Page 2 of Wolf.e

He hovers on the edge of consciousness as my flame meets his skin. That’s when he jolts awake, his bloodshot eyes wide as he screams. It’s a pathetic scream really, barely more than a whisper.

“Stop… please. It was Foxx. He said he wanted me to hit you guys where it hurts. I was just doing my job, man.” he whimpers.

“Fucking finally,” Kai says lighting a cigarette.

It’s what we assumed but we needed the confirmation before we plot to kill their club president.

I assess Gator. Men tend to tell the truth in the last seconds of their lives so I’m sure he’s being honest.

“And our clinics?” I ask. “Who ordered the theft of our product?”

“Foxx,” he answers with the same soon-to-be dead president’s name, looking up at me through one barely open eye, the other swollen shut.

“Please, Wolfe. I wanna die.” His voice is a whine. “Please… kill me,” Gator begs.

I stop my flames and set down the torch. Moving towards him again, I grab a handful of his hair in my gloved hand, lifting his pathetic face up to view the last soul he’ll ever see.

“It’s fucking pathetic that you beg me for death now,” I bite out.

“I’ve heard enough,” Mason says from the other side of the room.

I promised him. It was his sister, so it’s his call.

Gator lets out a sigh, his fate settling with him.

“Please,” he whispers.

I draw my gun and take aim at his forehead. Just as I’m about to shoot, Kai says my name and nods toward the other side of the room in my periphery.

I follow his gaze to the cabin door, and I’m met with horror. The rawest form of fear lines every plane of her perfect face through the screen. Her long onyx hair blows in the ocean breeze around her moonlit shoulders.

I may be a killer but I’m not a savage. I would never want her to see this if I had a choice, but now she’s made her own bed.

I have no idea how or why she’s here but there’s no turning back. My eyes hold hers as the innocence drains from those beautiful blue eyes, the same color as her dress. She’s on her knees outside the cabin door.

Every single hope she had about me, about my club, shatters around her and falls to the earth.

I never lied about who I am. The hopes she had were her own.

I don’t pretend.

I am the villain she sees now, but that’s not all I am.

She will learn to understand. She has no choice but to.

I find her eyes again, mouthing to her the only escape I can give, then press my gun to the spot between my prisoner’s eyes and pull the fucking trigger.

“Bankrupt?” I ask, sinking into the chair behind me. I generally try not to stay long enough in my boss’s office to sit, but at this moment I have no choice.

The roll of thunder, the steady seep of rain against the glass this morning, and my sandal clad foot stepping right in a puddle as I crossed Briarwood Avenue on my way into the office should’ve been my first indications that today was going to suck.

“Yep. Chapter 11 came out of nowhere,” my boss, Paul, grunts as he leans back in his chair, taking a break from packing up his office. It’s the scene I walked into when he called me in here to break this news.

I cross one leg over the other, pulling my skirt down so he doesn’t try to sneak a glance up it. I’ve had men look at me appreciatively since I was fourteen years old. It’s why my mother cut my hair into a bob when I started middle school. She said its naturally black color and long length brought the wandering eyes of the wrong kind of man. I hated that haircut and always asked myself why I had to change to stop a man from looking at me. I’ve rarely cut it since, to her dismay. Even when I told her I wanted it long because I liked it that way, she didn’t agree. My friend Layla said it wasn’t my hair, but my body that made men look and I can’t do much about that. My boss is always looking at something he enjoys about me. I catch him almost every day.

Three years I’ve put up with late nights, not really having a social life, early mornings, inappropriate looks and comments from this man, and a job that most of the time bores me to tears. All because the possibility of becoming design director at the end of the year when my supervisor was to retire was dangled like a carrot over my head. I’ve been waiting for that to feel settled, to show my boyfriend, Evan, and his family that this is a serious career, one I can go somewhere with.

“I don’t know what to tell you, doll. The news came from corporate late last night. People just aren’t buying home décor magazines anymore, not with everything available online and apps to design your space.”

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