Chapter 61
Wolf makes the most colorful faces when he’s thinking hard.
His mouth pulls to one side. His brows pinch, one higher than the other. He squints at the screen, lips parting. A second later, his jaw bounces, and his tongue presses against his cheek.
There it is, the this is bullshit look, followed by a slow blink.
I don’t interrupt.
Muscles shift under his milk-white complexion, his skin nearly bare of hair, smooth in places that aren’t scarred.
Thick black waves brush his shoulders, half-shadowing his face and making his eyes stand out even more. Ice blue eyes, lethal enough to cut out my heart.
Those lashes don’t make sense on a man built like him. Neither does the mouth. Too pretty. Too expressive. Too dangerous in how easily it makes me hard as a rock.
I want him. Not abstractly or tactfully. I want to fuck his brains out. I want the heat of him beneath me, the friction, and the release that comes from collision.
The urge doesn’t rush. It locks in. The same way it locked in when I no longer saw Dove as my little sister.
But this sexual tension that Wolf and I share? It’s unlike anything I’ve felt. The pressure is ever-present and all-consuming. One wrong move will detonate the barrier between us and change the physics of the room.
Wanting Wolf isn’t a thought I can argue with or a craving I can starve out. He’s the moon in motion, recruiting my organs, engaging my nerves, and controlling every drop of blood in my body.
He doesn’t chase. He alters the pull of the room just by existing in it. Currents shift. Gravity strengthens. Distances shorten, and I feel myself drawn, dragged closer by forces I don’t command.
His nose wrinkles. He leans back, stares at the ceiling, and exhales through his teeth as if the information on the screen doesn’t make sense.
It doesn’t.
I gave him the profiles of all twenty-two members of the cartel’s inner circle. Faces, aliases, timelines, lieutenants, spies, drug lords, and former sex slaves.
“What in the lord’s sweaty balls am I looking at?” He scrolls, pauses, scrolls again, and shakes his head.
I know that face. I wore it myself years ago, staring at the same profiles, realizing the story I thought I knew was only half the truth and the dangerous half at that.
The further I dug into Restrepo and The Shadow Collection, the more the ground shifted under my feet. Every assumption I carried shattered.
Watching Wolf process it now is like seeing the moment a lock turns, confusion giving way to pattern, disbelief sharpening into understanding.
He finally looks over at me, eyes bright and unsettled, mouth caught between a grin and a scowl.
Yeah. That’s the face he makes when the world just got bigger and meaner and a hell of a lot more complicated.
“This isn’t right.” He shoots me a confused glare. “Cartels don’t do this. They run countries like dictators and rule through fear. They traffic people, slaughter families, and make gory examples out of disobedience.”
“That reputation is cultivated.”
“Cultivated?” He scoffs.
“Maintained. Aggressively.” I point to a page of my notes that he’s hovering over. “They keep the enemies at bay by letting the world believe they’re exactly what the world expects. It keeps rivals cautious and governments predictable.”
“These operations…” Wolf scrolls again, stops, and reads deeper. “They’re not profit-driven.”
“No. They’re surgical.”
“They’re hunting human sex traffickers.”
“Yep. Erasing them, one by one.”
“That’s not how the world works.”
“It does for them.” I sit back. “The Shadow Collection is the name everyone fears. But privately, they call themselves The Freedom Fighters.”
“They’re vigilantes.” He blinks. “They’re the good guys.”
“Good? Not exactly. They’re ruthless, bloodthirsty, avenging criminals. They’ll do anything and kill anyone to protect their cause.”
The words hang there while he reads on, cross-checking and confirming with his own instincts.
I see the moment it clicks. Not comfort or approval. Clarity. The world isn’t simple. Monsters wear many faces, and sometimes the scariest mask keeps the real heroes hidden.
“Let me get this straight.” Wolf slumps in the chair. “They play the villain so the villains don’t see them coming.”
“Exactly. If you’re wondering why Matias Restrepo personally answered my call, it’s because you don’t ignore people who can tell the difference.”
“This changes things.”
“It doesn’t. It explains them.”
“No wonder you traded your life to them. They’re hunting predators, killing them, and protecting girls who’d otherwise disappear. That’s basically your whole résumé.” He lifts both eyebrows, half-grin, half-disbelief. “Bet you couldn’t sign up fast enough.”
Anger ignites so fast it snaps my teeth together.
“This isn’t a punchline.” I slam my fist on the table.
He stills.
“I didn’t want this. I fought it. For fucking years.” I surge to my feet and shove my hands in my hair. “I tried every other path. Every angle. Every shadow route that didn’t end with them. Then you came along, and I was suddenly out of excuses.”
“You made the decision believing Dove would be safe with me. That she’d be protected.”
“Yeah. I surrendered my life to the cartel with the conviction that I would never drag her or you into it.”
“Oh, shit.” Understanding flares in his eyes. “The night you sneaked onto the island, when you said goodbye…”
“Yeah. I’d just signed myself over.”
“Fuck. You were really fucking leaving. Severing ties forever.” He exhales, stunned. “You didn’t want us anywhere near this.”
“No, I fucking didn’t. The consequences aren’t theoretical. They’re permanent.” I tap the screen and meet his eyes. “Everything I’m showing you makes you a target. If they know you understand this, really understand it, you’re exposed.”
“So they treat their vigilante secret like contraband. Got it.”
“I’m the only outsider who knows the true nature of their operation.” My heart hammers. “And now you.”
“Why does the Capo of Consequences want me to come with you?”
“He collects deadly skill sets.”
“I kill bad family members. My mother. Dove’s father. Is that my flex?”
“You took down Adrian Crowe with a hidden razor blade in your mouth.”
“Sure did.” He brushes imaginary dust off his shoulder.
“As much as I hate it, you’re dragged into this, and I need you to be prepared. I want you to read the inner circle’s histories, memorize their faces and aliases, and know their weaknesses. Because keeping you in the dark isn’t protection. It’ll just get you killed slower.”
“I hear you.” He refocuses on the screen, seeing the implications clearly now. “Say it again for my sanity. They won’t hurt Dove?”
“They won’t touch her. Most of them have been tortured by the worst monsters imaginable.” I take control of the keyboard and pull up a diagram. “This is the org chart of the inner circle. Twenty-two trauma-bonded members, each with their own horror story.”
He scans the chart I painstakingly compiled over the years, his attention landing on the unexpected anomalies.
“What does this mean?” He points to the labels attached to nine of the members. “They all say Quiso Slave, followed by a number.”
“Van Quiso is a former human sex trafficker. Over the span of his inglorious career in Texas, he had nine sex slaves. They’re all active vigilantes in the cartel’s inner circle.”
I flip through the photos of each member and pause on Van Quiso’s scarred face.
“Oh, I know him.” He waves a hand at the screen.
“What?”
“He was there. In the VIP lounge at the nightclub. Looking all tall and scary, chewing the hell out of a toothpick.” He narrows his eyes at me. “You don’t look surprised.”
“The cartel does not want me in enemy hands. They would’ve been there running surveillance and sketching a retrieval plan. A clean, patient retrieval. Then you walked in. Wearing a bomb.”
Wolf lets out a quiet breath.
“You didn’t follow a playbook,” I say. “Didn’t wait for permission, backup, or other options. You saw the problem and cut straight through it.”
“I skipped a few steps.”
“You showed them how it’s done.”
“Bad Boy Supreme wasn’t bothered.” He nods at Van’s photo. “He flashed me a sexy little smile on his way out.”
“I’m sure he did. He’s a terrible flirt but also deeply devoted to his wife.” I steeple my fingers against my mouth, thinking. “This is the play. We’ll get Dove. That part’s non-negotiable. After that, they’ll try to bargain for you, but I’ll secure your freedom.”
“Yeah, that’s a no from me. We’re not splitting up.”
“You want to stay with me? With the cartel?” I hold his gaze until the heat burns. “What about Dove?”
The silence is instant.
He opens his mouth, closes it, and looks away.
“You don’t have an answer.” I drop a hand on his thigh and squeeze. “And that’s the answer.”
His jaw works, his frustration loud.
“The Russians can’t stay on the island.” I turn back to the keyboard.
“I’ll handle it.”
“Tomorrow, when I call Restrepo back, I’ll line up our meeting and go from there. Until then, you need to sleep, eat, and study those profiles. In that order.”
“And you?”
I don’t look away from the screen. “I’ll run through every contingency and plan accordingly.”
“Do you like it?” He watches my hands move on the keyboard. “The hacking? The coding? All of it?”
“Yeah. I do.” I stare at the streaming algorithms. “But I’ve always wanted to use it differently. For people who don’t have power. The innocent ones who get taken and killed because no one’s watching.”
“You know… If you hadn’t joined the cartel, that fake video of Dove would’ve been real. Crowe would’ve taken her. Not the cartel.”
“I know.”
“That’s what you’ll be doing with them. Bigger missions. Rescuing more girls like Dove.”
“Yes.”
“But to do that…” He sighs. “You have to give up Dove.”
“And you.” My chest hurts. “There’s no way out of this.”
“The ultimate sacrifice.” He watches me carefully.
“That’s the cost.”