Chapter Eighteen
The bruises on her face had faded, but Veronica still bore the scars from her encounter with Cesar and Diego.
Julio held out the cup he’d brought to the solarium. “From Sera. You like honey in your tea, right?”
“Yes.” Veronica accepted the cup. “Any word on Glenn?”
The wolf had taken the brunt of the damage from Josh’s truck T-boning the car. “His internal bleeding has already started to heal. Carmen says he’ll be okay.”
That brought the ghost of a smile to Veronica’s lips. “Good. He’s been with me and Mom—” Her voice broke, and she took a small breath to compose herself. “He’s been with us a long time.”
Then he was glad, for her sake as well as Glenn’s. Julio sat on the arm of the couch. “You’ve been through a lot.”
“I have, haven’t I?” Veronica lifted the teacup and studied it, her eyes shadowed. “Over a year and a half ago, I had tea with Nicole Peyton. That was the last normal day of my life.
Every one since has been… I’m sleepwalking through life in a haze, Julio. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
How could she? “What do you want to do?”
“I want to know how to feel normal.”
Julio cleared his throat. “Two days ago, I killed my father. Even before that, my best friend apologized for not having killed him already. But it’s not just our family.” He could go on, and he did. “Sera’s mom is in a mental institution. One of Alec’s cousins killed his first wife. We’re not normal, none of us. It doesn’t mean we can’t be happy, but it makes it harder.”
“It does.” She set the cup aside and drew her legs up to her chest. “It’s bad enough that our fathers hurt people we care about. The thing that no one wants to talk about is that they’re still our fathers.”
“Yeah.” Julio had fully expected to regret having to kill his father. But after finding him ready to do the same to Sera… The emotion simply hadn’t come. What had taken its place was a sucker punch. “I never thought I would mourn. My father wasn’t a part of my life in any positive way. He did nothing but hurt my mother and my sister and brother, so why should I grieve?”
“For what he could have been. Or what he should have been.” She rested her chin on her knees and shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes I remember the stupidest things. When I was a kid and my father was still sure he’d have a son eventually, I was his princess. Sometimes I convince myself he had to be a different man than the one who backhanded me for talking back.”
The only thing they could do in the end was swear to do things differently. “I’m going to marry Sera. I don’t care what the legacy wolves have to say about it.”
“Yeah?” For the first time in days, he thought he saw a real smile curve her lips. “You never did care what any of them thought. When we were kids, I was always so jealous of you. You weren’t afraid of getting into trouble. You wanted to.”
“No better way to piss my dad off, right?”
“I suppose so.” She reached out to catch Julio’s hand. “I’m glad, I really am. I like Sera.
She’s tough in a way that makes me a little jealous of her too.”
She hadn’t had an easy life, either, though in different ways. But she’d always fought, and she always would. “She’s the reason I decided, you know. I ran away from this shit for so long, pretended I was human because my mom wanted me to…but I’m not. So I’ll do what I can to change things, and Sera will be right there with me.”
“Change.” Her voice wrapped around the word, gave it weight. “That’s something else I said to Nicole. Before my father—” She cleared her throat. “I told her that I’d always thought our generation would be the one to change things. But I’d stopped believing. My dad, our uncle…
They beat it out of me. Except now it’s happening. It’s really happening.”
Hopefully not too late. “You’ll be protected, free to do whatever the hell you please. It’s what Aunt Teresa wanted.”
A rusty laugh bubbled up. “I don’t even know, Julio. I know what I don’t want. I don’t want to be sold off like a prize mare. And I don’t know if I want to practice law anymore. I’m tired.”
He squeezed her hand, his chest tight. “Carmen said you’re going to stay with them for a while.”
“Yes. Alec declared it. And your sister told him he didn’t get to declare it, that I had a choice.” Veronica almost grinned. “That was so much fun to watch I decided it wouldn’t be so bad. They have the guest house at Alec’s place in New Orleans, and he said I could live there.”
It would probably be the best place for her to regain that semblance of normalcy she’d talked about. “If they get to be too much, there are plenty of friendly faces in New Orleans. You could escape for a while.”
“I might come visit you.” Veronica uncurled and leaned over to hug him. “You can teach me how to get in trouble again. You were pretty good at that when we were eight.”
“I was a terror. I drove my mother nuts.”
“I remember. You grew up okay, though.” She kissed his cheek. “Go cuddle your woman. I don’t think she’ll stop fretting about people unless you distract her.”
“Maybe.” Veronica looked so much like her mother, her darker coloring the only hint of her father, but his legacy was there, all the same. The fear. The trauma. “Promise me, Ronnie. You will come visit.”
“I will. And you promise you’ll call me if you need help getting set up in Atlanta. I know all the wolves in law enforcement and the government, and I’m still licensed to practice law in Georgia.” She touched Julio’s cheek, a gesture that reminded him of Teresa. “If the revolution is finally here, I don’t want to miss it. But I need to be an asset, not a liability, and right now I feel a little broken.”
He’d known from the time he’d challenged his way onto the council that he’d have to fight again. His vision had been vague, full of swirling faces superimposed on his opponent’s, leaving him with no idea who it might truly be. Cesar, his father, Alan Reed…even his own face had appeared. The only certainty was the possibility of destruction. As he’d struck the killing blow in his vision, he’d felt it in his bones—the fight had the potential to destroy people. So many people.
Now, he could drown in blame if he let himself. His aunt had died, his cousin had lost her mother, Sera had had to face Josh—all because he hadn’t acted sooner.
He’d have to set it aside. “I would have done it before,” he murmured. “Killed them already, I mean. But I thought maybe it would make me just as bad as them. No mercy, no law but what I want. I can’t live like that, Ronnie.”
“So don’t.” She let her hand fall to his and squeezed it. “You’re a protector, Julio. It was true when you were eight, it was true when you turned your back on shapeshifter power to become a fireman, and it’s true now. And if you ever start to forget it, you’ve got friends who will pull you back from the edge. Or kick you there.”
“I don’t think it’ll be a problem now.” There wasn’t anyone left who might pose a problem, no more fathers or uncles motivated by a hunger for power. “Do you hate me because my father was a part of this?”
She didn’t answer at once. She looked away instead, her hair falling to hide her face as she studied the floor. “It’s funny,” she said finally. “That’s the question I’ve been too scared to ask Nicole and Michelle Peyton.”
“I think you should. It might give Derek Gabriel a chance to ask you his own version of it.
Good or bad, he killed your father.” Julio stood and took a step back. “I’m lucky. I only have myself to deal with when it comes to that. For most everyone else, it’s more complicated.”