Page 76 of Wolf

Then I opened the door andwalkedout.

* * *

It tookKay two and a half minutes to open the door after Iknocked.

Her long red hair, several shades lighter than Mallory’s and tinged with minor streaks of gray, slipped down her arms as they blocked the doorway. Kay was tall in comparison to the girls, but compared to me, she was barely significant. “Kay, move,” Igrowled.

“Don’t speak to me like that, you ass,” Kay snapped, her silver eyes glaring at me, telling me that she—unsurprisingly—didn’t understand, nor agree, with what I had done. “I fucking warned you.” She released her hand from the frame to jab me in the chest, not giving a shit about how tall I was. “But you didn’t listen, so whatever she has to say to you is exactly what you deserve, youhearme?”

With that, Kay didn’t give me a chance to say anything as she barged past me, stomping her foot down hard on mine assheleft.

“Fuck,” I hissed, my foot throbbing hard, as I heard Kay’s feetmarchaway.

I shoved the pain out of my mind as I moved into the modest, neatly arranged room. One look in any of the brothers’ rooms would have told you that it was a man cave with barely a glance, but this room held two twin beds, both with neatly folded pale sheets and pillows, polished furniture, and window ledges with thin curtains, allowing the winter daylight to bleed through intotheroom.

Anna sat on the furthest bed, her eyes not looking away or into the distance, but straight at me as I came into the room. Her red boots and socks lay in a pile on the side of the bed, her bare feet, toes painted with red and black nail polish, were hooked over each other, her top leg balancing a bag of frozen peas over her ankle, no doubt from kicking Ash’s door’s almost completely off the hinges during her rampage. Her thrown hand was in a bowl of ice water, cradled in a thick towel on Anna’s soft thighs as she looked upatme.

I took notice of her property jacket still on her shoulders, her shirt sleeves rolled up and her hair tied back around it. Her ice-blue eyes looked red but not inflamed, like they would had she been crying, though I knew shecouldn’t.

“Thephonecall—”

“I know,” she interrupted me. Her voice was hard, and her eyes had me unable to move away from the inside of the doorway. “They threatened the kids and the old ladies,right?”

“Then youunder—”

“No,” Anna growled, her lips curling into a snarl. “You do not get to ask me if I understand.” She took her hand out of the ice bowl, picking it up with her good one, and set it on the bedside table. She grabbed the towel off her lap, wrapped it round her hand, and kicked the peas off her leg, revealing a bruising purple mark on her ankle. “You do not get to ask me to try and be okay with the fact that you want to sacrifice my best friend.” I opened my mouth, but she shoved her finger up to stop me. “Regardless of whether she agreed to it or not. You do not get to make me understand that because she means nothing to the club, that she means nothing to you, that it’s okay for me to sacrifice my best friend. You. Do. Fucking. Not. Get to make me be okay with you.” She shoved her finger at me, her top lip curling to reveal her snarling white teeth, distorting her angelic face. “You do not get to make it okay to sacrifice my best. Fucking.Friend!”

She fought to suppress the anger on her face, but she couldn’t stop the curl of her lips as she took deep breaths in and out of her nose. “What I do get is that you want to protect the club. That is okay. Because it’s club before all, right, Wolf?” Her head shook softly, the snarl dropping off her face as her eyebrows turned upward, her lips trembling into an empty smile. “But what about me? What about who comes first for me? What am I supposed to do about that? How do I make that okay with me? How do I make it okay to sacrifice the only other person I love in this world?” She unwound the towel from her hands and reached back for the bowl, her shaking fingers stilling against the cool glass, condensation dripping onto her purpling fingers. I opened my mouth to speak, but I didn’t have a chance to say anything as the sound of shattering glass echoed in my ears, cold water splashing over my body while I managed to dodge thehurledbowl.

“How can I make it fucking okay?” she screamed, her broken, hoarse voice filled with pain as she forced out thewords.

Her body dropped down back onto the bed in a heavy breath, her head falling into herhands.

I felt my own eyes burn as I looked at her. My heart heaving the heavy blows as it hurt to just breathe, to look at this woman, the other most important thing in my life broken and hurting, and although knowing that it wasn’t directly, I was the cause ofherpain.

“What can I do?” Ibegged.

“Fight for her,” Anna replied, her eyes meeting mine, the baby blue dark and pained as she held my stare. “Fight for her like you would for any of the restofus.”

“I—” I paused. I wanted to say I would, I wanted to tell her those words just to take away her pain, but I knew it was a lie. The faces of the those who were staked in this deal were burned into my mind, and I knew, I knew I couldn’t say it. I shook my head. “There's too muchatrisk.”

“Then go,” Anna replied. “But my deal stillstands.”

She turned away from me, and I felt my body scream in physical pain as her face dropped back into her palms, her blonde hair forming a wall between us as I stood there, desperation clawing up my chest with nowhere to go. There was nothing Icoulddo.

“Ann—”

“Just leave,” she pleaded. “Please,justgo.”

I stood still, my eyes burning into the top of her beautiful blonde head, buried into her small, pale hands, curled over on the bed, making her seem impossibly smaller than she already was. I wanted to beg her just to look into my eyes one more time, to smile at me, just so I could etch it into my mind, selfishly wishing that I hadn’t taken for granted the last one she hadgivenme.

I nodded, despite knowing she couldn’t see it. And despite every cell in my body screaming at me not to move a single step, I pushed through the pain and forced myself back tothedoor.

“Wolf.” Anna stopped me, and for a second, a crack formed in the stone and a single slither of hope slipped in. “If you go through with that deal,” she said, her voice steady and calm as the words followed me, “we’redone.”

I paused, half of my heart filled with my love for her urging me to turn back and hold her, hug her, and promise I’d fight to my death before I went through with that deal. But it wasn’t that half that made me walk out of that door. It was the love formyclub.

Clubbeforeall.

---