Page 81 of Wolf

But despite the rage wanting to take over, the caution ringing as low as the bells at Perebor I had often heard back home in Russia prevented me from taking my revenge against the bastard for stabbing Anna. They were the bells that rang out during a funeral as a body was carried from the church building to their grave. I couldn’t help but hear them ringing in the back of my mind as the silence continued to stretchbetweenus.

It was only as I heard the sound of small footsteps beside me that the tension around mesnapped.

I turned to look down at Ash as she shook away Lamb’s grip around her wrist, shaking her head at him. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but stopped with a single look in my direction. He pulled back his hand, his pale brown eyes glowering at the small brunette as she pushedpassedhim.

I saw each of the other boys’ bodies stiffen as they all fought against their urge to stop her, but a single glance at my back prevented them frommoving.

Ash continued to step toward me, the small ponytail piled on top of her head swaying with her careful steps as she moved to my side. And then suddenly, she stopped. Her head snapped toward me, mouth parting as a force refused to let her move anyfurther.

“Wolf,” she said, her head then moving down to her arm, to where my hand was clamped down hard around her tiny, thinforearm.

Her father’s eyes flashed with annoyance before letting a calmer, confident demeanor take over,waiting.

“You can't back out now.” Ash’s voice was softer, almost lighthearted, as she said the words to me, but it wasn’tthateasy.

I turned to look at her, making sure that I met her eyes beyond her tinted lenses and held them, desperately trying to see any splinter of emotion that would somehow stop me from doing the one thing I knew would ruin everythingforme.

“She won’t forgive me,” I said, looking at her, watching her expression falter, her soft smile flattened into a small frown. “If I let you go, let you do this, she won’t everforgiveme.”

“‘Mistakes are forgivable if one has the courage to admit them,’” was all Ash said in return, reaching as she pried loose my hand, my eyebrows scrunching at her words. “It’s Bruce Lee,” she added, then she reached over to her free arm and tapped it. “It’s Anna’stattoo.”

Her Elvish tattoo. I had always wondered what it said, but never had the courage toaskher.

“She had it inked so she would never forgive herself for not saving me sooner,” Ash said, a sad shrug rolling from her shoulders. “Maybe forgiving someone else can help her learn to forgiveherself.”

With that, she walked away from me, her back held straight as she headed toward herdeepestfear.

She paused in front of her father. His hand gripped tense around his cane as he regarded her with a disgustedsnarl.

“Wait.” She paused, her eyes looking up at her father. “How did youfindme?”

I saw her father’s top lip flinch as he slid his glare away from his daughter’s face to mine before looking back down at her. “It was easy,” he growled, flicking his eyes back up to me for a second time. “I’ve been making connections to move over to the US, using motorcycle clubs since they have the connections to the gun, money, and drug movements, but then one of my connections became troublesome.” He paused for a moment, and we all knew who he was talkingabout.

Spider.

“I looked into the clubs he ended up clashing with, in case they would try cause trouble for me later on for interfering, and it’s a good thing I did because I noticed afamiliarface.”

Anna.

“I finally had my connection to you.” I heard Ash’s hiss as he release his cane, his vice grip clamping down around her arm. “You have never been a disobedient child, but to have murdered your mother and run away? Do you know how many people thought it had been me? How much my reputation suffered from yourdisobedience?”

The urge to run in there and pull her out of his grip grew in my chest as his voice rose and his grip tightened on her arm, turning it pale. But the itch on my skin as he went on and on about his reputation and the accusations rather than the death of his wife, the woman he had a child with, was what I had to fight the hardest as it screamed how wrong thisallwas.

I heard the sound of movement all around the room before I even realized my feet had taken two stepsforward.

Ash’s father snapped his head toward me, his anger stuttering as he realized we were all still there, and all I could think about was the rage inside me that wanted to tear his throat out. I suddenly didn’t care, just for a second, how he had his hands around the treasured members of our club, still practically in the palm of his hands; all I wanted to do was end him just to end my absolutedisgust.

“You can leave now,” the old man growled, his goon stepping toward me with wide shoulders and closed fists, drawing my attention. I flicked my eyes back to the old man, now making no attempt to hide his glare, daring me to challenge him, knowing I couldn’t afford to when taking down our club would simply be a case of a single phone call. “And don’t forget to take himwithyou.”

I looked down at the shivering, ex-Bratva member as he glowered up at me, trying to look as though he wasn’t about to pisshimself.

I looked back to Ash and felt my angerspike.

Bang.

Everyone in the room flinched at the snap in tension as guns were raised and pointed, all of them focused on me as I lowered my smoking weapon to my side. The man’s body swayed before it fell backward, blood oozing out of the hole in hisskull.

“You can keep him,” I growled as I looked one last time at the tanned skin of Ash’s back. She didn’t make a single attempt to look back at us as I turned, and with what must have been all the strength I could muster, I forced myself to walk away, my brothers falling into stepbehindme.

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