Chapter 35

Dominic

Ray waits until dark.

I know he’s coming. I’ve known since noon, since I watched his face in the kitchen doorway when she flinched away from his hand. I’ve spent the whole afternoon in the garage with the doors open to the cold, working on nothing in particular, waiting.

When his boots crunch across the gravel, I put down the wrench and turn around.

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. He walks straight up to me and hits me.

It’s a good punch. Ray Ashby has been Iron Fang’s enforcer for twenty years, and he’s never thrown a bad one. It catches me square on the jaw and snaps my head sideways, and I taste blood, and I stagger back a step into the workbench.

I don’t hit him back. I don’t even put my hands up.

He stands there breathing hard, his fist still clenched, his wolf right there in his eyes.

“That’s for Christmas Eve,” he says.

I straighten up slowly. Wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “Okay.”