. If you go to the police—”