Page 11 of Her Wolf

“Because I should have told Javier where it came from.” She looked down, rubbing a finger down the bridge of her nose. “I was going to…but…”

“You threw up, hit your head, and passed out,” Lars said.

When her gaze shot to him, he shrugged and pointed to Bailey. “Hey, that’s what he said.”

“Well…I didn’t say anything,” Cora muttered. “And now—”

“Where did it come from?” Finn cut in.

She turned to him, taking a deep breath before replying. “I saw someone put it on her car.”

Obviously, something was wrong with her. The man she suspected of putting the tracker on Gabriella’s car—hi handsome face haunted her at night. But what should have been a nightmare, transformed into an erotic fantasy she never wanted to end. Each a teasingly lucid dream where he pinned her against the wall, his hand over her throat, vowing to do abominable things to her while she squirmed and yelled at him to stop.

She always woke up wet—from sweat and arousal—knowing she’d been lying. She wanted him to do all of those things to her…that and more.

Cora pushed away the thought, shifting in her chair. “There was a man, in the restaurant.” She lifted her fingers, glancing at Finn. “We stopped to eat after shopping. Some Italian place down the road.” Then she turned back to Bailey. “One of the customers, he kept staring at us.”

At her. He’d kept staring at her.

“He left before us. It was raining hard outside, but…” She ran a hand over her hair. “I think I saw him put that tracker on Gabriella’s car.”

Where she’d expected a thousand questions, she was met with utter silence. She looked at each of them, and moved her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “I know I should have said something sooner, but then it was the wedding, and—”

“It’s not your fault,” Bailey said quietly.

Her eyes were on Finn when Bailey spoke, and he must have seen the relief on her face because something changed in his expression.

“But I should have—” Cora began, spinning to face Bailey.

“Javier had threatened her before,” Bailey said in a monotone. “Over the years, I guess I became her confidant. He’d already given her two strikes during their marriage. Once, for having a miscarriage, which he claimed had been intentional.”

Cora’s skin grew cold at Bailey’s emotionless retelling. She sat back in her chair, her fingertips touching her lips as he went on.

“The second…” Bailey paused and swallowed hard enough she could see his Adam’s apple moving. “That was for refusing to fuck him. She’d been sick—flu, I think—but that never bothered the prick. That was when she arranged for Sylvia, his first mistress. A year later, when she turned forty, she introduced him to Ana.”

Cora felt bile rising in her throat. “Why didn’t she—?”

“It was dangerous for us to text. Javier kept a close watch on her cellphone, even to the calls she made. Sometimes, we had to meet each other in person, very last minute.” Bailey washed his hands over his face. “We’d find a place where we could talk—usually somewhere in Phoenix on my day off—and sometimes she wouldn’t have had time to put make up on. She often had bruises on her.”

“She should have left him,” Cora said, her voice shaking. “She had money, didn’t she? Why—”

“Because of Neo,” Bailey said quietly. “That was always her answer. She couldn’t leave Neo with Javier, because then he’d take his anger out on her son.”

The aquarium’s bubbling filter filled the silence after Bailey’s voice faded.

“Now, aren’t you so glad you killed that piece of shit?” Lars murmured.

Cora’s glanced up at the ceiling, nibbling at the inside of her lip. “Yes.” She looked down at Bailey. “But I should have done it sooner. Before he—”

A hand grasped her, and she cut off to look at Finn. “Enough,” he rasped. “It’s time to look forward, not back.”

“But—”

“This guy,” Bailey said, drawing her eyes. “You remember what he looks like?”

“A little,” she lied.

His face had been branded onto her memory. Each night, it grew more vivid and detailed. The faint scar beside his mouth. The set of his eyes. Long, untidy hair she wanted to run through her fingers.

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