Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Demi
The decision came sharply and suddenly.
I had agreed I wouldn’t just to show up, but I never promised I wouldn’t follow him. I needed more answers than the ones that Werewolf was giving me.
By late afternoon, I was in my car across from the garage, my sunglasses hiding the direction of my gaze. My phone was clutched in one hand, but my attention was locked on the man moving across the street.
Werewolf bent over a Harley with grease streaked across his forearm and his tattoos shifted as he worked. He didn’t laugh with the others and didn’t waste words. He was apart even when surrounded.
And I couldn’t look away.
I told myself I was doing this for Tyler. That watching him would lead me closer to the truth. But my chest betrayed me with a tightening whenever his jaw flexed. Whenever he wiped sweat from his brow with the edge of his cut, or his eyes flicked up like he knew exactly who was staring at him.
When he finally stepped out of the shop and climbed into his truck, my heart raced. This was it. My chance.
I followed.
He drove with the same tight grip he seemed to have on the world. He knew the streets like they belonged to him and weaved through traffic until the city blurred behind us.
I trailed two cars back, my pulse hammering with each turn. My old Civic rattled in protest, and I prayed he wouldn’t notice the wheeze of my brakes or the way my headlights flared over each bump.
He didn’t slow.
Didn’t swerve.
Just kept driving until warehouses appeared.
My grip tightened on the wheel. Whatever he was doing out here wasn’t legal.
And if he caught me…
I shook the thought away. I’d come too far to turn back now.
He pulled into a lot shadowed by rusting shipping containers, and the truck’s taillights glowed red before winking out. I coasted past, then circled back to park half a block away.
The night was around me, the air thick with the smell of oil and damp asphalt. I slipped out of my car and hugged shadows as I crept closer.
I found him leaning against the truck with a cigarette glowing between his fingers and his phone pressed to his ear. His voice was too low to catch, but his posture was rigid. Whoever was on the other end wasn’t a friendly call.
I crouched behind a stack of pallets and strained to hear what he was saying.
Then his head lifted and his eyes cut straight to where I hid.
Shit.
I ducked lower, and my pulse thundered in my ears. Maybe he hadn’t seen. Maybe…
“Demi.” His voice cracked the night like thunder.
I froze.
“Come out.”
Slowly, like prey stepping into the open, I rose. My breath puffed white in the cold air, and my hands trembled as I shoved them into my pockets.
He didn’t move. Just watched me with that predator’s stillness that made every instinct scream run.
But I didn’t.
I stepped closer.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked, voice low and lethal.
“Following you,” I admitted.
His brows snapped down, and in two strides, he was on me. His hand closed around my arm and dragged me closer until my chest brushed his.
“Are you insane?” he growled. “Do you have a death wish?”
“Not a death wish,” I shot back. “A truth wish.”
His grip tightened, and his eyes blazed. “You don’t know what you’re playing with. I keep telling you that, but you’re not hearing me.”
“And you don’t know how it feels to bury your brother without answers!” The words ripped out of me.
For a moment, the fury in his gaze faltered and was replaced by something hollow. Something haunted.
Then he cursed low, yanked me toward the truck, and all but shoved me into the passenger seat.
“Buckle up,” he ordered, and climbed in beside me.
I snapped the belt into place, my heart beating rapidly, my body radiating with adrenaline.
He slammed the door and started the engine. The cab filled with the roar of it, but the silence between us screamed louder. He shifted into drive and headed away from the warehouses.
The road blurred by, and his knuckles were white on the wheel.
“You could’ve been killed back there,” he said finally with a growl.
“You didn’t look like you were dying,” I muttered and folded my arms tight across my chest.
His head whipped toward me. “Don’t fucking joke about this.”
I bit down hard, and my anger sparked. “Then stop treating me like a child. I can handle the truth.”
He slammed his hand against the wheel, and the sound made me flinch. “No, Demi. You can’t.”
Silence stretched between us, and the truck rattled over a pothole. It jostled us closer together.
I glared at him and refused to shrink back. “You think scaring me is going to work? You think yelling and manhandling me will make me give up?”
His mouth curved into something dark. “Sweetheart, scaring people is what I do best. And you should be terrified.”
My pulse spiked. Not with fear. Not entirely.
Because the way he said it, and the way his eyes dragged over me made it feel less like a threat and more like a promise.
I hated the shiver that ran through me. Hated the way heat pooled low in my stomach. Hated that I wanted him to lean closer to make good on that dangerous promise.
I turned my face to the window. “You don’t scare me.”
The lie hung between us.
His low chuckle made my skin prickle. “Liar.”
I snapped my gaze back to him, ready to spit fire, but the words tangled when I caught the look in his eyes.
Heat. Raw and hungry, buried beneath the fury.
The truck slowed, and we pulled off into a deserted stretch by the river. He killed the engine.
We sat there locked in a stare that burned hot.
“You can’t keep doing this,” he said finally. “You follow me again, and I won’t just be pissed, I’ll end this.”
“End what?” My voice cracked. “Helping me?”
His jaw worked.
“Or whatever the hell this is between us?”
The confession slipped out before I could bite it back. The air thickened instantly and was charged with everything we’d been choking down since the first night we locked eyes.
His hand flexed on the wheel, then dropped. He dragged it slowly across his thigh like he was fighting himself.
“You don’t want this,” he said, low and rough. “You don’t want me.”
I leaned closer recklessly. “Then why do you keep saving me?”
His breath hitched. His gaze dropped to my mouth.
For one dizzy, dangerous second, I thought he was going to kiss me.
I wanted him to. God, I wanted him to.
But instead, he shoved the keys back into the ignition, and the engine roared to life.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” he said, more to himself than to me. He raised his voice, “You really want to see my world? See what your brother saw?”
I knew I should say no and run away, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t stop until I had all of the answers. “Yes.”
“Then be ready Saturday.”
“Ready for what?” I asked.
He shifted the truck into park and careened back onto the road. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”