Page 31 of Her Wolf

“Ours?” Bailey cocked an eyebrow at him.

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Finn turned his hand in a circle. “We’re all in this together. You know something, we all have to know it.”

“I fuck her, you all have to fuck her?” Bailey murmured, but just loud enough for him to hear.

“Now you’re getting it,” Finn said, taking a step closer. “And I wasn’t going to bring it up, but what you did back there, that’s something you won’t ever do again.”

Bailey gave him an uneasy glance before taking another swallow of beer. “Look, man, this is all kinda—” Bailey waggled a hand “—this is all kinda fucked up, okay? Give me a break.”

“If you don’t like it, then leave.”

Bailey opened his mouth, but then looked as if he changed what he’d been going to say. “Sofia wasn’t Cora’s sister. She was Javier’s daughter.”

Finn turned his head a little, studying Bailey over the rim of his cup as the man drained the last of his beer. Then he crumpled the can in a hand, turned to Finn, and said, “He’s also the one that set up the Rivera family’s kidnapping.”

“Javier had an affair with Cora’s mother?”

Bailey gave him a grim nod.

“But why kidnap his own daughter? Did he want her back?”

But before Bailey could answer, Finn stabbed an index finger in Bailey’s chest. “No, wait…Sofia died, didn’t she? She didn’t make it out.”

Bailey nodded.

“Why would he kill his own daughter?”

Bailey stared at him with surprisingly intent gray eyes. “Maybe he’d only ever wanted one daughter, and she wasn’t Sofia.”

. . .

As soon as Cora heard her bedroom door close, she climbed out of the tub again. She padded, naked and wet, across her room to the dressing table.

Pointedly ignoring the stack of papers she still had to sign, she drew out the drawer as far as it would go. Her fingers fumbled along the underside until they touched a folded piece of paper. She tugged it free from the tape sticking it there and ambled back to the bathroom.

She didn’t sigh when she slid back into the warm water; every ounce of pleasure the bath could give her was suddenly void.

Cora held the folded note in her hand, staring at it as the bubbles around her hissed out of existence.

When her fingers trembled, she opened the note.

Mi corazón.

My heart.

Her eyesight blurred. She blinked hard, cleared her throat, and forced her eyes back to the page.

More than anything in the world, I wish I didn’t have to write this letter. But, sadly, there are things in this world that were never in my control.

I wish I could have seen you one last time. To explain, or at least attempt to explain, why I acted as I did.

I raised you the only way I knew how. I realize now that it wasn’t good enough, and I apologize for that.

I love you, mi corazón. I have always loved you. If you doubt that, even for a second, then remember this…

Even though you abandoned your mother and sister to a fate worse than death, I forgave you.

Likewise, I trust you will find it in your heart to forgive me for what I’ve done to you.

---