But you should know the family is already there. The family? My stomach twisted. Tessa’s family wasn’t like mine. I grew up with nothing. Tessa grew up in a fortress. Her father, Victor, was a man who owned half the real estate in the county and owned the other half of the politicians. And then there were her brothers, seven of them.
Dominic, Evan, Felix, Grant, Ian, Kyle, and Mason. The Wolf Pack, Victor called them. They were loud, arrogant men who treated the world like it was something they could buy or break. They had never liked me. To them, I was just a grunt, a government dog who wasn’t good enough for their sister. I turned the corner toward the ICU waiting area, and there they were.
It looked like a blockade. Victor was sitting on a bench looking at his watch like he was late for a board meeting. The seven brothers were standing in a semiircle around the door to her room. When they saw me, the atmosphere changed. It wasn’t grief I saw in their eyes. It was annoyance. Finally, Victor said, standing up.
