Jon pulled me to my feet. I winced, letting out a long hiss. Jon froze and looked back at me before dropping his eyes to my feet.
“I thought Cinderella only lost one shoe,” he muttered before swooping me up into his arms, bridal-style.
“Cinderella threw her shoe to try and stop the prince from interfering with her getting home on time,” I pointed out. My voice was still strained, still garbled, but my body instantly relaxed the minute I saw Jon’s face.
Jon was attractive in the most brutal of ways. He had dark, angry eyes, angled facial features, and black hair buzzed short, like he was still in the Marines. Unsurprisingly, his wardrobe consisted of all black everything, including trench coats and motorcycle boots. He was still bulky, every part of him filled with muscle. Despite being honorably discharged five years ago, it would appear that he still kept himself in shape. On his waist, I saw a pistol—probably the gun that took out the two men who somehow got into this building. I didn’t have to ask if they were dead. Jon Hawkins would never choose to harm someone unless he intended to kill them. He didn’t actually like to use weapons if he could help it, not when he had a more natural way of getting rid of anyone he believed needed to die.
“I see you’re still getting into trouble,” he said as he headed towards my office with me in his arms.
My eyes were too tired to keep open and I rested my head in the crook of his arm, the most comfortable spot on his body. I took a deep breath, trying to control my still rapid-breathing, and smelled gun powder and Christmas trees and something that belonged entirely to Jon.
“It was important,” I murmured.
I didn’t need to see him to know he was rolling his eyes. “It always is to you, though the validity of that statement can be hotly debated,” he pointed out.
His voice was like sandpaper, rough on the skin and causing it to pinch with goosebumps. It was low, almost soft, but rough with gravel.
“You are not keeping your head down and staying out of trouble, like I advised you to do,” he continued. We reached my office door and, without missing a beat or putting me down, he opened it and stepped into with me in it before letting it fall closed behind us. When it clicked shut, I knew no one could hurt us, especially with the blinds shut. If the police did come, if they had been called, they wouldn’t be able to see Jon Hawkins was in my office.
“I could say the same to you.” He gently set me down so I sat in my comfortable office chair and took a step back so he could inspect me with his dark, calculating eyes. “What are you doing here, Jon?”
He flinched whenever I said his name. I didn’t know why, though I had my guesses. I didn’t think he knew why he reacted that way either. To me, it just seemed like his name reminded him that he was—that he used to be—human, and being reminded of his life before becoming a government weapon was too painful for him to endure. Everyone referred to him as The Executioner, The Lone Wolf, The Black Wolf, but my favorite was The Shadow Wolf. When I was called to write about him, I always used his name. Not only did he need to remember that—at least to me—he was still human, but Perry did too. Everyone could be in denial if they wanted, but it was one of my missions to at least tell Jon’s whole story to the world. I just had to find it. Jon didn’t want the world to know his past, but he did want to expose the section of the government that did this to him. The problem was, he didn’t know much about it either.
“Maybe I came here to warn you that all of this exposure of Mayor Guzman isn’t the smartest thing for you to be focusing on,” he said. His eyes narrowed on something and before I realized what he was doing, he knelt down in front of me and reached out to softly brush my wild hair behind my ear. “You got shot, Red.”
I wrinkled my brow. “What?” I said. “I didn’t feel anything.”
“Your earlobe.” He went to touch it but pulled his hand back at the last minute. “The Hiller must have nicked you. You have blood down your throat and on your shirt.” He clenched his jaw so tightly it popped. “You could have been killed, Lara. What the fuck were you thinking? Is a story ever worth your life?”
In a second, he was back on his feet, stomping around my office in his boots like a child throwing a tantrum. One of the main reasons I wasn’t keen on having children anytime soon.
“What Mayor Guzman is doing—”
“She’s a bitch,” Jon said, turning around and glaring at me. “Everyone knows she’s a bitch. But her family has money and she has ties to the mafia and the cartels. Do you think gives a shit about what people think of her?”
“I do,” I said. “I think that that’s her Achilles’ heel. She wants everyone to think she’s cool when really she’s lazy and thinks she knows everything and sits around watching sports because she’s one of the guys.”
Jon tilted his head to the side. I cleared my throat and looked away. He released an exasperated sigh through his nose.
“Where’s your first-aid kit?” he asked. “I know you have one in here.”
I nodded to the bottom drawer in my desk. Jon turned and knelt before me once again. He shook his head, muttering under his breath about redheads and how stubborn they could be.
“I’m actually strawberry blonde,” I pointed out.
“Like that makes it any better,” he said, pulling out my first-aid kit and glaring at me once more. “Lara, you are the only person at this goddamn newspaper pulling the shit that you pull. Honestly, I’m surprised you aren’t dead yet. Going after the mayor, despite the fact that she is a bitch, isn’t the best idea. You’re the dumbest smart person I know, you know that?”
“I’m really the only person you know,” I pointed out. “I’m doing this because I think she had a hand in what happened to you.”
Jon wrinkled his nose and looked away. “Who gives a—”
“I do,” I said. My voice was insistent but quiet, and I shot him a glare. I hoped my pale green eyes had enough bite in them for him to take seriously.
“I refuse to let you do this because you think your articles are going to save me,” Jon said, ripping a packet containing a square rag of Neosporin soaked into it.
“It’s not just about you,” I pointed out, tucking my foot behind my ankle. His nearness was causing my heart to flutter strangely and goosebumps to spike all over my body. I was probably in shock. If I hadn’t noticed I had been shot, I must still be in shock. “It’s about preventing this from happening to other people. Come on, Jon. This is bigger than you or me.”
“I think you have a personal vendetta against Guzman,” Jon pointed out. He pushed up on his knees so he was nearly my height, even with me sitting in my office chair. His face was mere inches away from mine and my breath caught itself in my throat. “This is going to sting.”
I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to speak. Instead, I grabbed onto the plastic black chair handles, clearing my throat.
I watched as he reached up and softly wiped the small cut in my earlobe. I hissed, surprised by the pain.
“Ouch, ow-ow-ow.”
The corner of Jon’s lips twitched up and he shifted his eyes so he locked into mine. “You are such a baby,” he said. “You have no tolerance for pain.”
I clenched my teeth together but couldn’t say anything in return. Instead, I continued to glare at him, even if I loved the way he looked when he was almost smiling. His face softened and he looked even younger than his thirty-six years. I wouldn’t call it happy by any stretch but he looked…content.
I said nothing in response to his snide comment. Instead, I let the tension and the fear roll off my body slowly. I wished I was in the shower, letting all my cares and problems, the dirt, the blood, the sweat, the grime, swirl down the drain and get sucked somewhere I would never see it again.
Jon’s attentiveness made me feel like I could relax. Like I was safe. The same hands that had ripped the flesh of other people were gently cleaning up the blood that dripped from my ear.
“How have you been?” I felt myself ask. My throat w
as raw, like I was swallowing sand and couldn’t figure out how to get rid of the lump in my throat. That was how it always was when I talked to Jon about something intimate, something as innocent as how he was doing meant more than what the four words actually meant.
He glanced up at me, as though he understood the meaning behind the words. His eyes lingered within mine, his hands never missing a beat with how they fixed me up.
“Keeping quiet,” he murmured, finally pulling away from my gaze and fixing his eyes on my ear. “You might need stitches if this doesn’t clot up.”
I laughed but I didn’t find the situation amusing. “I’ll just walk into an urgent care and ask for stitches because I yanked an earring out of my lobe,” I said. “I’m surprised you haven’t headlined our paper the past few months.”
“I’m not going to do anything until I get names,” he explained. He continued to hold the soaked napkin to my ear. “Names with evidence to back them all up.” Finally, his eyes met mine.
I understood. “That’s why you’re here.” It wasn’t even a question. It was a statement. Because I knew.
Of course.
Jon wouldn’t just show up and see how I was doing. There was a reason for him to be here. And that reason wasn’t me.
Which was fine. Nothing happened between us. He was entirely the wrong person for me and I wasn’t the best pick from him. He had too many scars he still needed to heal from, both emotional and physical, and I wasn’t sure he was going to be ready for anything more anytime soon. Just because I was the only person he trusted didn’t mean I was the only person who could mend his heart. He needed to make the conscious choice to do that on his own.
“You need my help.”
“Based on what I just saw, it would seem you need my help as well,” he pointed out. He finished all he could do with my ear and stood up to his full height. He was a couple of inches taller than six feet, which meant he was a half a head taller than I was.
“Is this really the best thing, Jon?” I asked, dropping my hands in my lap. My hair fell in my face but I didn’t bother brushing the strands away. “You’re finally not the talk of Perry. The police force has stopped working overtime to catch you. You can leave here and go anywhere you want. You could go over to Europe and nobody would be able to find you. Why come back?”
“I have something,” he finally said. His voice was low but it wasn’t a whisper. “I think I finally have something.”
I sighed, looking down at my hands folded in my lap.
“You already took out those you changed you,” I said. I lowered my voice as well but I made sure he could hear me. Even with his inhuman hearing, I wanted to make myself clear. “Why risk it to take out anyone else?”
“Those people were following orders,” Jon said. His voice got rough the way it always did when we talked about this. “They directly changed who—what I am. But they were told to do it by someone else, someone with higher authority. I need to ensure this won’t happen again, this won’t happen to someone else.”
“You’re not responsible for the future,” I pointed out. I stood up and suddenly hissed, my feet shooting millions of little needles up my leg. I leaned forward, grabbing my desk. I saw Jon reach for me then stepped back. I couldn’t blame him. We already shared enough physical contact. Anymore would be risking more than I was willing to right now. “Jon, you need to just…go. Live your life somewhere else. Pretend you’re a different person. Assume a new identity. I actually know someone who can make that happen for you. Coming back here puts you at risk. Everything you fought for—”
“I lost everything,” Jon growled. “Everything, because of what they did to me. Yvonne left me after I got back. She’s some assistant principal at a charter school. You think someone like that is going to want to build a life with a monster like me?”
“You are not a monster,” I snapped. I didn’t care if he agreed with me or not but I did not appreciate him talking about himself in that way. “Yvonne left because she’s a bitch”—he glared at me but I didn’t care—“and she didn’t mean what she said about loving you and accepting you for who you are or whatever marriage vows make you promise.” I closed my eyes and stopped myself from saying more. Talking about Yvonne always riled me up and I didn’t want to fight with him. Not when I hadn’t seen him in months. “You were dying. They didn’t have a choice.”
Jon took a step back. “Not from you,” he said. His voice was low, gravel. I felt my heart beat against my chest in slow motion and I knew I hurt him with my words. I was forced to look away. I never wanted to hurt him. “You do not get to say that to me.”
I stopped myself from pushing. This was just something we would disagree on. That much hadn’t changed. I had hoped space from Perry would bring him clarity. It seemed like it only brought him more bitterness and anger.
“What do you need help with?” I asked. My voice was sharp. I was angry and annoyed and I just wanted to take Jon’s shoulders in my hands and shake him. Of course, if I even tried to do that at all, he wouldn’t move. He was stocky, filled with muscle.
His eyes seemed to flicker with guilt. “Lara,” he murmured. I hated when he said my name. I hated the way my body reacted when he said my name. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I’m not going to not help you, Jon,” I told him. I was annoyed that he would even insinuate I would do something like that to him. Maybe everyone else. Definitely Yvonne. But not me. “Tell me the name and I’ll see what I can find.”
“It’s dangerous,” he pointed out. He took a step towards me but stopped moving after that. I straightened my back, my feet still in pain.
“Everything with you is dangerous,” I muttered. I curled my hair behind my ear and picked up my eyes to meet his. “You clearly thought it was worth the risk by coming to me. You know I’m going to help you.”
“Last I saw you, you promised you would never talk to me again,” he said. There was a flicker of a grin on his face but nothing that made it complete.
I hugged a sigh and didn’t bother to respond to that either.
“The name?” I asked again.
“Sonya Crawford.” He glanced away, out the window of my office. At that moment, I could see flashes of blue and red. He probably heard the cops coming before they got within eyesight.
I nodded, testing my weight on my feet. Painful, but I was getting used to it.
“You need to go,” I told him, finally looking up. “Thanks for…helping me out with those men.”
“Those men…” Jon clenched his jaw. “Lara, don’t get wrapped up into anything that’s bigger than you. This whole thing with Guzman…”
“You’re saying I can’t handle it?” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“You know that’s not what I’m saying at all,” he said, his voice hinting on exasperation. “Don’t get swept away. If I hadn’t gotten here, you would be dead.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” I said.
“Lara,” he snapped.
“You need to go,” I repeated. “Do you remember where I live?”
There was something about his facial features, the way they reacted when he heard me. He looked away.
“I’ll put out flowers when I have the info,” I told him.
“Sunflowers,” Jon said with a nod. “I remember.”
“Now go,” I said, nodding my head to the door. “The cops are going to be here any minute.”
He caught my eyes once again and nodded once. His stoic way of saying thank you. I looked away to rub debris off my skirt and when I glanced up, he was already gone.
Chapter 3
It took much longer for me to get out of this mess than I thought it would. The police came in and found me in my office. They took pictures of me, of my feet, anything that had evidence that I had been injured while running for my life.
I gave them a statement that was as honest as it could be without even alluding to Jon Hawkins. On the one hand, they probably wouldn’t beli
eve a murdering lycan had gone out of his way to save me from two thugs who were trying to kill me. Nobody knew I knew him. Nobody knew I considered him a friend, even if his friendship meant asking me to help him find the people responsible for ruining his life. It meant disappearing for months after I told him I would never speak to him again the way a teenager would when she was angry at her mother for enforcing rules.
Maybe friendship was the wrong word.
Whatever it was, there was trust between us. Respect.
I could live with that.
“And how do you account for the two dead bodies?” Detective Isaac Estrada looked at me up and down, but not because he thought I looked cute in my pencil shirt and bloody blouse. I had encountered him a few times in my line of work. He was always professional but he erred on protecting the police force and following the proper protocol. The quintessential good boy. I didn’t agree with the majority of his decisions but I could definitely respect them.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Like I told Officer Martinez, I heard two shots and then nothing. I didn’t want to step out of my office and explore.”
“You?” Estrada gave me a doubtful look. “You would walk into a burning building with a pen and your handy dandy notebook if it gave you the story you wanted.”
Okay, maybe that was an accurate statement but this was an inappropriate time to throw that in my face.
“Fair point,” I said, “but when it comes to fleeing for my life or a story, I would pick my life. Running from my pursuers would make an excellent story, and if I’m especially nice to Barry, it might even get first page.”
He rolled his eyes and wrote something down. He knew I was messing with him.
When he finished writing, he picked his eyes up and looked me over again.
“Well, Lara,” he murmured, sliding his pen and notebook in his trench coat pocket before crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m glad you’re all right. I just have one more question before I let you go.” He took a step towards me and then another before stopping in front of me so we were only inches apart.
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