Chapter 48 - Jag #2
“What I want is for Dove to be happy.” He taps the cigarette against the railing, embers falling like tiny stars.
“She wants you. A real relationship with you. Not you stalking her and blowing up her life. She wants the emotional-support criminal she felt safe with when you lived on the streets. The caring, dependable version. The one who doesn’t vanish in the middle of the night.
” He softens his tone. “Doesn’t matter how brutal you love her, man.
If you leave? She’ll feel that worse than anything your enemies could do. ”
“She’s my sister.”
“Exactly. Have you met my family? Brothers, uncles, cousins… All blood-related. They’re a genealogical pretzel sharing the same woman. It’s scandalous. It’s wrong. It’s fine. Who cares? Everyone survived.”
“It’s not the same.”
“You know what your problem is?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“You’re hiding behind lame excuses instead of telling me the real reason you’re leaving.”
The yacht hums, slicing through the black water as he stares at me with unnerving clarity, like he’s staring past my defenses instead of at them.
“You think you have me all figured out.” I clench my good hand on the railing.
“I figured out enough. I’m trying to figure out the ending.”
He’s making this harder than it already is.
I can’t tell him I gave my life to a cartel, and we’re about to start a war against House of Crowe. If I open my mouth, people die. People he loves. People I love.
So I give him nothing. No more excuses. No half-truths. I let my silence end the conversation.
“Let me see your hand.” He tosses his cigarette.
I blink, thrown off balance by the sudden detour.
Classic Wolf.
Out of curiosity, I lift my arm, and he takes it carefully. Ironic since this is the same man who shattered it in the first place.
Turning it over in his palm, he studies the uneven coloring. With a gentle rotation, he tests the motion. A dull ache spikes, but the bone feels set.
“No more swelling,” he mutters. “Bruises went yellow. You feel pain when you move it too fast?”
“Yeah.”
“Believe it or not, I regret this. You and I crashed on day one, and I doubled down on the damage. Not cool.”
His sincerity strikes harder than the original break, opening a mess of emotions in my chest. Surprise, relief, gratitude, longing, all the soft, warm shit I absolutely should not allow. Too many things. Too fast.
“What about after?” The question erupts before I can swallow it. “Do you regret the kissing and frotting and coming all over my chest?”
“No. Zero regrets there.”
That stops me cold. I search his expression and find a sheen of vulnerability in his eyes.
The urge to grab his face and kiss him again thrums under my skin. He has some sort of spell on me, sucking me in.
I grasp for something to break it. “Does Dove know what we did?”
“She knows everything. I gave her every detail.”
My pulse thumps in my throat as I replay his mouth on mine, the frantic grind of our bodies, the heat, the mess, and the shock of wanting him, wanting more with him, more than just sex.
He must read the surprise on my face because he adds, “I don’t lie to her. Not about anything.”
If he’s telling the truth and she knows we fucked around, how are they still together? That’s a hard limit for Dove. Non-negotiable. The moment I get involved with someone she likes, she drops them. No second chances.
But she didn’t drop Wolf? Does that mean she’s open to something blooming between him and me? Or between us three?
A spinning, falling sensation rips the air from my lungs. Hope. It burns bright and dies clean.
It’s too late for hope. Too late for this conversation. Too fucking late for any of it.
I pull my hand from his, removing a fuse before it ignites something neither of us can control.
“I know what happened when you left that day,” I say quietly. “I watched the video footage of your path from the shop to the pier and saw you break. The panic attack, PTSD, whatever the hell that was… I know I triggered it.”
He nods once, eyes on the water.
“It won’t happen again. I’ll be gone by tomorrow.” I glance at the dark sky, remembering how late it is. “Technically, today. When you drop me at the dock, it’ll be the last time you see me.”
“That’s adorable. You think you’re in charge of the itinerary.” He turns his back to me and walks away, his shoulders loose and gait confident as he joins Kodiak’s side.
For the remainder of the ride, he watches me across the yacht. He and Kodiak bow their heads together, discussing whatever plans they think they can force on me.
When we dock, they fall into formation behind me. Wolf, Kodiak, and eight security heavies follow me to the tattoo parlor. Whatever. Let them babysit.
I unlock the shop door, and the parade files in after me. Guards sweep the lobby, the stations, and the break room where I sleep. I don’t fight it. I’m too tired and don’t have anywhere else to go. This is where I planned to stay until the cartel transport arrives.
Security finishes its sweep, hauling knives and guns out of the break room. Every weapon I stashed in there is found and confiscated. Annoying, but temporary. There’s nothing in that pile I can’t replace.
Behind me, Kodiak grunts, and I turn in time to see him pass a book to Wolf.
“Thanks for grabbing that.” Wolf tucks it under his arm.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.” Kodiak glares.
“Not even close.” Wolf gives his stone-cut cheek a patronizing pat. “I’m the jump-first, regret-it-on-the-way-down type.”
“I fucking know.”
Security herds me into the break room. I let them, knowing Wolf’s right behind me.
When he shuts the door, it’s just him. And me.
No Kodiak. No guards. No witnesses.
Wolf sets the book on the table and takes a slow look around the room. There’s not much to see. Cot, chair, metal table, bare walls. His gaze lingers on my duffel bag slumped in the corner, frayed straps, dirt ground into the seams.
“That it?” His brows pinch together. “Everything you own?”
I’ve lived out of a bag since I was sixteen. It never struck me as strange. But to him, son of the wealthiest man in Alaska, it probably looks sad and small. Proof I never stayed anywhere long enough to matter.
I say nothing, and he doesn’t press. Instead, he edges closer, crowding my space and hiking my heart rate.
“Everyone who comes to Alaska is either hiding from someone or hiding from everyone.” He rests a finger against my sternum. “If they leave, it’s because the danger finally caught up.”
I can’t argue that, so I don’t.
He lowers his hand, tracing the bottom of my rib cage through my shirt and pausing unerringly on my worst scar, the one I never talk about.
“When I saw this during the tattoo session…” He caresses the wound through the fabric. “I thought Dove stabbed you.”
My breath shortens. Not enough to be obvious, but he notices.
“But after tonight?” He floats closer, grazing his thigh against mine. “After seeing you two together, I know she would never hurt you.”
God knows she had dozens of opportunities and even more reasons to put me down, but she never laid a finger on me. Not even a courtesy nick.
“Tonight was eye-opening.” His palm climbs up my chest, making a lazy, heart-pounding trip. “Watching you with her. The way you go on high alert when she’s near. The way she responds to you. This thing between you two is protective, instinctive, and devoted.”
The accuracy of his words lodges in my chest.
“That’s how I know.” He walks his fingers higher, over my collarbone, up my neck, drawing shocks of heat across nerves that haven’t fired in years. “I know you’re not leaving for yourself. You’re doing it for her. Maybe even for me.”
I should shut this down.
I will shut this down.
But just for a moment, for one stolen breath, I let myself feel it. His hand on my jaw, thumb tracing my cheekbone like I’m something worth memorizing. Something he doesn’t want to forget.
Each caress tightens my body, surging an ache between my legs.
I’ve been so fucking lonely. So starved for human contact. And this man, this beautiful, unhinged disaster of a man, makes the hunger roar.
“You can’t leave until I finish your tattoo.” His thumb drags down, resting against my bottom lip. A sin. A dare. A temptation.
“I release you from the bargain.” I exhale shakily. “You’re not finishing it.”
He watches me, eyes dark, trying to read what he isn’t ready to understand.
I watch him right back.
Then slowly, deliberately, I draw his thumb into my mouth.
His breath catches.
My tongue presses along the pad of his finger as I suck, hard and obscene, holding his gaze the entire time.
His pupils blow wide. His free hand clutches my waist and joins our hips. A tremor shivers through his body. A flush climbs his throat, and he inhales like he’s drowning.
“Jag…” He jerks his thumb free and steps back hard enough to hit the table. “I’m not—”
“I know.”
“I won’t do that to her.” He drags a hand through his hair, shaking, fighting himself.
Because he’s a good man, and good men break before they betray the ones they love.
“I need to get back to her.” He straightens, wiping his thumb on his jeans. “I’m leaving the security team here. They’ll keep you in this room until I return.”
“You’re locking me up?”
“It’s not a choice. It’s what’s happening.” He gestures to the cot as if offering accommodations instead of confinement. “They’ll bring you food. Water. Whatever you need.”
“You can’t keep me—”
“I need sleep. You need sleep. Neither of us is making decisions until that happens.”
Fucking hell. This is completely, catastrophically inconvenient.
“Don’t do this.” I step toward him. “Let me go, pup.”
“I’m not locking you up because I want to. Kody was going to throw your ass in Sitka jail overnight and charge you with trespassing. I convinced him this was better.”
Fuck.
I stare at him, furious and unwilling to admit the spark of gratitude burning under my ribs.
Without looking away, he reaches for the book on the table.
“My story.” He presses it into my hands.
I look down at it, confused, then back up at him.
“The journal explains things like this.” He pulls down the neckline of his shirt, exposing the scars on his shoulder and chest.
“Why?” My fingers tighten around the book. “You can’t possibly trust me with this.”
He shrugs, casual on the surface, but there’s tension beneath it, a risk he’s taking whether he wants to or not.
“Trust isn’t a transaction I want to hold hostage. I’m offering it to you.” He gestures at the journal. “I’ll see what you do with it. See if you’ll build it with me or burn it.”
That’s a dangerous philosophy. A na?ve one. Coming from him, though? It feels like he handed me a bomb.
“I won’t regret giving you my ugly secrets.” He takes a breath. “I will regret letting you leave without hearing yours.”
My throat closes.
“I’m offering you a choice.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Read my story or don’t. When I come back this afternoon, if you tell me your story, who’s hunting you, and why they want you, I’ll use every Strakh resource available to help you.”
Help me.
He says it so simply. So confidently. Because he doesn’t understand the impossibility of it.
Before I can respond, he turns and opens the door.
“Wolf—”
He doesn’t look back. Doesn’t stop. Doesn’t give me a single second more.
The door shuts, and the silence that follows crushes my ribs, leaving me hollow and breathless. Because I know, with a clarity that flattens me, that was the last conversation Wolf and I will ever have.