Chapter 2
Miles
Hues of pinks and oranges from the rising sun were the only source of light illuminating the abandoned docks and casting long shadows from the derelict buildings.
I could think of better places to be, like heading to bed to get some much-needed sleep after spending the entire night in Exotique with my cock buried in a variety of pussies.
But no, here I was, attempting to track down Theo after he’d refused to wait until daylight to meet Victor Griffiths, Hollows Bay Chief of Police. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have worried, but Theo wasn’t answering his phone.
Slamming my door shut, the bang echoed into the early morning sky and startled a bird, the creature releasing a disgruntled cry as it flapped its wings and took flight.
Ignoring the sliver of worry coursing through me, I headed toward the empty warehouse we tended to use whenever we met up with Griffiths for him to give us information.
Having the Chief of Police on the Wolfe payroll often came in handy.
As I drew closer, I checked my phone, ensuring I’d read the map correctly. Sure enough, the dot indicating Theo’s whereabouts was blinking to indicate he was somewhere around the docks.
Expecting to hear the voices of my cousin and Griffiths as I rounded the corner, I was greeted with a deafening silence. The sliver of worry grew until trepidation hummed in my body, and cursing Theo, I tried to call him again.
From nearby, the theme tune to The Sopranos—Theo’s favorite TV show—rang. I followed in the direction of the ringing, my pace hurrying as the phone remained unanswered before diverting to voicemail.
I hung up and turned the corner, and just as I was about to hit redial, my feet froze at the scene before me.
My worst nightmare had come true.
I dropped my phone and sprinted over to the unmistakable body of Theo, the enormous pool of blood he was lying in glistening under the morning sun’s rays. I threw myself down next to him, not giving a shit that within seconds, I was drenched in his blood.
“Theo! What the fuck? Wake up,” I bellowed as I tried to frantically shake him awake.
His eyes didn’t open.
His body didn’t move.
When my panicked gaze moved to the gaping slash across his throat, I pulled his lifeless body into my arms.
“No, no, no. Come on, Theo! Wake up, I need you to wake up!” I cried, thick tears streaming down my cheeks.
I couldn’t think straight, chaos reining in my mind as all I could do was hold his body and scream his name while praying to a god I knew didn’t exist that this wasn’t happening.
That my cousin, my best friend, wasn’t dead.
I didn’t know how long I held him, rocking his body against mine, and begging him to wake up, when suddenly, his eyes flew open, his dark brown eyes, almost identical to mine, glaring back at me. Only now, they were void of the life that once filled them. They were empty.
Dull.
Lifeless.
Fear pounded through me when Theo opened his mouth to speak, blood pulsing from the wound in his neck. “This is your fault,” he said, a haunting lilt to his voice. “I’m dead because of you.”
He raised his hand, and it was only then that I realized he was clutching a knife, the sharp blade coated in vibrant red blood. My heart rate accelerated, but my body remained as still as a statue, ready to allow Theo to take my life.
I didn’t want to live without him.
I couldn’t live without him.
But as he brought the knife toward my throat, my body bolted upright, my lungs desperately sucking in air as sweat poured down me and soaked my bed sheets. With my heart pounding against its cage, it took a few seconds to blink the nightmare away and focus on the room around me.
My bedroom, in my apartment.
A voice in my head told me that wasn’t right, though. I moved out months ago when a war was brought to Hollows Bay, and the apartment block was destroyed.
Movement from the corner caught my eye. My head twisted to the shadows, my breath hitching when Theo stepped into the light, his body still covered in blood, and his vocal cords exposed from where the skin at his throat had been sliced wide open.
“I was always there for you, Miles. But where were you when I needed you?” he hissed, venom lighting up his soulless eyes. “And now, you want her. But she isn’t yours.”
I swallowed, guilt eating me up from the inside because he was right. I wasn’t there the one time he needed me when he was always there for me, without fail. But that wasn’t the only thing he was right about.
I did want her.
Sofia.
Jailbait.
I wanted her from the minute I saw her four years ago, but I would never have her. Not then, and not now.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice hoarse. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, Theo.” I ripped the covers off, pushing aside the fear crawling through my veins as I stood. “I don’t want her. I promise, I don’t want her.”
“Liar!” Without warning, he launched across the room, shoving me backward onto the bed.
This time, when I jolted awake, I knocked my laptop onto the floor from where it had been resting on my lap, my bedroom bathed in the soft glow of the screen, which still showed the webpage I’d been reading before I’d fallen asleep.
An annoying, shrill noise registered in my brain, and it took a few seconds to realize my phone was ringing beside me on the couch.
Pushing the nightmare to the back of my mind to join the rest of the nightmares I’d been plagued with since Theo’s death, I grabbed my phone before it could ring off. “Yeah?”
“Mr. Wolfe,” the familiar voice said. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I thought you would want to know that Ms. Bianchi messaged a few minutes ago. She’s on her way to the bar.”
I scrubbed a hand down my face.
Fuck sake.
Fucking Sofia.
The brat gave zero fucks about the risk she was putting herself in.
Granted, she didn’t know about the recent threat to her life from the Mexican cartel after her father and brother insisted it was in her interest to keep her in the dark.
But still. She was a mafia princess; she should have known that sneaking out with just one bodyguard was a stupid fucking risk.
And yet, she continued to do it.
Whatever Sofia wanted, Sofia got.
“Thanks for letting me know. Keep my booth free,” I grumbled, standing from the couch and heading to my bedroom to throw on some clothes, no part of me hesitating that I shouldn’t go.
Once I was dressed, I fired a quick message to Jane, who was no doubt asleep, letting her know I was headed out in case Angel woke up and I wasn’t home.
My cousin, Kai, and his wife, Riley, were away on their belated honeymoon in the Maldives, and had left Angel, Riley’s Deaf little sister, under mine and Jane’s watchful eyes.
Jane was Angel’s nanny— not that we were allowed to call Jane that anymore, according to Angel, she was too old, and too cool for a nanny.
I didn’t particularly like the idea of leaving Jane and Angel at home alone, but the house was manned twenty-four-seven by guards, all of whom were armed to the hilt and would lay down their lives to protect the Wolfe family.
Sofia only had one guard to watch over her selfish ass.
That would change as soon as she became a Wolfe. For reasons I would never understand, her father, Georgio, had refused my offer to provide our men as additional protection for Sofia, claiming his men were more than capable of protecting her.
Call me cynical, but these were the same men who had allowed our enemy to launch a full-scale attack on the Bianchi property, resulting in both Riley and Sofia being kidnapped. Since then, I had a few issues trusting them to do their jobs properly.
The drive to Bar Forty-Four was just across the border in the city of Forest Point.
Thanks to our impending nuptials, I could freely cross into the city without worrying about getting a bullet in my head.
In times gone by, Wolfes didn’t dare cross into Forest Point territory, and Bianchis wouldn’t dream about setting foot into Hollows Bay.
How times had changed. I was certain that if our great-grandfathers—the idiots that started the war between the two families decades ago—got wind that a truce had been made, and a Wolfe was marrying a Bianchi, they’d be turning in their graves.
As I negotiated the country roads, I kept one eye on the in-car computer screen fitted into my dashboard.
The screen showed a little dot moving closer to the bar; the dot representing the tracker I had installed on her bodyguard car a while back.
It showed just how seriously Gus took Sofia’s safety.
The fucking moron had never checked the car for trackers or bombs; if he had, he would have found it.
Aside from the tracker in the car primarily used to take Sofia places, I’d cloned her phone, her laptop, and hacked into the security cameras that covered the Bianchi mansion so I could keep tabs on her.
I had turned into a goddamn stalker, bordering psychopath.
If that wasn’t bad enough, I’d also developed a nasty little habit of following her from a distance while monitoring radio comms between her Gus, and the rest of the Bianchi guards, reassuring myself that if anything happened to her, I’d only be seconds away.
Since the day she’d been kidnapped and held hostage in Kai’s basement, I had become obsessed with making sure no one could hurt her.
Whether it was because I failed to protect Theo when he needed me, or because the look of utter terror on her face when I found her in the basement was ingrained in my brain, I didn’t know.
It didn’t matter.
I couldn’t stop myself from monitoring her every move.
But for the last few days, she’d obeyed Georgio’s orders and had stayed at home while he and Rafe went away for whatever business they had to deal with in New York. I stupidly thought she’d obey him until he returned, but she just couldn’t help herself.