Page 53 of Wolf

“Not an idiot. You just haven’t gone through this before.” Mom pulls me close to her and kisses my cheek. “Now, get out of bed. You’ve missed breakfast, but we can have lunch together. Then you need to go to Wolf.”

I wrap my arms around my mother and hold on tight. She rubs my back and then stands and pulls me off the bed. When Artie sees me, he abandons his cartoons and runs right to me to hug me tight. “Are you feeling better, Mommy?”

“A little.” I ruffle his hair. “I’m hungry. Let’s have some lunch.”

***

After lunch, I kiss Mom and Artie, then go out in search of Wolf. I would call, but what if he doesn’t answer? I want to explain in person anyway, not fumble through my words over the phone. When he asked me for a paternity test the other day I told him to go. He must think I’m a heartless bitch for keeping his kid from him for so many years then shutting the door in his face when he wanted to make things right.

I don’t know if I can ever make it up to him.

The biker watching the house informs me that he thinks Wolf should be at home. I thank him and drive straight there. Sure enough, Wolf’s bike is parked in the driveway. I get out and go knock on the door.

The door swings open just as I pull my fist back, making me jump. Wolf fills the doorway with his bulk, his expression perfectly blank. He looks at me without a hint of passion or disgust, the latter of which somehow hurts more. I would rather he hate me than to feel nothing.

I suck in a breath and blurt it out before I can lose my nerve. “Let’s do the paternity test. It was a perfectly reasonable request and I overreacted. I’m sorry. I’m scared. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I just thought—”

“You really thought I didn’t believe you?” he asks.

I nod.

“I don’t need a fuckin’ piece of paper to know Artie’s mine. I just thought if Malcolm was gonna pull some shit, having proof Artie had a father who wanted him might help,” he says.

I’m trying to process his words and the next thing I know, I’m being crushed against a hard chest, squeezed tight by big hands forming wordless demands. His lips come down to land on mine and the tension I was feeling shatters, my body melding to his while I kiss him back.

He runs his hands down my back and then up again, massaging the tension from my muscles. “We’ll get this whole communicative adult thing sorted one of these days.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Well, we keep tryin’, so that’s the most important thing.” He rests his forehead on mine, our lips rubbing together as he speaks. “Like I said, I know Artie is my son. I don’t need that paper to prove it, but it would be nice to have to make it real. And we can use it in court, can’t we?”

“That’s what Mom said, too.” I hesitate, and I almost don’t want to say the next part but it’s important and we need to work as a team from here on out. “But if you’ve got a record, maybe the courts will think it’s not good for you to be around him even though he’s your son. My lawyer said one of the angles Malcolm is working is that I’m fraternizing with bikers. He’s trying to make me out to be a bad mother.”

Wolf bares his teeth, regaining that ferocity that I fell in love with before. “Listen, I don’t care if they want me to take some class or program or somethin’, if they want me to go to therapy and give weekly samples. I’ll do what it takes to prove I’m safe to be around. But this could be a good chance to bring out all the circumstantial evidence that Tracker dug up. Sure, it won’t get my conviction overturned, but it can cast some doubt and show those snobs at the courthouse that they can’t believe everythin’ they’re shown.”

“Would you really be willing to go through all of this?” I whisper. “For Artie? For me?”

“Shit, Julia, do you even have to ask that?” Wolf grabs my hands in his and squeezes hard. His forehead settles more firmly against mine. “You know what a stubborn asshole I am.”

He surprises a laugh out of me, and I press close to him. “My stubborn asshole.”

“The one and only, baby.” Wolf smiles. My heart skips and I almost tell him something that probably shouldn’t be said, not so suddenly and not at such a tender moment.

His expression grows serious again stops me from making that mistake. “While you’re here, you remember I told you about that Perez lady, the one that went missin’? Well, Tracker found some more information. There was another lady he was seein’. In college. It seems like she was in the process of makin’ some reports to the police when she suddenly kicked the bucket.”

“What? If it was college, she’d have been young! Was it… Did she…?”

“That’s what the evidence pointed toward,” Wolf growls. “She hung herself. Except, she did it strange. Tied herself up first and had some weird injuries that were never explained. Technically, she could have tied herself up. There are certain knots and certain techniques that kinky motherfuckers will use. But the likelihood that she was one of those and took a couple tumbles before she offed herself?”

“This is all stuff that we can bring up against Malcolm, isn’t it?” My throat tightens at how deadly serious this has become. Divorces and custody arguments are probably never easy or fun, but this is terrifying.

“We can try. I can have Tracker send all of it to you and you can hand it to your lawyer. Asha, right?” Wolf plants a kiss on my lips. “Meanwhile, you and me, we got us a doctor appointment to make.”

I kiss him back and it feels damn good. It’s almost enough to distract me from the sudden dread creeping up my spine. I think that any day now, the dam will break and things will happen very quickly.

I don’t know if I’ll be ready.

Chapter 23