Little Hood and Her Wolf (The Big Bad Wolf Trilogy Book 2)

by Janie Marie

  He stared at her, not breathing. He tried to make sense of what she was saying. She’d just proved it was his. She was six weeks pregnant, which meant she conceived four weeks ago. She had only been with him. He knew she was with him nonstop. But she’d been with Ryder two weeks ago. Just what the fuck did she mean? He was the father. He had to be.

  “Have a good life, Logan.” She walked past him. “I hope you find someone who makes you happy. I’m sorry I’m not her. I really wish I was.”

  “Janie?” He reached for her, but she held up a hand.

  “Goodbye, Logan.” She didn’t look at him. She just walked out. She was gone.

  Twenty-Five

  Kylie Hood

  Kylie sniffed as every word Ryder spoke ripped apart her heart. “She let him go,” she said.

  Ryder nodded. “She wasn’t thinking straight. Neither was he. All he saw in that moment was that she’d betrayed him.

  “He jumped right in when he went to his new buddies. They offered him distractions, and he welcomed them. I imagine the guy you saw that first night was your only glimpse of the Logan Grimm everyone knows and loves when they should hate him. You never saw him the way we all did—the bastard he became. All you saw was the sweet talker he could be to get into a girl’s pants.

  “Then you saw her when you really started to fall for him. He’d lied, but it was her you were angry with. Not him like you should’ve been. You’re always mad at her when it should be him.”

  Kylie didn’t know what to say. All she knew was everything was ruined, and Ryder wanted to pour more gasoline on the fire his girlfriend had lit.

  “So now I’ll tell you why I became Daddy to Logan’s baby.”

  She pressed her lips together. All the signs Logan had been the father were there, and she’d ignored them.

  “Janie had kept her pregnancy a secret,” he started up again. “She was terrified of Arthur and the boys going after Logan. They probably would have, too. So she avoided them as much as possible. She only had Gawain and Gareth from time to time anyway, but they’d slip up and threaten to beat Logan—which only silenced her further.

  “I hadn’t seen her all summer, but I’d heard Logan was killing it in training—and that he was partying hard enough to get in the headlines. I knew it would devastate her, so I went to school. I’m glad I went, but I also wished I hadn’t because it gutted me to see her in the state she was in.

  “She walked into class our sophomore year and looked right at me. She wasn’t the same girl. She reminded me of someone who’d been told they had a month to live. I didn’t know what to do. I watched her stare ahead in class as kids fucked with her, asking her when was the last time she showered or washed her clothes.

  “She sat through it all. I talked to her, and she ignored me. The only time she looked up was the day I caught three guys cornering her. They took off, and I was suddenly staring at a fiery goddess.”

  He smiled, but it was a torturous sight. “I thought I’d gotten her back, but the fire in her eyes was rage and sadness, and it was directed at me. She shoved me, telling me it was my fault. She was in tears as she shouted she hated me. It hurt, but what gutted me was that I could feel how much it hurt her to say that to me. Because she didn’t hate me—and that made her hate herself.”

  He sighed, ruffling his hair. “I saw her the next day with a different guy. I made sure he wasn’t messing with her, and it pissed her off. The guy turned out to be Devon, one of Logan’s old friends.

  “He’s a good guy. He knew Janie more than most people, and he saw what I did—a broken girl. He found me later that day because he was looking for her. Then he got angry when I didn’t know where she was. I asked, ‘Why should I?’ and he blurted out because that’s what a dad-to-be should know. It all came crashing down on me; she was pregnant, Logan had left her, and for some reason the people who knew believed it was mine.

  “I wasn’t going to sit on the sidelines after that. She had some explaining to do. I went by her house but she wasn’t there. The next day I actually called Logan. He sounded like he’d been hit by a car. I’d planned to help him get her back just so she would be happy, but what he told me next had me ready to kill him.”

  Kylie gasped, her eyes watering as she remembered what Logan had told her yesterday. “She went to see him. At the gym.”

  “Yep.” He clasped his hands together. “I guess he told you about that—but he left out what she went there to tell him?”

  Her head bobbed. “He said she’d written a letter. It was with her—”

  “Forever box.” He chuckled. “He still has it. Well, he did until Trevor tried to take it the other night. Now Luc has it. I’ve seen it because I was the one who told him to keep it out of my house. I haven’t read the letter, but I know she explained everything in it.

  “Mark had told Logan I wasn’t the father right before she got there. Instead of going to her, he pulled that bitch masseuse onto his lap and kissed her, marked her like she was his.”

  Kylie covered her heart. It reminded her of Logan’s fake breakup with her. But Janie had experienced the real thing, not just twenty minutes of a breakup.

  “Janie left the box,” Ryder said. “It had all her cute shit and the ultrasound of their baby and the letter, and she ran.” Ryder shook his head, disgusted and enraged. “He confessed all this to me on the phone. He fucking cried to me because it had literally just happened. He knew there was no going back. I told him he was never going to see her again, or even the baby—that I was going to take care of them.”

  He swallowed hard. “She found me before I could go search for her. Tercero brought her to my room as I was about to leave. She was hysterical. I thought she was hurt at first. I was checking her over, then she kissed me.”

  Ryder rubbed his chest, wincing. “I felt all her anguish. But I also felt how my arms around her and my lips against hers relieved a little bit of that pain. She was broken, and she needed someone to love her. I shouldn’t have, but I let us get carried away.

  “I loved her the way Logan should have when she told him about the baby. Now that I finally saw her without the baggy clothes, I saw her baby bump. I kissed her tummy and promised that I’d take care of them.”

  He tapped the center of his chest. “I’m the guy she regretted having sex with. I’d only held her for maybe five minutes afterward when she panicked. I tried to tell her it was okay, that we could take things slower—but all she could see when she looked at me was that Logan had been right. She felt more than she should’ve with me. She told me we were a mistake and sobbed, saying she really was a whore.

  “I tried to calm her down, but she got dressed and ran out of my room. Of course I chased her, but she latched onto Tercero in the hallway, telling him to keep me back. She lost it. It was like staring at a wild, injured animal with nothing but fight-or-flight instincts.

  “We watched her break down, but she let Tercero hold her. She asked him to take her home. I tried to get her to stay, but she said she just needed to be alone. So I let him take her.”

  Kylie stared at the ground. She’d speculated a lot about the breakup between Janie and Logan. Her assumptions had been wrong, but she couldn’t not focus on the fact Janie had jumped right into Ryder’s arms. Janie had feelings for Ryder when she was carrying Logan’s baby. So how was Janie the victim?

  Ryder chuckled, a mean sort of laugh. “I see you stewing over there. Just listen because I want you to know everything like you’ve been dying to.”

  “I haven’t been dying to know,” she retorted. Lie.

  He shook his head, scoffing. “Just shut up. Tercero got a call from the chef the next day, telling him Janie had asked to be taken to the emergency room around one in the morning, then asked to be left there.

  “I went straight to the hospital, but she was gone. I had the staff—who were worthless fucking scum for not being adults and seeing a young girl needed help—call for Arthur to return. Then a nurse from a doctor’s office had
called to follow up on her because she was worried when Janie left their office alone. She wouldn’t release information, but she urged us to find Janie soon.

  “I was leaving when the wind blew pieces of paper all around me. They were photos of Janie.” His forehead crinkled as though he could see the scene all over again and it hurt him. “She’d shredded herself apart instead of him. I knew she was going to destroy herself. Thankfully, her actions basically left a trail of breadcrumbs to the woods surrounding her home.”

  He sighed, holding his head. “I found her about a mile away, wearing Logan’s mom’s red hoodie. She was crying and rocking back and forth. She had the ultrasound, a bottle of pills, pictures of Logan and her mom, and a knife. She hadn’t done anything yet, but she was dead. I sat down behind her and held her.

  “I told her I’d take care of them both, and that’s when I found out she’d lost the baby overnight. There were two ultrasounds. One that had the words ‘Hi, Mommy & Daddy!’ and one of just a circle with nothing inside. She’d just come from the appointment that confirmed it was gone.”

  His posture shifted from pulsing with energy, ready to fight, to complete surrender. “After having sex with me, she’d had a miscarriage. She didn’t blame it on me. She blamed herself, saying that was God’s way of saying she deserved nothing of Logan. I could barely breathe as I carried her home. I’d killed her baby.”

  Kylie turned her face away as tightness surrounded her chest and squeezed. This wasn’t supposed to be how it happened.

  “My brothers all tell me it wasn’t from having sex with her, but I don’t know. I wasn’t rough, but who knows. I end everything I touch, so to me, it’ll always be my fault.”

  He sighed, and Kylie peeked at him to see him holding his forehead as he stared at the ground. “The emergency room doctor told her she’d miscarried but said she needed to see her physician in the morning. The doctor she was able to see was a complete asshole. He treated her like she wasn’t even a human with feelings. He just did the ultrasound, pointing out things for the med student rather than her.

  “She asked for a picture, and he told her she didn’t need one because nothing was there. Then he told her to get on birth control to avoid future unwanted pregnancies.” He breathed out heavily and bounced his leg. “My poor girl walked all the way home, snuck into her house to get shit, then went to the woods to die.”

  He touched his chest, rubbing like his own heart ached. “I stayed until Arthur made it back. She was afraid to tell him about the pregnancy because he would go after Logan, so I told her we’d say it was mine. I had hoped she’d let me stick around, but she didn’t. I urged Arthur to take her for help, but he said she’d accept that a baby wasn’t meant to be.”

  He stared ahead, like he was seeing something as he continued, “I don’t think he believed the baby had been mine anyway, but he was furious because she’d been pregnant for four months, and he had no clue.

  “I’d told him she still needed to be watched, and he promised the boys would watch her or he’d take her to Europe. They had a lot of shit happening, but he told her he’d take her if she agreed to be admitted to therapy, or she could get over her breakup like a healthy individual and realize these cries for help wouldn’t get Logan back. I was pissed. I threatened to take her away, but then she got mad at me. She told me everything was my fault, and if I didn’t leave, she’d make sure next time she actually did do something.

  “I left because I believed her. I left because I felt like I’d ruin her, end more of her beautiful heart and soul.” He stopped, and Kylie sniffled. It was all wrong. “I still checked with Arthur the next day, but he’d already flown back to Europe.”

  He shook his head as utter disdain coated his words. “His teenage daughter had just had a miscarriage, and he didn’t cancel everything to take care of her. I should’ve taken her right then, but she had Gawain and Gareth. They told me Arthur hired a therapist to see her. Not that it helped.

  “The stupid fucking doctor spent an hour with her, diagnosed her with depression, and prescribed her antidepressants. After a fucking hour!” He growled, and it made the air between them tremble. “Her being as broken as she was over Logan and the miscarriage took her to a whole new level of hell. She was like a live grenade being thrown into a landmine field when she went back to school. And that first day back, she was raped.”

  Kylie turned her head away and clutched her heart. She hadn’t believed in the rape story, but Ryder made it seem so real.

  He leaned forward, resting his arms on his legs. “I have no idea how things unfolded like they did. All I know is the girl I love died in the woods that night.

  “They weren’t going to tell me. I only found out because the cook called Tercero when they released her from the hospital. I was barely able to think when I got there. It turned out Gareth and Gawain had been the ones to find her after it all happened. She was lying naked on the shower floor, mumbling two names. I know I knocked Gawain out, but Gareth just cried, telling me to go fix her—that Sissy wasn’t there anymore.”

  He sucked in a breath like it was hard to catch his breath. It even made her stomach hurt to see him that way. “She was just a pretty corpse,” he said. “She was breathing, but my girl was gone. I fucking cried over her body, kissed her belly where she’d been cut—where her pretty baby had been—and she didn’t react. My brothers all came, even Luc because he’d arrived that morning. I’ve never seen them so affected by anyone’s pain. Maybe they felt mine, I don’t know. They prayed, each taking a turn kissing her cheek. She still didn’t move. We just watched a tear slide into her hair. Then the cops came and told us the boys had credible alibis.”

  Kylie swallowed, her eyes stinging as she watched him trying to calm himself.

  He breathed in and out heavily. “She seemed to wake up when Arthur came home again. She looked at him and cried one word: Daddy.” Ryder shook his head. It was hard to tell if he was going to cry or destroy something. “Watching a man like Arthur crack is hard to witness. He knew his little girl had been destroyed by monsters. If Lance had been there, I imagine there would’ve been a bloodbath. Especially when Arthur didn’t console her. He saw me there, and he left to go confront the boys himself. I thought he’d do what any father would—kill them. Nope.”

  He sniffed, telling her he might have been close to crying. “The cops had already cleared them. The clothing she’d been stripped of wasn’t at their houses, and they had several witnesses saying they were at a gathering with teammates. Arthur is far too noble.” He didn’t sound disgusted—just angry at the honor Janie’s stepfather displayed. “He knew they were lying,” he said bitterly, “but he let them go. Every one of the Knights stared in shock as he ordered them to sweep the woods, and if they didn’t find evidence, to leave this alone. To move on.”

  He clenched his jaw, his body tense as he growled, “I was ready to kill him. I would have, but she finally moved, grabbing my hand. She knew what I was thinking.”

  He chuckled before blowing out a deep breath. “I think sometimes her soul finds her way back and refuses to give up. She holds me back. Because the boys didn’t find anything. The place she’d told them it happened had been burned. The fire department had worked all night to keep the fire from spreading. Gareth found lighter fluid and a lighter in the garage, but he didn’t tell anyone because he knew they’d pin it on her for sure. I had Tercero take the stuff and have it checked out, but there were no fingerprints. He tried to see if any stores had recently sold that type of fluid overnight or in that week, and he came up empty. Just a few random people had made purchases, no one related to the boys she’d named.

  “A week went by, and the detectives gave up on her claim. Besides her washing herself, she had been covered with naphtha fluid, which is lighter fluid. This kind was the type you buy to refill a lighter. It was everywhere on her, and her thighs had been cleaned with alcohol and ammonia. Tercero thinks they planned on burning her alive.”

  He cle
nched and unclenched his hand. “We watched them as much as we could, but they never let slip they’d done anything wrong. And people had no problem taking their side. They made fun of her or called her a crazy whore. Then two weeks after everything, Arthur gave her an ultimatum: go to school or move around with them. She didn’t want to be with him after what he’d done to her, so she went to school.”

  He snapped his fingers, his tone harsh. “First fucking day back, a letter from those assholes appeared. She knew it would make me hunt them down, so she went to Nick. He called the police to come, Arthur came, and Nick texted me to come down. I did. She was so hopeful something would be done, that the cameras would show something. There had to be proof, but there were so many students around those bastards, it didn’t show them actually doing anything other than hovering near her locker. Arthur requested the boys’ lockers and homes be searched again, and the boys complied. Nothing.

  “It didn’t help that one of the boys was the police chief’s nephew. He probably warned them. It doesn’t matter. Nothing was found.

  “I held her hand, just happy she was letting me be there for her. I guess Arthur didn’t like it. He told her that was enough—he couldn’t keep dealing with her. That’s when he asked if she was she sure she was raped, or did she just regret sleeping with the two boys, like she had with me.”

  Kylie’s mouth opened, and she stared in shock. Janie had said her family didn’t believe her, but this wasn’t anything like how she envisioned the Knight family would be with her.

  “I had never felt pain like I did when I watched all the light fade from her eyes,” Ryder said. “She told him she made it up.

  “I picked her up and hugged her,” Ryder said. “I felt everything breaking and dying inside her. Arthur was the last man she needed to step up, and he abandoned her. I told him he was wrong for asking her that, then I carried her out of the room, left school, took her to her house, and packed what she needed to get by for a few days. She asked me to let her die, and I told her no—every day I tell her ‘not yet’.”