Page 5 of Her Wolf

He could read a player on a soccer field as easily a large-print children’s book, but this? He’d left politics and that crap to his mother. She’d been able to tell from a single glance if a girl was into him or not. Whether someone was straight, gay, bi, or confused past the point of modern terminology. Whether they had money, were pretending to have money, or weren’t bothered either way.

But she wouldn’t be able to tell him anything anymore, thanks to the bitch staring at him with eyes the color of dead fall leaves.

Cora sat forward and put her hands on the table in front of her. The ruby on her marriage finger gleamed at him like a wink from a plague-infested eye.

Why was she still wearing the ring? Was that supposed to mean something too?

“We have to decide the way forward for our cartel.”

One of the new guys—a muscular guy that wore vests to show off his tattoos—pulled back a chair beside Cora.

Her right hand.

Neo snorted, ignoring the chair. “We? We don’t have to decide anything.”

“Of course we do. Our poppies are gone,” Cora said. “Are we going to plant more? How long do they take until they’re ready? Javier mentioned something about dealers. Do they know we have no product? Should we sell something else in the meantime?”

“Something else?” he repeated slowly. He let out a bark of a laugh. “You don’t have a fucking clue about any of this, do you?”

“And you do?” she snapped back.

“More than you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, straightening her shoulders. “We decide on everything together. We make plans together.” She waved a regal hand toward the chair. “Please sit.”

“You’re capo in name, that’s it.” He took a few steps forward, hesitating when this made the giant behind Cora stiffen his shoulders. Neo stabbed a thumb against his own chest. “I’m his son.”

Cora spread her fingers on the table’s surface. Her eyes were unflinching as she studied him from across the room. “Javier announced us both in front of the cartel.”

“You’re forgetting…I’m also your husband,” Neo said, striding forward and falling into the seat beside her. He leaned forward, putting his fingertips on the table and moving them towards her. “You know what that means, don’t you?”

There was the tiniest flicker in her eyes, but that could have meant anything.

She had to realize not only did an arranged marriage hold weight in Mexico, but that husbands always had more power than their wives. In fact, she should have been all subservient and shit to him. That Javier had made her capo didn’t change her gender. It didn’t change her rights. As long as they remained married, her vote hardly counted at all.

Movement made Neo turn his head; Santino leaned against the closest wall, a toothpick dangling from his mouth like he was an extra in a western movie.

“Which is why you’re going to Mexico to annul our marriage.” Cora sat forward, which made the two men in Neo’s sights tense even more. She dropped her voice. “Neither of us wanted this, Neo.”

He’d had a lot of time to think things through the past few days. He’d even spoken to Javier’s lawyer about it — for the brief few moments he’d been able to get hold of him on the phone. The jerk was ghosting him, and he figured it was because he was scrambling to make sense of Javier’s finances before presenting it to Neo.

But his conclusion about their arranged marriage had been the polar opposite of Cora’s.

“You’re wrong.” He leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. “Our marriage is the only thing Javier ever got right in his miserable life.”

Cora’s eyes went wide. For a moment, she looked like the frightened little girl she was. Not yet twenty-one and dressing up in her mother’s clothes so she could pretend to be a woman.

Resolution filled those eyes, filming her irises with golden frost.

“Your father was a despicable human being!” she spat, thumping the table with a small fist. “He should have died in his mother’s womb! He should have—”

Milo stepped forward, laying a hand on Cora’s shoulder. She immediately shrugged him off, but then sat back and dragged her flattened hands over the table with her. She took a visible breath that pressed her breasts hard into her dress’s bust.

“Javier deserved to die,” she said in a low monotone. “If I could have made him suffer more, I would have.”

Holy shit, she was one cold-hearted bitch.

“I have a feeling that’s probably the only thing we’ll ever agree on,” Neo said calmly.

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