Chapter 6 Wolfe
WOLFE
She was up before the sun. I heard her feet against the floor before the light shifted through the curtains. No sound from the shower. No cabinets opening. Just that slow, careful movement. Like she was trying not to make an impression.
I stayed in the hallway. Watched through the corner of the kitchen glass as she moved through the space.
She didn’t open the fridge. Didn’t pour coffee. Just stood near the window, arms wrapped around her chest, hoodie sleeves pulled over her hands like she thought the fabric could make her smaller.
It didn’t.
She didn’t look for me. Didn’t ask where I was. Didn’t try to speak. And that bothered me more than I wanted it to. Because Cloe never stayed quiet without an angle.
And this silence?
It felt like strategy.
I watched the way her shoulder dipped slightly—still sore. Her knee locked as she turned. She was favoring one leg. She hadn’t taken the painkillers. She wasn’t playing weak. She was surviving.
But I knew the difference between submission and patience. And this wasn’t surrender. It was waiting.
She moved through the living room like a guest who used to be a lover. Her gaze flicked toward the alcove—at the ring—then snapped away too fast.
Let her see it.
Let her know it was still here.
Just not for her.
I watched her walk back toward the hallway, head down, breath shallow. She passed right by me. Didn’t see me. Didn’t know I was watching. But I was.
And I didn’t stop. Because she wasn’t asking questions anymore. Which meant she was learning.
Or planning.
Either way—
I’d be ready.
I woke at 5:04 a.m. Didn’t check the clock. Didn’t need to. My body didn’t care about the time. It needed movement. Needed purpose.
I stripped off the black shirt I hadn’t really slept in and pulled on my running gear—tight, efficient, black.
Everything was black today. Even my thoughts. The treadmill fired up beneath me like it had something to prove.
I didn’t stretch. Didn’t breathe deep. Just started. A full sprint. First stride like a hammer. Second like a blade. By the third, I was already sweating.
The room echoed with the pounding of my feet. Hard. Heavy. Intentional. I wasn’t exercising. I was breaking the floor between what I wanted and what I couldn’t let myself take.
She heard it. I knew she did. The rhythm bled through the walls like a warning no one had the guts to say aloud.
Let her hear it.
Let her know I was still here. Still moving. Still in control—even if she never saw me do a damn thing.
She came out once. Barefoot. Silent. I caught her in the reflection of the glass behind the weight rack. Her shape. Her stillness. Her curiosity.
I didn’t turn. Didn’t slow. Just kept running. Harder. Faster. Letting her see what I did with the parts of myself that should’ve been used on her.
I ran until the belt whined. Until the soles of my shoes smoked slightly from the friction. Until my lungs burned.
Then I stopped.
Breath even.
Face blank.
I walked straight to the shower.
The water was cold. Sharp. Didn’t matter. I let it slice me. Let it ground me. Then I grabbed myself. Hard. Rough. Not for pleasure. Not to come. To remember. To own.
When it happened, it was fast. A grunt tore from my throat like the punchline to everything I hadn’t said since she walked back into my life. I didn’t clean up. Didn’t shut the door. Just stepped out.
It wasn’t release.
It was refusal.
I didn’t come for pleasure—I came to keep myself from taking her. A warning. A leash only I could hold. Let the steam flood into the hallway. If she’d been listening?
Good.
Let her hear what it sounded like when control cracked—and I still refused to touch her.
The alert came at 2:13 a.m. I was in the study. Lights low. Whiskey untouched beside me. No music. Just silence humming against the windows. The phone buzzed once. Then again. Not hers. Mine.
The secondary device. The one synced to everything she used to own. I didn’t move right away. Finished reading the paragraph on the screen in front of me. Then I reached for the phone.
UNKNOWN
“She’s yours. But you still don’t know why she came.”
I blinked once.
Scrolled down.
There were attachments.
A photo of Camille. Not posed. Not soft. Surveillance grain.
A contract. Half-scanned. Cropped.
A message thread. Number blocked.
But the voice was clear.
Selene.
And Cloe.
I read it once. Top to bottom. Didn’t react. Read it again. Slower. Not just the content. The timestamps. Her first message to Selene was sent two hours before the photo she forwarded to me. Two hours.
I stared at that gap like it might close if I looked hard enough. But it didn’t. She reached for Selene first. She warned the woman who made her a weapon… before she warned the man who kept her breathing.
She could’ve come to me.
She didn’t.
And that?
That was the truest part of the message.
She said please. But only after there was no one else left to call. I zoomed in on the message bubble. The punctuation. The phrasing.
If you want it, come get it.
No apology.
Just an offer. A test. And she knew exactly what I’d do with a test like that. She always had.
I watched the timestamps. Watched the language shift—from threat to instruction to intimacy.
You don’t have to hurt her. Just keep her close.
He won’t know until it’s too late.
Deliver it when he’s weakest. When he cares.
I set the phone down. Didn’t smash it. Didn’t speak. Just leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes for one breath.
I wasn’t surprised. Not really. Not after the way she ran. Not after the silence. But I was finished pretending there was a version of her I hadn’t already lost.
I stood. Picked up the ring from the alcove. Held it in my palm like a weight. Then walked it to the study desk. Set it beside the phone. And turned out the light.
Let her sleep. Let her dream she was still something worth saving. I had everything I needed now. And war never needed a reason. Just a target.
The phone was still on the desk. Still open. I should’ve shut it off. Instead, I scrolled. Deeper. Not looking for more. Just confirming what I already knew.
And then—
I found it.
The escort thread. Pulled from the message archive she thought I hadn’t accessed. A thread from a blocked number. Weeks old.
I’ll pay double if she doesn’t speak.
I remembered that one. I remembered the night I almost asked. She’d come out of the shower, towel-wrapped, hair wet, eyes wrong.
She smiled at me. But it didn’t reach her mouth. I saw something on her thigh. A mark. Could’ve been a bruise. Could’ve been something else. She flinched when I touched it.
I didn’t press. Didn’t push. Didn’t ask. Because she crawled into my lap after. Kissed me like she needed to be forgiven for something I hadn’t uncovered yet.
And now I knew.
She hadn’t wanted to lie. She just wanted to see if she could get away with it. And she had. Until now.
I hadn’t asked her about it then. Because she was already shaking in my hands. Because I thought that was punishment enough. But now? There was a second message. Sent two nights ago.
Same number.
Still interested?
And beneath it—
Payment cleared.
The silence thickened around me.
I didn’t blink. Didn’t move. Then I tapped into the tracking app. The burner number bounced through VPN routes. Encrypted. Lazy. But not hidden. Not from me.
I stood. Walked to the closet behind the desk. Entered the code. The safe hissed open. Inside: a pistol. Matte black. Polished. I checked the magazine. Loaded. I didn’t grab my phone. Didn’t need a call. Didn’t need a name. Just the scent of a target. And I had it now.
I walked to the window. Looked out over the city. Not for reflection. Not for breath. For range. They thought they could buy her. Claim her in silence. Use her body like it hadn’t already been marked by something deeper.
I smiled.
Barely.
Because now—they’d learn what it meant to crawl toward something they never had a chance of owning.
I moved before the sun. Didn’t need the treadmill.
Didn’t need to sweat it out of my system.
I needed to act. The number was already tagged.
Burner. Sloppy. Bounced through two fake proxies—cheap ones.
He wasn’t a professional. Just a man who wanted what he couldn’t afford. Something that already belonged to me.
I traced the signal. He used a hotel Wi-Fi. Logged in twice. Fake name. Fake ID. The alias was familiar.
Camille’s.
Stupid.
He left a trail because he didn’t think anyone was following. But I don’t follow. I end things. Twelve minutes later, I was out the door. Black coat. Gloves in the pocket. Not to protect myself. To keep what I took from staining anything that mattered.
The hotel staff didn’t stop me. People rarely do. Room 1203. No knock. Keycard slipped into the reader. Door unlocked. He turned from the minibar. Stopped moving. He knew. Not who I was. What I was.
I closed the door. He opened his mouth. I shook my head once. Quiet. Clean. “You paid for silence.” A beat. “I’m here to honor it.”
I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t rush it. It wasn’t punishment. It was removal. One punch. Broken ribs. Shoulder out of socket.
Enough.
I crouched beside him. Whispered something just for him. Then left. No blood on my shirt. No mess on my hands. But when I came home—I felt it. She did too.
Through the walls. The floor. The silence I wore like a second skin. She didn’t see me. But she felt me. The part of her that still believed I could touch her like a man—
Now understood what it meant to be owned by something far worse.
The man’s phone was still warm in his pocket.
I didn’t ask for the passcode.
Didn’t need it.
The thumbprint worked fine—once the hand stopped shaking. I removed his passcode and entered one of my own. Simple really…now I had it all.
I sat on the edge of the hotel bed. Wiped the screen with a cloth from my pocket. Opened the gallery. Scrolled. The folder wasn’t labeled ‘Cloe.’
That would’ve been too obvious.
It was labeled ‘Sweet Camille.’
That was the first insult.
I didn’t blink. Just tapped it open. The images weren’t graphic. They didn’t need to be. They were worse for how intimate they were.
They weren’t sent to me. That was the part that mattered. Not the lace. Not the bruise. Not the angle of her jaw or the slight turn of her head that made the picture look like an accident when it wasn’t.
She’d taken them on purpose. Sent them to someone else. Let someone else see skin I hadn’t touched since the night she left my bed in silence.
I imagined the light. The mirror. The way she probably held her breath while she took them. Not because she wanted to. But because she needed something. Attention. Leverage. Survival.
Maybe all three.
But none of it had been meant for me. And that was the final cut. Because she said she’d do anything to earn her place. But what she gave away? She didn’t ask me first.
And now?
She wouldn’t get to ask again.
A photo of her lying on a couch in a T-shirt—my T-shirt. The hem hit mid-thigh. One leg curled. Her head turned just enough to hide her face.
A mirror shot from behind. Jeans pulled halfway down. The faintest curve of her hipbone exposed.
Another.
Her shirt lifted. Ribs bruised. Bra strap slipping off her shoulder.
I’d seen those bruises in person. But not like this. Not through someone else’s lens. They didn’t see what they were looking at.
They framed her in shadow.
I carved her into memory.
No nudity.
Just implication.
Just violation.
Just theft.
The last one was a screenshot.
Still interested?
Payment cleared. Full gallery on delivery.
I exhaled once. Quiet. Clicked through the phone. Found the backup folder. Downloaded it to a drive. Then deleted the originals. Encrypted the rest. Wiped the device. Set it on the counter.
The fire alarm triggered two minutes later. The phone melted in the sink basin. Smoke curled against the ceiling like it was mourning.
I walked out without speaking to the front desk. Got in the car. Pulled into traffic. Set the drive on the seat beside me.
I didn’t look at it again. Didn’t need to. Because those weren’t just images. They were evidence. Of what she gave away. Of what someone else saw. Of what I hadn’t been there to stop. That was the part I couldn’t let go of. Not that she let someone look.
When I got home, I didn’t go to her room. Didn’t unlock the safe. I placed the drive in the drawer beside her ring. Next to the phone.
This wasn’t a drawer. It was an altar. Not for forgiveness. Not for grief. But for the pieces of her she’d tried to keep from me. Evidence. Of what she gave away. Of what she still didn’t understand was already mine.
Next to everything she’d left behind. Everything she’d kept from me. Everything she didn’t know I already owned.