In the Gray Read Online B.B. Reid

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Dark, Suspense, Taboo Tags Authors: B.B. Reid Advertisement

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I backed away as if that single step could undo this path I’d started down.

But no.

The back of my leg collided with Rowdy’s desk chair, and I dropped onto the cushioned seat. Unfolding the paper square, I held my breath until the last corner peeled away, revealing the secrets written inside.

Dear Owen,

This will be my last letter.

I know I say that every time because you never write back, but this time is different. This time, I know your secret. I know what you do when no one is looking. I can’t believe you’d do that to him. And to me. Did you not even consider how it would make me feel?

Do you love her?

I hope not. She’s not worth it. Why can’t you see that?

She’s nothing. I can be everything.

If only you would look past her just once. Maybe then you would finally see me.

Love,

Unrequited

A shuddering breath left me as I set the note down. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed as I sat there staring at nothing. I don’t remember rising from the chair and reaching for the box. I don’t remember pulling out and reading the next note…and then another and another until I reached the last letter and found another photo taken twenty years ago resting on the bottom.

I set the last unread letter aside and lifted the photo from the tackle box.

The first thing I noticed was that it must have been taken the same night as the photo I possessed. Maybe even a duplicate. I looked at the factory building looming in the background, the party raging inside, and then, like a ritual, my gaze swept over each of the smiling teenagers posing in front.

Golden, Roc, Joren, Jada—

My breath hitched in my chest when my gaze landed on the short dark-skinned girl wearing large, round glasses and standing between Rowdy and Jada. She seemed out of place amongst the group. More than that, something about her seemed familiar. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

I flipped the photo over to see if her name was written on the back like before, but it was blank. I flipped it back over and stared at her image, trying to figure it out until I noticed the direction of her gaze.

She was the only one not looking at the camera. Her gaze was fixed on Rowdy.

Atlas had left me.

Every moment since I came home two weeks ago and discovered her stuff missing had been a constant struggle to ignore my instincts—the animal prowling in my chest demanding I find his mate.

Atlas had taken only what she came into the relationship with, making her “fuck you” even clearer.

Still, I didn’t go after her.

I was listening to a different set of instincts now. The ones that demanded I protect her—even from me.

So, I drank.

I drank until the river of alcohol washed away the sound of Jada screaming those fateful words at my back and taking away the one good thing it turned out I never really had.

I couldn’t have.

I’d already had.

Jesus.

I’d looked into Jada’s eyes that night and knew she wasn’t lying.

Of course, there was no way for her to know from one meeting that Atlas was even her daughter, much less mine, but I knew she believed it to be true. She wasn’t just telling me some wild shit out of jealousy or spite.

Jada truly believed Atlas was the daughter she’d given away twenty years ago.

I’d taken her to a bar on the other side of town in East End, where I knew there was no chance of running into anyone we knew, and I made her tell me everything.

Jada confessed to getting pregnant at fifteen and how her parents had sent her to live with her aunt—Demi’s mother—before she started showing.

She’d given birth to a baby girl and had put her up for adoption while in Ossella before returning home like nothing had ever happened.

Jada and Joren’s relationship had been so toxic even then that the news had reached their parents’ ears, so when Jada returned to Idlewild, she simply told Joren that her parents had sent her away in hopes that the distance would make her forget about him.

Since Joren had been well aware of her parents’ dislike for him, he’d bought every word, and the two had picked up where they left off.

Three years later, they were married.

It had been twenty years, but I still remembered those months she’d left to live with her aunt out of the blue, only to return less than a year later. It was the only time I’d been able to look Joren in the eye after fucking his girl behind his back.

Of course, Joren hadn’t noticed because he’d been too busy screwing every girl but Jada behind her back.

It was heartbreak that had driven Jada to look my way in the first place. Whether for comfort or revenge, I didn’t know and cared even less. I’d been no better than Joren.


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