I shook my head. My imagination was running wild. Growl had no reason to get rid of me. He enjoyed my company, even if he tried to hide the fact.

Growl led me to a spot surrounded by a few dried bushes. There was no hint of a grave. “He’s there.” He pointed at the dusty ground.

I crouched beside the spot and laid my palm flat against the sand. My eyes prickled but I didn’t cry. “I really thought you fed him to the dogs.”

Growl frowned. “That’s not how you should treat the dead.”

I let out a laugh. “Really? You don’t mind killing and hurting people, but you care about their corpses.”

“Death was their punishment. There’s no sense in defiling their bodies.”

“I know Falcone’s done it before. Father told Mother about it, and she even asked me about it when I visited her. I even heard rumors that he fed bodies to his fight dogs, and made the families watch.”

Growl shrugged. “I don’t always agree with what Falcone does.”

That was at least something, I supposed, even if it was obvious that he didn’t really care. “Have you ever seen him do something like that?”

Growl nodded. “Once. But the family didn’t have to watch. Falcone knows I don’t care for useless violence, so he usually doesn’t ask me to stay to watch.”

I lowered my eyes back to the ground. It was hard to imagine that my father was below me. Father had known the risks of his job, had earned a lot of money with it, and had probably been responsible for several people’s demise, but he hadn’t deserved this. I wished he were here, so I could have one last long talk with him. I couldn’t remember when we’d had our last conversation. Too long ago. “When you came to our house, did you think you were supposed to kill my father?” I wasn’t sure why it mattered. I knew Growl was a killer and that he wouldn’t have hesitated pulling the trigger.

“Falcone hadn’t told us who was going to kill your father.”

“But you knew that he wanted him dead?” I raised my eyes to meet his.

He gave me a confused look. He wasn’t sure why I was asking those questions. “Your father betrayed Falcone. Death is the punishment for that.”

I sighed and rose to my feet, dusting off my pants that were covered in a fine layer of red sand.

“Do you ever go to your mother’s grave?” I asked.

“No,” he said. There was no emotion in his voice. “It’s just her body down there. And I don’t even remember her much. I prefer not to stay in the past.”

That was probably a necessity considering the many dark aspects of his life. “And yet to some degree you do.”

More confusion filled Growl’s face. “What do you mean?”

“You let the past determine who you are now, and you’re bound to a man who made you who you are today. There’s so much past in your life.”

Growl considered that. He really looked as if my words were getting through to him.

I risked the next step. “Don’t you want revenge? Have you never dreamed of killing him? Of hurting him for what he’s done to you? You could end it all. Free yourself of your past once and for all.”

Growl shook his head. “I told you, what he’s done to me made me who I am. I would not be here without him. I would not be here with you without him. He gave me you and that’s more than I ever hoped for.”

For a moment I could not breathe, could not move, could do nothing but stare and try to come to terms with what Growl had just said. How could so few words mean so much to me? How could something that man, that monster said, mean anything at all? It seemed impossible, even now.

He took a step closer and brushed a strand of hair from my face before he took my hand in his. It wasn’t a romantic gesture, more like he needed to convince himself of something, needed to make it tangible to comprehend. “But him giving you to me wasn’t kindness,” he said. “Nothing like that. It was cruel and degrading. He wanted to punish you, and he knew I was the kind of punishment that would break you.” He turned my hand over, revealing my pale wrist and forearm. “Just look at your skin. Unblemished. Clean. Perfect. And look at me.” He released me and held out his arms, covered in tattoos and scars, tanned and muscled. His life showed on his body.

I didn’t know what to say. Self-loathing seeped from every pore of his body, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it. I wasn’t perfect as he made me out to be.

“Falcone hoped I’d do to you what he did to me. Turn you into something gruesome. Break you apart,” Growl rasped, eyes fierce and wild.

I grabbed his hand firmly. “You didn’t break me,” I said stubbornly. But I wasn’t sure it was true. I wasn’t the person I used to be. Some part of me had been broken, not through violence by his hands and yet, I had changed all the same.

“Stop hating yourself,” I said angrily. “You aren’t helpless. You are perhaps the only person who can do something against Falcone. If you feel so bad about why Falcone gave me to you, then help me. You always say that you are lost, that you can’t redeem yourself. But that’s not true. You could make up for your sins by helping me and my family.”

Growl curled his fingers over my hand. “By exacting revenge,” he said curiously.

I hesitated. “Yes.” Was I being a hypocrite for suggesting something like that? “Falcone deserves death. We’ll never be free with him around. Not just because he can tell us what to do but because he controls our past, he shaped it, shaped us irrevocably.”

“You can’t ask that of me.” Growl backed away, dropping my hand. “Don’t ask me again. I can’t help you. I won’t.”

My heart sank. For a moment, he’d actually considered saying yes. I’d seen it in his face. Should I keep trying even though he told me not to? Or should I accept what obviously couldn’t be changed and hope everything would turn out okay for my mother and sister anyway?

I couldn’t say any more.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CARA

Growl pulled away from me in the days after our visit to the grave. I let him. I wasn’t sure what to do.

He hadn’t even visited me in my bedroom and I was starting to miss it, miss him.

Lying awake in my bed, I listened for every sound outside. Growl had left without an explanation after dark again, and I was terrified in this creepy neighborhood all by myself at night.

Eventually, when every creak made me jump, I got out of bed. I crept out of the room and paused in the dark corridor, listening for the sound of claws on the floor, but there was nothing. Perhaps Growl had let the dogs sleep in his bedroom. I headed toward it, but behind the door I didn’t hear a sound. I tiptoed into the living room. It was dark in there as well. Only the dim moonlight streaming through the windows allowed my eyes to make out anything at all. Outside I could hear the occasional shouting or a siren in the distance, sounds that seemed to fill all the nights in this area. I wasn’t sure why Growl chose to live here. How could he bear it? Or maybe the hopelessness and brutality that filled so many of the houses in the street were something familiar to him, something he could grasp.

A movement in the corner made me tense. Then my eyes made out Coco’s head, and beside her that of Bandit. The dogs were watching me but they didn’t stir from their sleeping spots. I didn’t want to return to my bedroom. I was so tired of feeling alone all the time, of being alone with my thoughts and fears and worries. I walked to the sofa and sank down. Coco rose from her blanket and trotted toward me. I wasn’t exactly scared of the dogs anymore, but sometimes they still made me nervous, especially Bandit. I couldn’t read their movements very well, since my family had never had pets. But right now Coco didn’t seem in a bad mood. She stopped next to my legs and put her big head down on my knee, peering up at me expectantly. I raised my hand carefully, not wanting to startle her, and held it in front of her nose, so she could sniff it like Growl had showed me in the beginning.