Chapter 14 - Jag
The salt-tinged morning air stabs through my hair as I lean against the weathered rail of Sitka Harbor. Fog lifts from the water like a ghost fleeing the sun, revealing sleek yachts and rugged fishing boats.
My eyes lock on a specific vessel as it slices through the waves and docks effortlessly, its polished exterior a gleaming insult against my shit life.
Dove emerges alone.
Sunlight spills over her blue hair as she steps onto the dock, confident and unafraid, heading straight toward me.
She doesn’t see me, the wheelhouse of a longliner blocking her view. But I see her, her defiant gait a challenge to my patience as she saunters past.
No sign of Wolfson Strakh. She probably slipped away before he realized he’d been ditched.
I push off from the rail, rest the thumb of my broken wrist in my pocket, and keep a careful distance.
The docks buzz with early morning life, fishermen hauling nets, tourists snapping photos, and children darting between legs. Perfect cover.
Dove moves swiftly, unaware of my gaze drilling into her back.
My heart pounds, my blood a silent squall beneath the surface. I don’t know what I’ll do when I get my hands on her. The idea of locking her away and caging her like a feral pet is appealing. Somewhere remote. Somewhere no one can find her.
Movement shifts at the edge of my vision.
Two men trail her, blending expertly, keeping a discreet yet constant distance.
I narrow my eyes.
Not ordinary men. Professionals. Disciplined, alert professionals.
My chest constricts.
Are they here for me? Impossible. No one knows I’m in Alaska.
Realization hits. They’re not stalking Dove. They’re protecting her. Strakh family guards, no doubt.
A dark surge of rage twists through my gut.
Dove is mine. No one has the right to keep her from me.
A few blocks later, she disappears into the mechanic shop. Her coworkers shuffle around inside, visible through grimy windows. The security detail sets up silently around the perimeter, vigilant and lethal.
I clench my jaw, every muscle vibrating with restrained fury. I have to rethink this. She’s not unguarded. Not vulnerable. Not anymore. Plans need changing, angles reconsidered.
Turning sharply, I head toward the tattoo shop, my boots heavy against the damp concrete.
The shop sits quiet, closed on Mondays, a sanctuary and hideaway rolled into one. But it’s not my real haven. My servers, hacker equipment, and surveillance gear lie hidden in an abandoned shed a few blocks away.
Losing that is as dangerous as losing Dove.
Sliding my key into the lock, I swing open the door to the tattoo shop. The darkness inside feels innocuous.
Until I sense a shift in the shadows, a loose breath betraying another presence.
My hand freezes on the door, and my pulse jumps into an alert rhythm.
“Took you long enough.” The voice comes smooth, darkly amused, from a shadowed corner. “I almost started without you.”
Wolfson Strakh sits comfortably, a leg crossed over his knee and eyes glittering like arctic ice in the low light. Disarming and casual all at once.
A chill curls up my spine, anticipation threading through the anger. His presence means trouble, maybe even disaster. But if he thinks he has the upper hand, he’s gravely mistaken.
“Started what without me?” I shut the door, locking us in the shadows.
“Making the playlist for your funeral. Any last requests?”
“‘Don’t Fear the Reaper.’”
“Good choice.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Leave town. You’re not welcome here.”
“Is that a threat, Strakh? Or an invitation to play? Either way, I’m not going anywhere.”
“You misunderstand.” He tilts his head, assessing me. “It’s a warning. Dove doesn’t want you here. None of us do.”
“Dove belongs to me.” I step closer, thrumming with a sinister thrill of anticipation.
“Belongs to you?” He rises from the chair, controlled grace infused with menace. The faint scent of smoke drifts off him as he closes the distance. “She’s not your property, pretty kitty. Touch her again, and I’ll rearrange your internal organs. Alphabetically.”
“Dove and I have a history that spans a lifetime.” Fury ignites my veins. “What do you have? Two days with her? No matter how many thugs your family hires, you can’t erase me.”
“Yeah, your history’s a real fairy tale. Murdered parents, paranoid obsession, pathological stalking, dead bodies… You’re every girl’s dream psycho.”
Heat floods my face and drains to a cold numbness.
Dove confided in him. She shared our pain. Our past. The thought scrapes my chest raw, gouging deeper than a blade. It feels like betrayal, like death, like everything I’ve fought for is slipping away.
“You might think you own this town, but you don’t own me.” I straighten. “You don’t own Dove. And you don’t scare me.”
“If you’re not scared, you’re even more fucked in the head than I thought. Dove hates you. How does it feel knowing she’d rather die than see your face again?”
“She’ll come around. She always does.” My breath turns ragged, hatred flaring white-hot. “But you? You’re just another mistake she’ll regret in a long line of mistakes.”
He spreads his arms open, palms up in a challenge, silently inviting me to try harder.
This guy. He’s not normal.
“Last chance.” His mouth quirks into a bored half-smile. “Leave town. Disappear. Or you won’t leave here alive.”
“You think you’re untouchable?” The weight of the gun at my waist makes my fingers twitch, itching to draw. “I’ll enjoy proving you wrong.”
In a flash, my good hand jerks toward my weapon, but he moves faster, steel glinting from the sleeve of his jacket.
A cold, sharp blade presses against my throat before I can finish drawing.
“Try that again, sugar.” He flicks his goddamn tongue against my earlobe. “I’ll make sure your blood splashes beautifully.”
Adrenaline roars through my veins. Too bad my free hand is broken. Otherwise, I’d grab his dick just to watch his reaction.
I see it clearly, the ruthless violence behind his calm mask. But I sense his confusion, too. He doesn’t know whether to gut me or fuck me. I bet he’s never been with a man. But he thinks about it. Jacks himself to images of it.
All that untapped curiosity and testosterone make him easy prey. Easy to draw him close, twist him around my finger, and break him down until Dove returns to me.
“You’re playing with fire.” I swallow against the blade’s tip, causing it to nick my skin.
“I live in fire. Now get the hell out of my town.”
The blade digs deeper, drawing a thin trickle of blood that warms as it trails down my throat. “Everyone bleeds, Strakh. Even you.”
“Oh, sweetheart, I bleed just fine. The difference is I like it.”
I move swiftly, jerking back just enough to free myself from the blade’s immediate threat, and draw my gun fully this time. I level it directly at his chest, my finger tense against the trigger.
“Go on, Codebreaker.” He doesn’t flinch or blink. “Let’s see what your fingers can do without a keyboard.”
I’m not surprised he knows about my criminal activities. With a family like his, stacked with money, muscle, and roots that can be traced back to Soviet nightmares, they probably dug up some juicy, high-profile shit on me. My hacks. My breaches. My fingerprints in digital blood.
But here’s the thing.
He only knows the tip of the iceberg.
Most people think the surface is all there is. The pretty white tip glinting in the sun. A couple of cyber crimes, a few blackmail trails, some corrupted files on a senator’s server. That’s child’s play. That’s bait.
The real iceberg is structured like the nine circles of hell.
The upper layer is a breeding ground for script kiddies and amateur hackers. Wannabes trading malware like porn and chasing dopamine highs with ransomware.
The professionals play in the middle layers. Governments. Corporate espionage. Silent wars waged in fiber-optic veins. It’s clean, efficient, and mostly anonymous.
But deep beneath it all, where no light touches, is where I live.
The bottom layer.
The abyss.
That’s where the monsters dwell. We don’t leave digital footprints. We leave ghost stories. We don’t crash systems. We dismantle lives, identities, infrastructures, nations. Down there, code isn’t written. It’s etched in bone.
That’s where I made my kingdom.
For all of Wolfson’s charm and knives and mobbed-up bloodlines, he’s never been that deep. He doesn’t even know that kind of cold exists.
Not yet.
But he will.
“You’re not the first pretty thing I’ve broken,” I murmur.
For a long second, we stare each other down, tension thickening the air, every heartbeat resonating like thunder.
I can squeeze the trigger and end this right now. One bullet and all that wolfish sex appeal would bleed out onto the floor. The Strakhs would retaliate, sure. But not before I disappear. Not before I take Dove and vanish.
But I don’t move.
Not because I’m scared. Not because he’s faster, though he is. No, something in me just…
Hesitates.
I hate to fucking admit it, but Dove’s safe with him. With all of them. The Strakhs won’t hurt her. If anything, she’ll hurt Wolfson.
That’s fine. Let her break his heart like she breaks every damn thing she touches.
But sex?
No.
That’s the line.
I can’t stomach the thought of her hands in his hair, her legs around his waist. That kind of betrayal would rupture something vital in me.
And yet…
I don’t pull the trigger.
There’s something about him. Something magnetic. Unholy. The way he moves. The way he smiles like a man who’s already tasted my secrets. I hate it. I want to destroy him for it. But deep down, an ugly, buried part of me likes it.
Not that I’ll admit that.
So I rewrite the story. Turn it into strategy.
Wolfson comes from money. Filthy, generational, mob-fueled money. His family bleeds power. I can use that.
I’ll get close and seduce him with the right words, irresistible glances, and perfect tension. Poor little emo boy won’t even know he’s being manipulated.
He’ll fall.