Chapter 64 - Dove #2
“You undo me.” His whisper breaks like a confession he hates needing.
“You always have, and—” He paces a half-step and turns back.
“I need to take a shower and wash the flight off me. Come with me. Please. I can’t stand the idea of you leaving my sight right now.
After I clean up, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. ”
If that will help him find his footing, I’m all for it.
“Follow me.” I turn toward the doors Wolf disappeared through and start walking.
“I’ll be honest.” He strolls along beside me, eyes darting everywhere. “I expected to find you confined in a soundproof room. You’ve had free run of this place the entire time?”
“Of course. It’s not like I’m sitting in on their meetings.”
“This is worrisome.” He trails me down a long marble hallway. “If you know too much—”
“I don’t know their secrets, but I’ve gotten to know the inner circle. Some more than others.” A smile tugs at my mouth. “I have my favorites.”
“Who?”
“Luke and I bonded—”
“Don’t finish that sentence.”
I narrow my eyes. “We bonded over his hypercar collection.”
“He’s a deadly…” He glances at a camera. “Man.”
“He’s married.”
“I know.”
“I adore his wife Vera.”
“Also deadly. She’s an underground MMA fighter. I’m talking fight to the death.”
“Yeah, she’s been teaching me self-defense.”
“Oh.” He blinks.
“Do you know what they call you around here?”
“El Vigilante.”
“The Watchman.” I nod. “I’ve heard them whisper other names, too. The Shadow With A Million Cameras. The Hunter Who Never Blinks. My personal favorite is El Que Ya Sabe.”
“The One Who Already Knows.”
“You’ve heard these.”
“Most of them.”
“You’ve made quite an impression on these people.”
“Attention has a price. This one comes with a lifetime contract and no exit clause.”
I have so many questions, but I’ll hold them until we’re alone.
The corridor spills us into the citadel’s main artery, a massive atrium with white marble everywhere and floor-to-ceiling windows that offer cinematic views of a jungle so deep it could swallow entire governments. Or in this case, a sprawling cartel fortress.
I hear Wolf before I see him.
“Wait, you’re Ricky, and you’re Martin, right? All right, be honest. Everybody knows that ‘Livin’ La Vida Loca’ is your go-to song when you’re fucking.”
I round the corner as Martin flips off Wolf, and Ricky groans.
“Also, I was told you share your woman.” Wolf scratches his jaw.
“Which means I’m gonna need tips. Strictly academic.
How do you decide on positions? Do you draw straws?
Rock-paper-scissors? Hypothetically, do you rehearse?
Or is it all improv?” He holds up his fist. “Poly kings. Teach me your ways.”
They bump him without hesitation.
Jag stiffens beside me, his protective instinct roaring to life. I barely have time to enjoy that before Matias appears at Jag’s side.
“A word.” He strides away, expecting Jag to follow.
“Stay here.” He trails Matias into the shadow of a column, keeping me in his line of sight.
I can’t hear what Matias says as he gestures and grips Jag’s shoulder. Jag nods once, looks away, and nods again. Then he’s back at my side, expression shuttered but resolved.
“What did he say?” I stare at Matias’s back as he strides out of the room.
“He’s giving me a couple of days to focus on you and figure out what we’re going to do.”
“You mean, what I am going to do. Because you can’t follow me back to Alaska. This is your life now, right?”
He nods.
“Will they let Wolf and me leave?” I whisper. “Now that we’ve seen the inside of their citadel?”
“You’ve only seen what they allowed you to see. For all my intel, I couldn’t dig up the schematics of this place. Couldn’t even pin down a general location. It’s buried deep, deliberately unreachable, as hidden and impossible to find as Wolf’s cabin in Hoss.”
“You read his journal.” A flutter lifts my chest.
“Yeah. The night he left it with me.”
I let that sink in as men in dark clothes stream past us, their arms stacked with luggage. Bag after bag after bag. Hard cases, garment bags, duffels, the procession doesn’t stop.
“Did Wolf bring the whole island with him?”
“We had words about it.” Jag makes an amused sound, cutting through the strain.
“Words?” I glance at him.
“He said while I’ve been living out of a bag, he’s been living out of a rich daddy.”
“He’s ridiculous.”
“He brought his tattoo gear with plans to scar the cartel. Optimistically and artistically. His words.”
I snort, watching another tower of cases roll by. “Did you at least bring your computers?”
“No electronics. Cartel rule. They took our phones, too. Wolf complained. Loudly.”
“Of course, he did.”
Across the atrium, he moves from person to person, making friends and sending the entire room into laughter.
Then he sees Frizz.
One look at the man’s stitched mouth, and Wolf grins like he found his people.
“You’re a whole vibe.” He looks Frizz up and down and lets out a low whistle. “We should absolutely be best friends.”
“We can’t leave him unsupervised.” Jag rubs his brow.
“Probably not.”
As if Wolf can hear us, he holds up a finger to his audience and peels away. The room bends around him as he floats toward us, unbothered, luminous, entirely himself.
I missed him so fucking much. He closes the distance, and I feel it everywhere, that mystical force that always pulls me into his orbit.
“Bring it in.” Without waiting, he wraps his arms around us and brings himself in. “How’s it going?”
“It’s going.” I flick the pearls at his throat. “How’s it going with you?”
“I’m working the room, living my best life. What I need to see more of is you two working each other.”
“What does that even mean?” Jag’s forehead creases.
“Don’t ask me. This is your sexy party. Figure it out.”
“I’m going to show Jag our room.” I motion toward the hall. “He wants to shower.”
“Yeah. Do that.” Wolf points an unwavering glare at Jag. “You’ll tell her everything, including the deep fake and eye prongs and how that made you feel.”
“Deep fake and… What now?” I look between them.
Jag sighs. “Wolf—”
“No omissions. Lay it all out there, take the time, fight it out, and fuck it dry.” He takes Jag’s face in his hands and plants a kiss on his lips.
Then he turns to me and does the same. “I don’t want to see either of you until you’ve hashed it out so hard that you can’t keep your hands off each other.
I’ll be here when you’re ready for that part. ”
With that, he spins away and saunters back to his new friends.
Jag and I exchange a halting moment of eye contact, and in that space, a nascent bond forms without either of us reaching for it. There’s no challenge or regret in the sudden, unfamiliar connection. Only understanding.
As I struggle to put my thoughts into words, he does it for me.
“Whatever else we are to each other now, we are aligned here. In him. In loving Wolf without apology or rivalry. In wanting his joy more than our own certainty.”
“Yeah.” My throat closes. I couldn’t have said it better myself. “So… You love him.”
“I never had a choice.”
“Me, neither. He’s impossible not to love.”
“He’s our way back to each other, Little Bird. He already carried us halfway. The rest is on us.” His eyes turn to burnished ice, his features hardening in that familiar, commanding, bossy-stepbrother look that expects compliance. “We’re not going back to the way things were.”
“No?” My skin heats. “Where are we going?”
“Take us to our room.”