Chapter 36 #2
“What happened to your mother?” Her voice is hesitant, and I suspect she knows the answer already.
I pull away from her and close my eyes again, letting my head fall forward as I drown in the memory.
“I wrestled the bat away from her and told her I was calling the police. I was finally going to expose them as the monsters they were. She grabbed a pipe and started toward the cages, and I snapped. It took one swing. The bat connected with the side of her head. She died instantly.”
Luna’s breath hitches, and it sounds like she’s suppressing a choked sob. I can’t bring myself to look up and see what her eyes might show.
“I fed the animals and released them behind our house. Then I cleaned up any traces of my having been there and hitchhiked back to school. I was at lunch in the dining hall the next afternoon when the police arrived to tell me my parents had died in a suspected home invasion. They’re the first two I killed.
I didn’t regret it then, and I don’t regret it now. ”
I expect her to push me away and rush out of here. Never look back. But she doesn’t. Instead, her soft lips brush against my forehead as she whispers my name and “I’m so sorry.”
I stand, needing space to think, to breathe, to figure out why telling her this feels like bleeding out. I move to the window again. The forest spreads before me, swallowed in shadow. The darkness goes on and on, reflecting the void that's taken up residence inside me.
“So, they’re why you started hunting animal abusers?”
She’s trying to make it simple, but nothing about me is simple.
“No, it’s bigger than that. It’s about justice where the system fails. It’s about consequences for those who think they’re above the law. Just like my parents.”
“Oh, Damien.” She chokes on my name, the sound caught in a sob that rises from somewhere deep in her chest.
The window reflects her image back at me, tears cutting paths down her cheeks, her shoulders shaking, and her face twisted with grief. The weight of seeing her cry for me presses down on my chest until I can barely breathe.
“Don’t cry for me, little doe. I don’t deserve your tears.”
“The little boy you were does. Those animals do.” She swipes at her cheeks. “That’s why you said your mother got what she deserved?”
“Yes. They both did.” The words are final and unchangeable, just like my past. “They left me a substantial inheritance and my father’s real estate development firm.
Blood money. That’s all it was. The executor of my father’s estate oversaw my care until I turned eighteen.
First thing I did was liquidate my father’s company.
Sold every property, every asset. I wanted nothing they’d been a part of.
I used the proceeds to start the Wolfe Group. ”
She crosses the room behind me, her feet quiet on the hardwood floor. Then her scent hits me. That subtle peach fragrance I’ve grown addicted to, the one that’s become as essential as my next breath. It fills the space between us and pulls at something deep in my ribs.
“Wolfe Technologies came first when I patented the surveillance technology I developed while trying to keep bullies out of my bedroom at school. I think I told you I was a scrawny kid until I was sixteen, then I shot up and filled out like a giant.” I see the barest hint of a smile on her lips in the glass.
“Then came the foundation to support animal rescue efforts. I poured every dime of profit from Wolfe Technologies into it. Finally, my acquisitions firm. It targets those who try to escape accountability by using their wealth. First, I bankrupt them, then I kill them.”
I turn to face her. Her dark eyes hold mine without flinching. She takes in each word I’ve said, storing them somewhere inside that sharp mind of hers. But the revulsion I’m bracing for never appears.
“Wolfe isn’t my birth name. When I turned eighteen, I had it legally changed.”
“That’s why there’s nothing about your family history in any of the articles about you.”
“Yes. I’ve spent a fortune keeping that secret buried, creating a fictional background that’s rooted in truth. I want no association with the monsters who made me.”
“Did your name come first or your tattoo?”
Her hand drifts up, fingers extended but not quite touching me. I close the distance between us until her hand makes the barest contact with my chest.
“The wolf came first. The night Rex died, my parents locked me in the basement with his dead body. It was the middle of winter and freezing down there. There was nothing to use for warmth except some old hunting magazines I found shoved in a cardboard box.”
Her palm presses against the center of my chest, right over the wolf beneath my shirt.
“I opened them up and laid them over myself. The cover of one showed a massive gray wolf mid-leap through snow.” I place my hand over hers, pressing it firmly against my heartbeat.
“Its eyes burned with something I’d never seen before—pure primal fury mixed with intelligence.
They weren’t like Rex’s gentle brown eyes.
These eyes held something wild. Something that couldn’t be collared or beaten. ”
“Something that couldn’t be broken.” Understanding settles into her expression.
“Yes.”
The word comes out rough because, of course, she gets it. She knows wolves better than anyone.
“The wolf symbolized something that would never be too weak to protect what mattered. I tore that cover off and hid it. Under my mattress at home. Then later in my dorm room at school. On the day of my parents’ funeral, I had it tattooed on my chest. That exact wolf, covering my heart.
Every year since, I’ve added more. Filled it in as my body filled out. ”
“And the writhing bodies?”
“Each one represents an abuser I’ve stopped.” My jaw tightens. “They writhe in eternal torment beneath the wolf’s dominion. Trapped. Suffering. The way their victims suffered.”
I watch her face again, searching for horror or disgust, but I see nothing but tenderness. A recognition of pain she can’t fix but refuses to look away from. Her fingers press harder into my flesh, and mine wrap around hers, needing her touch like my next breath.
“Taking the name Wolfe wasn’t just about the tattoo, was it?”
“No. It was about claiming my transformation. Honoring what I became that night in the basement. Wolves kill for survival, never for sport or cruelty. They protect their pack. They’re loyal and fierce and uncompromising.
Everything my parents weren’t. Everything I swore I’d become.
The name Wolfe is who I was meant to be all along, forged in trauma and fire and the death of everything innocent in me. ”
“The wolf is your true self.” She looks up at me, her hazel eyes shimmering. “The version of you that was born when the boy died.”
“Yes.” My throat closes around the word.
She takes a step backward, her hand falling away from my chest, and the absence of her touch feels like a wound opening.
“And now, you use all your money to track animal abusers and make them pay for their crimes when the law fails.”
“Yes. I memorialize every single one, so I never forget what they took from the world.”
I study her face and keep looking for the condemnation I deserve, for the disgust that should be driving her away from me, but I find neither. Just pain and sorrow etched into every beautiful line.
“They all get exactly what they deserve.” I move closer, unable to stand the distance between us.
“I know reconciling that is hard for someone as good as you. Someone who spends every day saving lives. But I think you understand it on some level. You’ve experienced that same darkness rising up inside you. ”
“I’m not like you.”
“Aren’t you?” I reach out because I can’t stop myself from touching her. Her skin is warm beneath my fingertips as I brush a strand of hair away from her face. She trembles under my touch. “I’ve seen it in your eyes when you’re treating an abused animal. That need for retribution.”
Luna steps back, creating distance again, and for a moment panic flares in my chest—the certainty that I’ve finally said too much and lost her. She paces across the room, running her fingers through her hair like she’s trying to sort through everything I’ve just laid at her feet.
“Feeling something isn’t the same as acting on it.”
“No.” I follow her with my eyes. “It’s not. But you helped cover up Caleb’s death. You made a choice.”
She spins to face me, eyes flashing with that fire I love so much. “I did it to protect you.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“What other reason would I have?”
“Revenge.”
Her whole body stills at that one word. She’s fighting it. She wants to believe she’s incapable of it, that darkness I can see lurking beneath all that light.
“I’m not a vengeful person, Damien.”
“No, you’re not. You’re a light in a world that’s mostly shadows. But there are some in you, too, Luna. That doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you human.”
Her spine stiffens. Her hands curl into fists at her sides. “I’m tired of people telling me I’m human. That isn’t an excuse for being reckless or oblivious or violent.”
My fingers itch to reach for her, to pull her against my chest and prove with touch what words can’t capture. The urge to show her what human really means. Messy and perfect and worth protecting at any cost.
“So, why did you help us cover up Caleb’s death and go along with framing him for my murders?”
“I told you—”
“Yes, you wanted to protect me. And I appreciate that, sweetheart.” Her eyes find mine, and for a heartbeat, the wall between us crumbles.
“I didn’t expect it. And I fully intended to take responsibility for what happened because he hurt you.
But I feel no remorse for killing him. I’ll kill anyone who hurts you. ”
“Damien, you have to stop saying things like that.”
“Why? It’s the truth.” I’m crossing the distance between us before the thought forms. “You want honesty from me? Here it is, Luna. No more secrets. No more walls.” My voice drops lower.
“You want to see who I really am? The parts I show the world and the parts I keep hidden? I’m stripping myself bare in front of you. As bare as I strip you every night.”
Heat flashes in her eyes, and I take another step closer.
“So, I’ll ask you again. Why did you agree to frame Caleb for my murders?”
“Because I can’t bear to think about you going to prison.” The admission tears from her throat. “And because he tried to kill me. He shot Shadow. He threatened my sanctuary, all my animals!”
There it is.
“And if he’d succeeded? What would you have done then, Luna?”
“I don’t know.”
Her face betrays everything. The way her eyebrows draw together, the slight downward pull of her mouth, and the rapid pulse visible at her throat. She’s staring into an abyss that stares back. The same abyss I’ve been walking the edge of for years.
“Yes, you do.” I close what’s left of the distance between us, cupping her face in my hands, careful of her bruises.
She’s trembling, but she doesn’t pull away.
Her eyes stay locked on mine. She doesn’t flee from the darkness she sees there or the matching darkness she’s discovering in herself.
“That’s what terrifies you. Not me or what I’ve done, but recognizing pieces of me in yourself. ”
Her lips part as if she wants to deny it, but no sound comes. The truth sits between us like a living thing, breathing and growing and demanding acknowledgment.
“Show me.”
My brow furrows. “Show you what?”
“The rest.” Her chin lifts. A gesture that is so brave it carries more courage than most people possess in their entire bodies. “You said you’re giving me all of you. I want to see it.”
Understanding dawns, and with it, a mixture of terror and anticipation.
“You want to see my trophies?”
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t hesitate. Just nods with the certainty of someone who’s already made peace with whatever comes next.
I cross to the far wall, where leather-bound volumes create a perfect facade. My fingers find the hidden panel, the keypad glowing to life under my touch. Eight digits. The date everything changed. The bookshelf whispers open on silent hinges, revealing blackness beyond.
“Are you sure?” My voice catches on the question. What lies beyond this threshold has never been seen by anyone but me. “This room doesn’t just show you who I am, Luna. It shows you who I’ve always been.”
She closes the distance instead of retreating. Her eyes lock on mine, unflinching and fierce. The same fierceness that allowed a nine-year-old boy to survive his father’s lessons.
“I’m sure.”
My palm finds the curve of her lower back, guiding her into the darkness. Motion sensors detect our presence, and lights come on in sequence, illuminating my private museum of justice, my shrine to all the innocent lives I’ve avenged.
Every muscle in my body goes rigid as I wait for her reaction. This room will either bind us together or tear us apart. Either way, after tonight, there will be no more secrets between us.
She’ll know who she’s fallen for. And maybe, if I’m lucky, she’ll love the monster too.