Chapter 54 #2
“Accept my offer and work for me.” Adrian’s tone shifts, moving farther away. “She’ll no longer need protection, and you’ll have everything my friends have. Planes. Retreats. Women who don’t say no. A real seat at the table.”
My blood boils, and a vein throbs in my temple.
“I’ll die first,” Jag growls.
“That can be arranged.” A smile floats through Adrian’s voice.
“Stay away from her.”
“I’m not interested in the girl. But if you walk away from my offer? I’ll make her my only interest.”
“If you touch her—”
Static spikes, and the audio ends.
“Holy fuck.” I can’t feel my legs. “Adrian Crowe is Dove’s father.”
“Yeah.” Monty scowls. “He raped Dove’s fifteen-year-old mother.”
“When Dove was eight, he found them. That’s when he killed David and Celeste. And Jag knew. All this time, he fucking knew who killed them and never told Dove.”
He put himself directly in front of a monster, never stepped aside, and never accepted the offer.
Bees swarm my stomach as the pieces click into place. Jag and Dove on the run, always half-packed and ready to disappear. The way Jag hovered without hovering, following Dove from city to city, never leaving her unprotected, never telling her about her past.
His control wasn’t about ownership. It was about distance from her raping sperm donor, a human sex trafficker who would see her as a business deal instead of a person.
Jag watched everything. Cameras where they didn’t belong. Feeds no one else knew existed. He tracked patterns, who circled too close, who asked the wrong questions.
When he hacked, it wasn’t about money and power. It was surveillance.
When he stalked, it wasn’t desire. It was protection.
Even the way he curated her companions makes sense now. The boundaries, betrayals, and constant friction… He needed her angry enough to push back, sharp enough to run when she had to, smart enough to surround herself with loyal people, and mean enough to survive without him.
He didn’t just guard her body. He guarded her origin. She didn’t know who sired her. Didn’t know who hunted her.
I bet she knows now.
My rib cage shrinks, crushing my lungs until every breath hurts. I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth and stare at the dead space on the screen where the truth finally showed itself.
“That is why Jag Rath watched him for twenty years.” Mikhail closes the file. “He protects his stepsister.”
Wet blotches invade my vision, and the floor sways beneath me.
Jag watched Crowe for twenty years, knowing this day might come. Knowing exactly what kind of monster would come for her.
“Dove’s mother…” Mikhail skims through Jag’s notes. “She appeared in Crowe’s network thirty-three years ago. A retreat in California. She vanished six months later. New name. New town. No paper trail.”
“She was sold.” Fury floods my veins. “Does it show who bought her?”
“No. She ran. Must have escaped during transport to the buyer or wherever she was taken. Jag’s note says Crowe searched for her for eight years. Quiet, paid searches.”
“And now he has Dove.” I drag in a breath that barely works.
Crowe has her, and Jag still stepped forward, dropped to his knees, and traded himself for… What? Does he have a plan? Is he buying time?
Rage rises in my chest, burning through grief, fear, and guilt until there’s nothing left but purpose.
Crowe didn’t just take Dove. He touched a line Jag guarded for decades.
And now?
Now it’s my turn. I’ll get them back.
“Can you find them?” I hover closer.
“Already started.” Mikhail hunches over the keyboard, hood down and eyes sharp as the screens crawl with maps, data streams, and strings of characters that pull shell companies and commercial properties layered so deep they almost disappear.
“Crowe funds private acquisitions,” Mikhail switches screens. “People. Tech. Talent. Real estate. Sometimes silence.” His fingers pause. “He prefers assets that do not belong to governments.”
“Jag is an asset Crowe wanted.”
“Yes.” He finally looks at me. “Dove Rath was leverage. Crowe did not take her to sell her. He took her to control Jag.”
“So this is about Jag’s hacking skills?” Monty stands off to the side, arms crossed. “Jag is that good?”
“I have seen cartel systems, state systems, and private intelligence systems.” Mikhail brings up pages of logs.
“This is better than all of them. I am not even inside yet. I am only touching the surface. He built layers inside layers. Traps that do not announce themselves. I make one wrong assumption, and it will eat itself.”
“So he’s better than you.” My neck tenses.
“Yes. I can unravel some of his work, but I cannot build anything close to this. In my world, organizations kill each other to own a mind like his. Wars start over less. And now, he is in the hands of Adrian Crowe. That is very bad.”
“Find them,” I say quietly, my voice ironed by fury. “And I’ll bring them home.”
The room hums with machines, decisions lining up, and looming objections.
“No.” Monty pivots to me. “This isn’t a hunt in the Arctic, Wolf. You can’t go in with guns half-cocked.”
“Oh, I’m fully cocked and done waiting.”
“Crowe isn’t some back-alley criminal. He’s insulated, connected, and powerful. I won’t lose you after everything. I only just found you.”
“This is why I’m here.” Oliver steps in, calm and stern. “I will do the extraction.”
My fists flex. “If you expect me to watch from the sidelines—”
“You’re not risking your life.” Monty thrusts a finger at me.
“Tell Jag that.” I laugh, and it comes out ugly.
“You will not—”
“I already did. The second they took Jag and Dove.”
He opens his mouth again, ready to pull rank or blood or both, and the door opens.
Frankie rushes in, breathless, hair damp from the drizzle outside. Her eyes sweep the room, land on me, and soften. Then she sees The Ghost.
“Oliver.” Her voice cracks.
He turns, and his face changes. Not gentleness. Recognition. History.
Oliver Popov was Frankie and Monty’s private chef for years on this island. He fed them while keeping his head down and his knives sharp. They didn’t know then what he’d been before the aprons and menus.
When Dr. Howell abducted her, Oliver stopped pretending.
I wasn’t here when he revealed himself as The Ghost, but I was present for the feral last stand, when he helped us escape the doctor.
Frankie crosses the room in three fast steps and throws her arms around him. He stiffens for a heartbeat then lets it happen, one hand coming up to steady her.
“I missed you.” She presses her face into his shoulder.
“I missed your Eggs Benedict,” Monty mutters.
That earns a small smile from Oliver. “I will make them now while Mikhail works.”
“Please.” Frankie releases him. “Before Monty burns the house down.”
Oliver turns toward the door, already rolling up his sleeves. Monty and Frankie follow him, pulled by routine and comfort.
I stay where I am, eyes on the screens as Mikhail dives deeper, lines of code stacking and feeds flickering.
“You should eat.” Monty lingers in the doorway.
“I can’t.” My stomach is a knot of acid and vicious anger.
With reluctance, he leaves. I grab my sketchbook and pull up a chair beside Mikhail.
Long into the night, Mikhail’s fingers glide over the board, the keys clicking in soft bursts. He doesn’t stretch or drink or look away from his task. Whatever zone he’s in, it doesn’t include time.
With my sketchbook open beside him, I don’t draw princesses. I sketch outcomes, corridors, entry points, and blind corners. I rough out rescues like crime scenes in reverse.
If Jag and Dove are being held in a warehouse, there will be loading docks, forklifts, stacked containers, and snipers on catwalks.
If it’s a cave, it will be single access, choke points, tunnels, condemning echoes, lights out, and close work.
If it’s some underground lair, there will be security doors, biometric locks, cameras, vents, and service shafts.
Every version ends the same way.
Get in. Get them. Get out.
I don’t draw revenge. I can’t let myself plan Crowe’s death. Jag has been watching that man for twenty years, tracking him, studying him, and waiting for an opening that never came.
He’s been sitting on that incriminating audio file of Crowe for seventeen years and never leaked it to the press. Why? Because it would’ve endangered Dove?
If Jag couldn’t topple Crowe with decades of prep, I’m not delusional enough to think I’ll do it in one night.
This won’t be a reckoning. It’ll be a retrieval.
Mikhail exhales softly and shifts screens. Maps snap into place. Routes clarify. Data stops swimming and starts pointing.
My pencil stills.
Whatever he’s seeing, it’s real now.
“What do you have?” I close the sketchbook.
He turns a screen toward me.
Shipping routes? Air traffic logs? What am I looking at?
“They moved fast. Multiple boats, private planes, and vehicles.” His fingers dance across the keys. “I have not identified Dove yet, but Jag is here.” He hovers the cursor over a building in downtown Los Angeles.
The information lands in my chest and detonates.
“They split them up?” I ask.
“Possibly. Or they arrived separately. This will not be a clean extraction.” He opens a digital blueprint. “Jag has been watching this nightclub for years.”
“They’re being held in a nightclub?”
“There is a kill room in the basement.”
“What’s a kill room?” My heart hammers.
“That is what Jag calls it in his notes.”
“What’s a fucking kill room, Mikhail?”
“A room where the killing happens.”
“Why is there a fucking kill room in a fucking nightclub?” Panic swamps my bloodstream. “You think that’s where they’re holding Jag and Dove? Why the fuck would they be in a kill room, Mikhail?”
“Calm down.” He squints at me. “Jag is useless to Crowe if he is dead, and he will not cooperate if Dove is harmed, yes?”
“Yeah. Okay. They’re alive.”
Saying it doesn’t quiet the howling in my wrecked heart. Alive can mean anything. It can mean they’re being brutalized and raped. Barely alive isn’t the same as alive.
“His blueprints detail the layout.” He zooms in on the diagram. “Guards at every entry point. Cameras at all angles. The best security money can buy. I do not see a way in, let alone a way out.”
“I see a way.” I grab my sketchbook and flip it open.
Pages of half-mad contingencies slide past, routes that assume luck, timing that assumes mercy. I don’t stop on those. I skip to the last page, the one that will get me killed if I miscount a breath.
Spinning the book around, I shove it toward him.
Mikhail studies it, leaning in, eyes sharpening, and a slow grin spreads across his face. Teeth this time. Real ones.
“For this…” He taps the page. “You need The Ghost.”
“Yeah, I do, deep and dirty.” Anticipation heats my chest. “Bombs away.”
“It’s suicide.”
“I’m kind of known for that.”
Mikhail’s grin widens.
Monty’s going to have feelings. Oh, well. He can yell later. I’m moving now.