Chapter 60
The island greets us with damp air and lush darkness. The moment we arrive, Monty and Kodiak peel off, heading straight to bed. They earned it.
Wolf and I should do the same. But we can’t. Sleep is a luxury for men who have their woman in bed beside them.
To my disappointment, the Russians stay. Crashing in the main house means proximity, eyes and ears everywhere, and I don’t have the privacy I need to work.
I’m set up in the guest house before the engine heat fades from my bones. Laptop open. Secondary rig humming. Satellite uplink clean. Air-gapped backup live. I test every line, every handshake, every packet on the network.
The Russians were good. Which means I assume compromise until proven otherwise.
My wrist throbs as I type, and my shoulder screams when I reach too far. I welcome the pain. It keeps me focused.
“Sit still.” Frankie flutters like a moth in scrubs, prodding at my arm.
“No.” I bare my teeth.
She already stuck Wolf with needles to send samples off to a lab to test for bloodborne disease transmission. Then she flushed his mouth, made him spit until his jaw hurt, and checked his gums and tongue for cuts. All necessary, given the amount of foreign blood he swallowed.
“This is why it’s not healing.” She catches my wrist mid-keystroke and clicks her tongue. “And that shoulder you’re pretending wasn’t dislocated…”
“It’s relocated.”
“By whom? You? With a vengeance?”
I go back to the screen. She doesn’t let go.
Murmurs drift from the couch behind me, Leonid’s growly voice, and Wolf’s louder, faster timbre, threading humor through horror as he catches Leonid up on the last few days.
I don’t turn, but I hear what Wolf isn’t saying. Where’s Dove? Who has her? How are we getting her back?
He’s giving me space to do what I’m good at, but his patience has limits.
“You need rest.” Frankie releases my arm.
“Abort mission, Mama Bear,” Wolf says. “The angry marshmallow won’t rest until Dove’s back.”
My mouth curves despite myself.
“Neither will I.” He rises from the couch and approaches the back of my chair.
Frankie drops a bottle of pills next to my keyboard and plants her hands on her hips. So much attitude for such a tiny woman.
“You.” She fixes Wolf with a withering look. “Don’t let him overdo it when you’re… You know…” She makes a jerk-off gesture.
“When we’re… What?” Wolf mimics her hand motion. “Buffing a breadstick? Starting a lawnmower? Slapping the bass?”
She sighs like she’s tired of all of us. “When you’re banging.”
Heat coils between my legs, unwanted, unhelpful, entirely Wolf. I set my jaw and keep typing, my heartbeat loud in my ears.
“Solid advice.” He nods. “I’ll add it to the pile of bad ideas we’re actively considering.”
Frankie rolls her eyes and pivots toward Leonid. He’s already striding toward her.
“Thank you.” Wolf watches her, his fingers tucked in the pockets of his lounge pants.
She turns back and closes the distance, taking Wolf’s face in her hands.
“Thank you for not dying.” She lifts on tiptoes and kisses his brow. “Now go get your girl back.”
Leonid stops by the door like he’s thinking about leaving something behind. He doesn’t posture or threaten as his dual-colored eyes stare at me long enough to be awkward.
Whatever he sees must pass inspection, because he nods.
“You did what most wouldn’t do. You surrendered your control when it counted.” He pauses, considering. “You don’t have to like how we live. You don’t have to agree with it. But if you stand with us, you stand all the way. No half-steps. If you’re all in, welcome to the family.”
Frankie squeezes my arm on her way past, already planning my recovery, like I belong to her workload now. She gives Wolf a look that says behave and disappears with her Viking husband into the night.
The door shuts.
The last time I stepped onto this island, I was escorted off by armed men. And now? The treasured jewel of the Strakh family patched me up, and a man built like a saga welcomed me into his bloodline.
That kind of turn doesn’t happen by accident.
Wolf’s reflection flickers on the dark screen in front of me. He hasn’t spoken or moved closer, but I know that look. He’s inside my head.
“They saw the video of the attack at the tattoo parlor. All of it.” His hands rest on my shoulders.
“You didn’t try to save yourself. You gave up everything for Dove without knowing the outcome.
” He bends closer, blanketing my back with his body heat.
“If there’s one thing my family respects, it’s loyalty.
You’ve been proving yours for over twenty years. ”
Acceptance. Belonging. That’s what this strange elastic band is around my chest.
I didn’t hack my way into this family. Didn’t break into it or outmaneuver it.
I earned it.
A swallow sticks in my throat. My jaw aches, and my eyes burn to the point of pissing me off.
The Strakhs have claimed me, but my life is no longer my own.
I made a deal with no escape. I’m dangerous, compromised, and hunted. But I’m not alone.
That changes everything.
I set my fingers on the keyboard. The screen resolves. A door opens in code. I lean in, pain forgotten, every sense narrowing to the thread that leads outward, off the island, across the dark, toward the only point that matters.
No more delaying. It’s time to tell him.
“Two weeks ago, I made a painstaking decision.” I twist in the chair and grip Wolf’s wrist, pulling him to stand before me. “I traded my life in exchange for protection. Protection for you and Dove.”
“Traded…” His eyes thin to deadly slits. “With whom?”
“The Restrepo cartel.”
“I’m sorry… What?” His face turns violent-red. “You traded your life? To a cartel?”
“I need you to remain calm.”
“I will do no such thing!” His snarl whips through the room. “Undo it, Jag. Undo it, right now. You have ten seconds to reverse the trade before I walk into traffic and make this weird, public, and deeply regrettable.”
“Shut up and listen.” I launch to my feet and grab his throat. Not hard. Just enough to get his attention. “This isn’t about me. It’s about getting Dove back.”
“She’s with the fucking Restrepo cartel!” His eyes bulge, and his breath seethes. “You told me she was safe!”
“Goddammit, she is!” I lower my voice and look him square in the eyes. “I’m getting her back, but this is delicate.”
“How delicate?”
“They’re paranoid. I’m calling them now, and I need you to be dead quiet. Okay?”
He blinks, presses his lips together, and nods.
“Okay.” I blow out a breath and return to the chair.
No hesitation this time. Same burner. Same cradle. Same ritual. Set the token, enter the code, and don’t breathe until the lights cycle and the line tunnels its way around the world.
It rings once.
Twice.
Then the click.
I put the call on speaker and give Wolf a warning look.
“?Otra vez?” The voice is unmistakable. Calm, amused, and predatory in the way only men with nothing to fear can afford. “El Vigilante already spent his favor.”
“You know why I’m calling.”
“Si,” Matias Restrepo says. “We have her.”
Wolf goes rigid beside me, his body sharpening like a blade about to slip its sheath.
“I agreed to your terms.” I force my hands to relax on the keyboard. “Those terms did not include taking her.”
“We had two options,” Matias says mildly. “Save the bird. Or save you. Did we make the wrong choice?”
“No. You didn’t.” I swallow the roar in my throat. “Return her to me, and I’ll come to you freely and permanently.”
Wolf’s head snaps toward me, shaking hard, furious disagreement reddening his face.
I jab a finger at him and give him my stoniest expression.
Matias hums, thoughtful. “The terms have changed.”
“What?” Blood drains from my cheeks. “How?”
“The wolf comes with you.”
“No. That isn’t—”
“We’ll discuss in person. You and the wolf.”
I feel Wolf vibrating beside me, every instinct screaming at him to intervene. But he doesn’t. He trusts me. Or he’s trying to.
Every instinct I have wants to push, threaten, bargain, anything that proves I’m still in control. I swallow all of it. I know better.
The jefe is waiting for the crack, waiting for me to bleed into the line. I don’t give it to him. I don’t argue, plead, or ask for mercy that doesn’t exist.
I make one request. “Let me hear her voice.”
“Send the Russians away.” Matias exhales slowly. “Then we speak. Tomorrow night.”
“Put her on the phone. I need to hear—”
The line goes dead.
“Fuck!” I hurl the cradle across the room. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuuuuck!”
I need her.
I need to see her. I need to hear her breathe, hear her say my name, curse me to hell, or tell me to stop controlling everything. Anything. This silence is killing me faster than Crowe ever could.
The setback drops me like a collapsing floor.
Ten days in the kill room come rushing back, light that never dimmed, chains that never loosened, the screen that never shut off. And it keeps going. Years pile on. Decades. Running, planning, cutting pieces off myself to survive. All of it crashes into me, and I can’t pull in enough air.
My chest caves in, and my hands claw uselessly at my shirt. Black rings the edges of my vision, and I make a sound I don’t recognize. A raw, tortured sound. It wrenches out of me before I can stop it.
A sob. Loud. Ugly. Out of control.
I know I’m frightening Wolf. He crouches beside me, grabbing my shoulders, my face, my hair, shouting, demanding, and pleading, ready to fight the world for me. I don’t want him to see this. I don’t want anyone to see this.
But I can’t shut it down.
Everything is everywhere. Fear, rage, grief, regret, there’s no order or hierarchy as the vicious storm barrels through me. I double over, elbows on my knees, and forehead in my hands, unable to stop another sob shuddering out of me, broken and useless.
I’ve spent my entire life being the one in control, and now, I have none.
The spiral grows louder. Images of Dove, bound, raped, and screaming where I can’t reach her—it’s all I see.
Until a fist grips the back of my head. Fingers tighten in my hair. My neck is forced back, my lips opened without negotiation as Wolf’s mouth attacks mine.
He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t tease.
He demands.
The kiss hauls me back from the edge by force, rough and unbending, all teeth and growl. It’s an order delivered with a strong, combative tongue, lapping the air from my lungs and replacing the noise in my head with Stay here. Feel me.
I snarl into it and grab him back, one hand around his neck, the other catching his hip. I drag him onto my lap, and he straddles me like that was always his destination.
The kiss turns feral, licking and biting in a clash of mouths that edges toward fighting, both of us pouring everything we want into the connection.
Hunger thickens every breath, but it’s secondary. This isn’t about taking.
It’s about anchoring.
The aggression bleeds off slowly, his mouth softening, and my grip loosening. We breathe into each other, foreheads brushing and lips still touching.
When he eases back, my pulse has slowed. The images have receded. The chaos in my head has been pushed into folders I can manage again.
I have my control back. And I know, with a clarity that cuts through everything else, that he gave it to me.
“Why did you do that?” I suck in a breath. “Why did you kiss me?”
“You were short-circuiting. I had no other choice.” He drapes his forearms over my shoulders and sits back, relaxing his weight on my lap. “That’s the story I’ll tell Dove.”
Her name sends a bolt of cold lightning through me.
He sees it. “You keep telling me she’s safe, but after that call… Who the hell was that?”
“The kingpin of the Colombian cartel.”
“You’re fucking with me.”
“Wish I were.”
“Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Just casually chatting with He Who Shall Not Be Named near, around, or in front of the Russians. Tell me the part again where she’s safe.”
“I’ll show you.” I motion at the other kitchen chairs. “Pull up a seat.”
“Not yet.” He remains straddled on my lap, his arctic eyes scanning my face, taking a second assessment as if the breakdown a minute ago disqualifies me from making decisions for a while.
Fair.
“I know how this looks.” I let out a breath and tip my head back. “But this isn’t new.”
His brow clenches.
“I cracked like that a few times.” I squeeze his legs.
“Usually after something happened to Dove. When a foster brother touched her or a boyfriend assaulted her. Every time someone hurt her. I handled it, ended the problem, and washed the blood off my hands. I had to be strong for her. But when she was safe and asleep, I went somewhere alone and fell apart. Sometimes I cried. Sometimes I put holes in walls. Sometimes I just sat in the corner and shook until it burned itself out. There was never anyone there to pull me back. I never had someone grab me and yank me out of my head like that. Definitely never had someone kiss me hard enough and mean enough to shut out the pain. So… Thank you.”
“You never have to thank me for kissing you.” Wolf’s mouth curves, feral and soft all at once.
That almost pulls a laugh out of me.
“I’m okay now.” I run my hands along his thighs, not asking him to move, just grounding us both. “We’re getting her back. Just focus on that.”
“You’re so disgustingly in love with her.” He pokes my chest.
“So are you.”
“Madly.” He dips his head and touches his lips against mine, chastely, sweetly, as if to prove not all his kisses are hard and mean.
Then he climbs off my lap and pulls up a chair. Back to business.
“Right.” I crack my knuckles and turn toward the keyboard. “I’ll show you why she’s safe.”