Series: Werewolves of Wall Street Series by Renee Rose
Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73722 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73722 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
“Thank you.” I grab my beautiful coat and call my mom because she was expecting me to come over and help make pies tonight.
“Hon, this job really requires a lot of you,” she says when I’ve explained the situation.
“I require it of myself, Mom. I’m the best assistant this guy has had, and I intend to maintain that badge of honor. I’m sorry. I will call you when I’m back in Manhattan. Or maybe I can have the pilot deposit me somewhere close to you–I don’t know.”
“All right, sweetheart. Love you.”
“Love you, Mom.”
I hang up and wait for the call from the pilot. Looks like in addition to daily limo rides, I get to add helicopter trips to my new normal.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Brick
On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I run with the guys for hours on my acreage in the Berkshires. I headed straight to my family estate from California.
Before Windows became my assistant, I came out here every weekend. Now I’ve been taking the helicopter over in the middle of the week, so I can shift and let off some steam. I’ve been cranky as hell.
The snow is falling hard–thick, wet flakes that melt when they hit our noses. The sting of cold on my paws satisfies this need I have to wring Madison out of my cells, out of my soul. She’s become a haunting presence to my every thought.
Fucking her didn’t take the edge off, it made my obsession worse. Infinitely worse. I’ve become constantly irritated. Always on edge. Yet my instinct to tear the heads off of everyone around me has diminished. Madison makes me think before I go for the throat. I try to see things through her eyes. Would she want me to maim here? Or would she want me to show compassion?
I run until the guys all turn back, exhausted, and even then I don’t want to go inside.
By the time I head back, I realize I ran until my paws are bloody. It doesn’t matter-they’ll heal within thirty minutes. The dogs run out with their happy yips of joy and race circles around me as I go into the mud room through the dog door in wolf form, then transform and grab a towel to wrap around my waist. I take a quick shower and get dressed, then head toward the living room to find my adorable niece and nephew.
“Brick.” Liz stops me in the hallway before I get there. She wears a tight expression, and she’s wringing her hands. I narrow my eyes to discern what the problem could be. She doesn’t ordinarily bother me with anything related to the running of the property. “Your mother is here. I’m sorry. She came with your sister.”
From the look of hatred on Liz’s face, it’s clear she’s in the anti-mom camp with me. She and I were the ones who found my father after my mother’s visit. When he’d been poisoned by silver.
Anger rushes through my body like venom, tainting my vision, stiffening the muscles I thought I’d finally worn down.
“Fuck!”
I stalk into the living room, which is decorated like a hunting lodge, with large overstuffed furniture and a stone hearth on each side.
My mother is on the couch talking with Ruby and Eagle. She shoots to stand the moment she sees me. She, too, wrings her hands, and there’s so much emotion in her eyes it nearly knocks me down. Guilt. Hope. Adoration.
That’s the part that twists in my gut and turns me inside out.
I want to hate her. I do hate her.
But she’s still my mother. The woman I never could have enough of growing up. The one who was kept from me. Only allowed to visit once a week. The one who loved me so deeply, she cried every time she had to leave.
I’m suddenly as gutted as I was as a child every time I had to see her go. She’s my mother.
That’s the only reason she’s still alive.
Otherwise, I would’ve avenged my father’s death long ago.
“Brick.” There’s so much hope and angst woven together in her voice. Enough to cut with a knife.
“Get out.”
Ruby surges to her feet. “No. She’s staying. I invited her.”
I grind my teeth, trying to keep the rage from turning me back to wolf form. I’m sure my eyes are flashing amber.
I tip my head toward the doorway and rephrase my command, “Get out of my sight.”
“Brick, I just want–”
“Now.” I put enough alpha command in my voice to make both Ruby’s and my mother’s knees go soft.
Eagle also stands now and puts a steadying hand on his wife’s elbow, but he wisely keeps his gaze averted from mine.
Both my mother and Ruby start toward the door.
“Not you,” I bite at Ruby.
She freezes. She’s fuming, but her wolf biology makes it impossible to refuse my commands.
I wait until my mother is gone before I start in. “What do you think you’re doing inviting her here? You can’t bring that woman into my home.”