Chapter 58
KATE
Iwake in our bedroom, alone in the massive bed, huddled beneath the coverlet. The lamp on my nightstand glows. I reach for Wolf’s—Cole’s—pillow and find it still warm to the touch. I hear the shower running.
I’m not sure how we got upstairs. I remember Cole holding me in the dungeon. Cleaning me with a warm, damp cloth. Easing the fire the cane left across my arse, smoothing in a cream that smelled of rosemary and sage.
Maybe he carried me up here. Maybe we walked together. I just know I trusted him. He took care of me. He kept me safe. He turned on the light so I could sleep.
Sighing, I force myself to throw back the coverlet and sit on the edge of the bed. My body still feels heavy with fatigue. My arse aches, like I’m balancing on a bruise.
I used my safeword. Me. The woman who thought she could handle anything.
I’ve spent my entire adult life—and most of the years before—figuring out how to agitate people. Pushing buttons. Taking names.
It was terrifying—that moment when I realized the cane was too much. The pain was the worst I’ve ever felt. But even more than that, I was devastated by the thought that I had finally found my limits. That I needed to ask for mercy…
But Cole understood. He complied.
And maybe that’s why he finally fucked me last night.
He trusted me as much as I’ve learned to trust him.
I have to admit: Even though he’s played my body a hundred different ways since we met in Boston, I wasn’t prepared for the pure sensation of the moment when he filled me, when we were finally completely joined…
It meant everything.
It means everything.
From the edge of the bed, I can glimpse my clothes in the closet, right where Nilsson hung them when I came home.
But he seems to have added to my stash. Crossing the room, I find plain cotton knickers, black yoga pants, and a soft gray hoodie—my daily uniform before Cole turned my life upside down.
I pull on the familiar clothes.
Yawning, I run my fingers through my hair. A loose braid will have to do. I already feel curls escaping as I head back to the bedroom.
Coffee. I need coffee. And then I’ll tackle my own shower.
And after that? I’ll start to explore the network Cole built just for me—beginning with that gorgeous new laptop.
Padding downstairs, I look for Nilsson and Anna. They aren’t in the kitchen. Aren’t in any of the downstairs room. The house feels still, silent, and I realize the perfect retainers have left Cole and me to our own devices. They’ve given us the privacy we need.
That means I have to make my own coffee. The machine in the kitchen is large enough to launch spaceships to the moon. It has more dials and levers than a 747. I can’t even locate a switch to turn it on.
But there’s an electric kettle on the counter. And a mug in the cupboard. And a box of Barry’s tea in the pantry.
I look out the large paned window while I wait for the water to boil. It rained sometime overnight. The back garden looks like someone encrusted it with diamonds.
Barefoot, I carry my steaming mug through the dining room. I cross the black-and-white marble of the foyer and open the front door. I step onto the porch.
The tree-lined street is quiet beneath its canopy of fresh green leaves. Shallow puddles gleam on the flagstones of the drive. I can’t see past the brick fence that sets off Nilsson and Anna’s home, but I raise my mug in salute to Granny. I’ll visit her later today.
I’m turning back to the house when someone calls my name.
“Kate!”
I automatically look toward the hidden carriage house. It takes me a moment to shift my focus to my own locked gate.
“Megan?”
I’ve only seen Cole’s sister once, at our wedding. We’ve never spoken, because she arrived late that day, and we left early. She had pink hair then, cut short, a stylish pixie. Now her hair is purple, and it’s grown out rough, too shaggy for her delicate features.
She’s standing on the pavement, gripping the iron fence with both hands. Her eyes are red, as if she’s been crying. As I move closer, I can see her lips are chapped.
“Is Cole here?” she asks. “I really need to see him.”
“He’s inside. Why don’t you come in?” I ask, because now this is my house too. “Have a cuppa. Or Cole will make coffee when he comes downstairs.”
“Th— That would be wonderful.”
She doesn’t sound like that would be wonderful.
She sounds like I’m inviting her to her own execution.
I know there’s been tension between Cole and his sister in the past. It’s part of all the family shite he barely started to share yesterday, the life that’s so different from the one he showed me at the Andersons.
But last night’s rain makes the world seem bright with possibilities. Cole and I understand each other better now than we did just twenty-four hours ago. Cole and Megan can build bridges too.
I step up to the gatehouse and set my palm on the biometric pad, the same way I’ve seen Nilsson and Cole do for weeks. I stand tall, going up on my tiptoes to set my face against the scanner for my eye.
A mechanism clicks deep inside the wall. Well-oiled motors roll the gate to one side, exposing the house to the street.
Megan flashes me a look I don’t understand. I expect her to be smiling, to be happy her brother’s at home. But she looks…frightened? Angry? Ashamed?
“Please,” I say, gesturing to the front door. “I’m glad you came by. It seems weird that we haven’t had a chance to—”
“Megan!” Cole’s voice is a frozen glacier at my back. Alarm spikes my belly, and I barely resist the urge to cringe.
“I’m sorry,” Megan says, her voice cracking into tears. “I didn’t want to… I told him I couldn’t… Pyotr!”
The last word, the name, rises up on a shriek. Megan staggers forward a full step, breaching the line of the gate. A shadow moves with her, detaching from the far side of the wall.
Not a shadow. A man. A man with a gun, moving like he’s dancing, pressing his weapon into the curve above Megan’s left hip.
I know him. He’s Pyotr Tarasov. He was at my wedding. His father too. Because even after all these years my father still thinks he can make peace with the Russian mob.
Megan is sobbing. Cole is swearing.
Tarasov juts his chin toward Cole. “You’re a hard man to reach. But that’s why you call your business Lone Wolf, isn’t it?” His voice is too high for a man of his size. His laugh is crazed, like a clown in a doll’s house.
I know that voice. I know that laugh. I know that if Tarasov takes off his shirt, I’ll see a multi-rayed star tattooed on each of his shoulders and a bear across his chest.
At least, those were the tattoos he had when I first met him. When he took me out of a dark and stinking hole and marched me into the cold room and called me his lisichka. When I only knew him as the Brigadier, the worst of the Bad Men.
Tarasov digs his gun a little deeper into Megan’s side. But now he’s staring straight at me. He’s laughing again—that same high-pitched chortle. And he’s saying, “Hey there, CyberGhost. Ready to sell your soul for a fortune made of light?”
Thank you for reading Taken Enemy!