Manhattan Dragon by Genevieve Jack

Author:Genevieve Jack
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Carpe Luna Publishing

Chapter Twenty

Nick didn’t like talking about his past. It wasn’t the kind of story you could tell among mixed company. Not a nice story. Not something you shared over Waldorf salad at the beach house.

But he liked Rowan. He didn’t care that she was a dragon. Maybe that’s what he needed, someone with a dark secret as deep and shadowed as his. She definitely wasn’t like other women. Everything about her was durable and down to earth, from the way she handled herself with the vampires and with Verinetti to the way she buried her face in Rosco’s fur. She was no delicate flower. Beautiful, yes, but in the way of an iron butterfly. If he told her who he really was, would she run for the hills? Or could she handle that he’d come up from the sewer and still carried the stink of it on his soul?

Last night she’d shown him her wings. Tonight he would show her his horns. Let the halos fall where they may.

“My mother left when I was five,” he began. “Left me with Stan. I’m not sure if Stan was my father, only that he was living with my mother when she left. I never called him dad, just Stan. What happened to me as a child wasn’t the fault of my parents. I didn’t have parents. I had Stan.”

Rowan traced her finger along the lip of her glass, but otherwise made no indication that his story was disturbing to her. Good. This was about to get much worse, and he wasn’t sure he could continue if she looked visibly upset.

“Stan didn’t like me, and he certainly didn’t like having to care for a child. He was too busy working in a chop shop to worry much about my welfare anyway. His associates would bring in a stolen car, he’d strip it, destroy anything with the VIN, and sell the parts to another buddy of his who would put the pieces on the black market. It was a stressful job because these friends he had, they were the type that might kill you if you fucked up or maybe just because they thought you were dicking around on the clock. Their leader was a guy named Trojan. Big Russian-looking dude. Seemed like he was seven feet tall, but maybe he was six five. Square jaw. Small eyes. The sort of cold eyes that make a guy look dead inside.”

He swallowed hard, and Rowan nodded encouragingly for him to continue. “Anyway, Stan would come to the place where we lived. I hesitate to call it home. I don’t think it was a home. It was a closet with a toilet and a hot plate, and Trojan owned it. It was one of the ways he controlled his workers. Own where your workers live and you own more than their livelihood. You own their life. Stan would come to the place where we lived at the end of his workday, and the first thing he’d do was take off his belt.

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