Page 90 of Hawke

“Obsession?”

“Yeah.” I rubbed my hands together. “He told mom and my stepdad that I shouldn’t go out with friends. That the friends I had at the academy were a rough crowd. Of course, they listened to him, they knew Shane cared a lot about me. So, little by little, year after year, more things were taken away from me.” I swallowed.

“What hurt the most was when those friends automatically shut me out. But I knew why, it was because one of them reported my brother to the police. He stayed there maybe two months, and when he got out, he made sure theanonymous callerpaid for it.”

Hawke balled up his fists, his claws pierced his skin. Tears dropped into his palms, washing away the blood that stained his hands.

“I was homeschooled after that, but I never got my high school diploma. He had me go to an online college and take classes, but even then I didn’t receive a diploma.”

“Why the hell not?” Hawke growled. “Why couldn’t you get any of those things? And where were your parents during all of this?”

“Because it would grant me freedom,” I whispered. “I could get a job and leave. Shane didn’t want that. He was keeping me from everyone. My friends, my mom, they forgot about me.”

“What the fuck was your mother doing during this time?” Hawke snapped. “Didn’t she find this odd?”

I huffed out a breath. “She was traveling a lot with my stepdad. Shane was next in line at his father’s business. Shane was to be Don of the upstate New York Irish Mafia.”

“Holy fuck.”

“Potty mouth,” I let out a forced laugh. “But yeah. Shane had a lot of power, even if he wasn’t in the mansion. I was monitored constantly, hardly any privacy, and I never really knew why, until I reached my nineteenth birthday.” I swallowed.

Hawke’s growl continued. The tingles on my body grew hotter by the minute.

“Hawke, Shane just isn’t my stepbrother. He’s also my husband.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Hawke

Shespokehesitantly,andher head hung in embarrassment.

As I held her close, I could feel the intense shame and humiliation radiating from her through the connection we shared. I didn’t let go, and I comforted her while she wept against my chest.

I understood the rationale behind her behavior, and I could comprehend the way she reasoned. Even though there was no blood relation between them, she viewed him as a brother. She felt no romantic love for him and now, after the disgusting, vile things he had done to her, there was no love at all for him.

He took advantage of my mate.

The mother fucking bastard.

I would skin him alive, mount his head in the basement of the Iron Fang. He wouldn’t be the first head mounted on the wall. Usually, we just place the skulls of the damned in our torture chambers, but Grim wanted to create a new tradition.

One of Journey’s rapists was being prepared by one of our very own taxidermists and fuck, it was going to be a hilarious sight. All our enemies would see the fear contorting the tortured faces when they entered the basement. It would be hilarious to see.

And soon, I would tear this Shane apart with my bare hands.

A snarl ripped through the room, my mate shuddered, and she buried a sob into my chest.

“You’re scaring her, you fucking idiot,” my wolf snapped. “She thinks you are angry with her.”

My shoulders drooped, my hand caressing my mate’s head. “Delilah, my Sunshine, I am not angry with you. Please don’t think that.”

“You are disgusted with me, aren’t you?” her sobs continued.

I lifted her chin. She wiped away the tears that had caused her eyes to become red and swollen. Yet she was still beautiful to me, she always would be. “I am not disgusted with you. He is not related to you in blood, and even if he was, you did not want him. You did not want his advances. He forced you.”

She nodded and hiccupped. “But I’m married to him!”

I shook my head. “You didn’t want to marry him, did you?”

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