Chapter 175

• "Juan likes to exert his dominance on anyone who doesn't march to the beat of his drum. Others were in the tanks for punishment when I was. One of them came back for me, convinced the guards it wasn't right to do this to our own pack, and finally, Juan got bored of using me to vent and stopped coming to the cells. I was lying when I said I left the mountain for only my mom's sake... I got us out because I knew it was only a matter of time before I ended up back in there. Juan was getting more controlling as the weeks passed. Anyone who even looked like they were questioning his orders was shackled and dragged to the cells, and he would eventually notice that I wasn't where he had left me. I had to hide all the time, stay out of sight. Luckily my father never came home, ever."
• "I don't know what to say. We never knew that it was like that back there for you, for all of them. We never imagined he would torture his own." I sit, dazed, looking at her face, watching the still, almost tough expression as she forces herself not to break down in front of me, and I'm awed. I thought I was tough with everything I got through in my lifetime, but Carmen is on a whole other level.
• "He tried to kill his own son and slaughtered any who helped him that didn't leave... what do you think he's capable of?" It's a matter-of-fact retort. There is no hint of nasty, yet it has the same effect and sucker punches me in the gut, rendering me breathless. I inhale sharply and turn away as the shock reverberates around my skull. This is the first real confirmation that Juan killed wolves after the split. None of the others ever came out and would truthfully tell Colton that some perished, probably for fear he would go back there and rage a second war and lose more of our kind. He suspected but wasn't sure, and it seemed no one wanted him to carry the guilt by being honest. He was their savior, their alpha, and they kept it from him because they knew how he would take the news that many died for helping him. I wonder how many held this or suspected it.