Chapter 33 Wolfe
WOLFE
I left the door open when I came in.
It didn’t matter. Nothing could get in that hadn’t already taken her. The lock clicked anyway. Old habits. I let it. The air was cold. Not from the windows. Not from the outside. From the absence.
The lights were still on in the hallway. The living room bathed in soft amber. Someone had dimmed the sconces. Probably Loyal. Or Barron. They didn’t want me walking into darkness.
They didn’t understand that darkness was the only thing left that felt familiar.
I walked in slow. Boots quiet against the floorboards. My coat heavy around my shoulders.
I’d barely spoken since the warehouse. Since the screaming. Since her voice. They’d played the footage over and over. Pixelated. Warped. Echoing off those concrete walls like it was a warning.
But I’d know it anywhere. That wasn’t a cry for help. It was a goddamn weapon. She screamed for me.
She called me like she knew the city could hear it.
And I hadn’t answered.
I stepped into the kitchen. Everything was exactly as she left it. Her mug on the counter. The one she never rinsed.
I picked it up. Felt the cold ceramic in my hand. The faint lip print along the rim. My jaw locked.
I set it down. Not gently. Let it scrape the marble. The hallway stretched in front of me like it had grown longer. I walked it anyway.
The first door I passed was the guest room. Empty. Cold. I didn’t look in. The second was mine. The door was ajar. I stopped. Her scent was still there. Smoke. Cedar. Skin.
I closed my eyes. Breathed it in like a prayer. Then pushed the door open. The bed was made. She hadn’t slept here. Not in days. Not since Barron. Not since I told her she was still mine.
My shirt was folded at the foot of the bed. The one she wore when she let me fuck her mouth like silence was the only language she trusted.
I ran my fingers across the edge. Felt the fabric pull. She always rolled the sleeves.
I turned. Walked to her room. Her real room. Not the dumping ground I put her in for the first few nights. The light was off. I didn’t turn it on.
I opened the door and stood at the threshold. It felt like standing at the edge of something that could still hurt me.
The bed was unmade. Sheets tangled. Pillow dented.
The robe she wore the last time I saw her hung on the back of the door. Her shoes were lined up by the dresser.
I stepped inside. The air was different here. Like it remembered her.
I walked to the dresser. Opened the top drawer. Everything was folded. Too neat. Like she thought she’d come back to it. Like she thought she’d wake up in this bed tomorrow. The bed called to me like a punishment.
I sat down. Hands on my knees. The leather of my gloves creaked as I flexed my fingers. They hadn’t taken her from my arms. They’d taken her from my trust. That was worse. That was what I wouldn’t forgive.
I leaned forward. Set my elbows on my knees. Then reached for the nightstand drawer. Opened it. Her other collar still sat inside. Polished. Untouched. Waiting.
I ran my thumb across the inside. The engraving I never let her read: What you give me is breath.
I closed my eyes. Let the silence echo. Let it sound like her. But it didn’t. Not anymore.
Because her phone was here. It shouldn’t have been. Not facedown. Not hidden.
It should’ve been in her coat. In her fucking hand. Not left like a forgotten truth under the sheets.
And the second that landed—the second it hit me—something inside me snapped. I didn’t fold the sheets back. I ripped them.
Tore the bed apart like it had lied to me. Like it had swallowed her. I grabbed the mattress and flipped it.
Hard.
It slammed against the floorboards with a sound that didn’t echo—
it shook. Feathers spilled from the pillow I’d crushed in one fist. My other hand punched the frame backward, sent it crashing against the wall.
Wood cracked. My knuckles split. I didn’t stop. I kicked the nightstand so hard it bounced off the drywall and collapsed sideways. The drawer flew open. Empty.
Everything was fucking empty.
Except—beneath the mattress.
Tucked into the dark.
Half-concealed.
Like it was waiting.
Her phone.
Face down.
Cold.
Her phone.
I froze. Not the one I gave her. The old one. The one she stopped using weeks ago.
The screen was cracked in the corner. Still had the same lock screen background—Camille’s photo, half-cropped, too bright. It shouldn’t have been here.
I stared at it. The screen cracked at the corner. A line spiderwebbed down the side like a fracture in glass you can feel before you see.
I didn’t breathe.
I picked it up slowly. Like it might hurt me. Like it already had. My thumb hovered over the power button. It was warm. Not from use. From memory.
I closed my hand around it. Carried it to the nightstand. Plugged it in. The cord trembled slightly as I pushed it into place. I watched the battery icon flicker to life. Twenty percent. Then thirty. Then the screen lit fully. She hadn’t changed her wallpaper.
It was still the photo I’d taken of her in the passenger seat of my car. Hair a mess. Eyes laughing. Lips parted. It didn’t look like a girl in love. It looked like a girl who finally believed she was safe.
The first notification flashed across the screen.
Missed call.
Missed call.
Missed call.
Then a message icon.
Not received.
Drafted.
I touched it. The text opened. Only one line. I love you. I’m sorry I made you trust me.
My knees gave before my rage did. I sat on the edge of the bed, phone in one hand, the other gripping the collar I hadn’t put on her.
I stared at the words. I read them once. Twice. And then I let them echo. Because she hadn’t sent it.
She hadn’t given me the chance to reply. Because somewhere between loving me and leaving the room, she had decided it was her burden to carry. Her fault to own.
I rubbed my thumb across the screen. The words blurred. Not from the glass. From the water I didn’t feel leave my eyes. I hadn’t cried in years. Not since Camille.
Not since her fingers went cold in mine and I realized love was just another way to bury someone you weren’t willing to let go. But now? Now the weight felt different.
It felt like someone had handed me her heart still beating and told me to keep it safe—and I hadn’t even noticed when it stopped.
I looked down at the screen again. The message stared back. Not a question. Not a confession. A farewell.
I opened a new message. Typed her name. The cursor blinked.
I couldn’t find the words. There weren’t any left that she hadn’t already given me. So I let it sit there. An unfinished answer to a message never sent.
I turned the phone over. Laid it face down on the bed. Stood. If they thought they could unmake her—they hadn’t seen what I looked like when I remembered how to feel.
And now?
Now I was feeling everything.
The table wasn’t meant to be a table. It was meant to be weight.
The kind of weight you gather in one place when the rest of the world has stopped listening. It sat in the center of the room like a reckoning, the same one we’d used to map Camille’s murder, to erase enemies, to draw a line between empire and extinction.
Tonight it was bare. For now.
I dragged Camille’s journal from my bedroom. My fingers didn’t shake, but the space between my breaths did. I carried it like it was fragile. Like it had weight she left for me to break.
I set it down. The pages fluttered. A whisper. Like she was still breathing somewhere between the lines.
I opened it. The brothers were already arriving. Loyal first, silent as breath, laptop under one arm, his hair damp like he hadn’t bothered to dry it.
Then Royal, shirt half-buttoned, cigarette tucked behind his ear, eyes sharp. Barron last. Always last. Always deliberate. He closed the door behind him. None of them asked what we were doing. They knew. They felt it in the floor.
I stood at the head of the table and flipped the journal open to the red-marked page. If I disappear, it wasn’t an accident. Royal moved first. Took his seat. Crossed one leg over the other like this was a boardroom.
Loyal sat next, fingers already flying across keys. Barron stood. Didn’t need to sit. He leaned one hand on the corner of the table and stared at Camille’s handwriting like it might unwrite the last five years.
I traced my thumb across her ink. Her pen had bled at the edge. She must have written it fast. Maybe afraid. Maybe not. She was never the type to run. Only to kneel when she was ready to kill something.
“They knew about her long before we did,” I said.
No one interrupted.
“She left this for us. Not just names. Not just accounts.”
I flipped the page. There it was. A signature. Not Camille’s. The name of a man we’d buried years ago. Or thought we had. Barron’s voice was rough.
“That’s the broker who handled our first offshore pivot.”
Loyal nodded.
“He disappeared right after Camille.”
Royal leaned forward.
“Guess he didn’t disappear far enough.”
I turned another page. It was a map. Sketched by hand. No street names. Just lines. Arrows. A warehouse circled twice in black.
“She was watching them,” I said.
“And they found out,” Loyal added.
I tapped the map.
“This is where they took her.”
No one argued. Because we all felt it. In our chests. That pull. That fire. I closed the book. Not to end it. To contain it. Royal reached for a pen. Circled the warehouse with a red marker.
“I want the fucking floor plan,” he said.
Loyal was already pulling it up. Barron stepped back. Crossed his arms. He didn’t speak. Didn’t have to. He looked at me. Like he was ready. Like he was asking if I was.
I met his stare. And I didn’t blink. Because ready was a lie. I was made for this. Built in the dark.
Born in the silence between grief and revenge. Camille had handed me the end of something that never should have started. And Cloe?She had screamed for me.
So now I’d make sure no one could ever scream again without remembering what I sounded like when I answered.
I opened the cabinet like it was confession.
The key turned slow. The click echoed in my skull like a trigger pulled back but not released. The door creaked. Not from rust—from restraint. I hadn’t opened it in years. Not since Camille. Not since we put the blades away and agreed to pretend we could build something clean.
The hinges held their breath. Inside was steel. Cold. Clean. Familiar. The first thing I touched was the knife.
Black hilt. Matte edge. No polish. No shine. A weapon meant for darkness. I picked it up and turned it in my palm. The balance hadn’t changed. Neither had I. Not really.
I strapped it to my thigh. The weight felt right. The second was the pistol. Sleek. Heavy. My fingers curled around the grip like they remembered.
I popped the clip. Full. Of course it was. I kept it loaded for a reason. Not hope. Memory. Because someday, I knew I’d need to kill like Camille was still watching.
I holstered it. Loyal walked into the room. He didn’t speak. He opened the second cabinet. Pulled out another case. Laid it on the bed.
A shotgun. Tactical. Beautiful. Royal came next. He picked the crowbar. No hesitation. Barron stood in the doorway. Still. Watching. Like he was trying to decide if this was us breaking or becoming something new.
I turned to him.
“You’re not going to talk me out of this.”
He nodded.
“Good,” he said. “Because I wouldn’t know how.”
I slid the second blade into the sheath at my hip. One more across my back. Three. Always three. One for the throat. One for the ribs. One for the man who thinks I won’t go for the eyes.
Royal set a duffel on the floor. Opened it. Ammo. Flash bangs. Zip cuffs.
“We going in clean or loud?” he asked.
I looked at him. And I smiled.
“Both.”
Loyal snapped the case shut.
“She was screaming,” he said. “In the footage. She called your name.”
I closed my eyes.
I heard it again.
WOLFE.
Not a plea. A command. A summons.
My body locked around it like it had never been unmade. Like my name belonged in her mouth more than oxygen.
I opened my eyes.
“Then we answer.”
Barron crossed the room. Grabbed a blade of his own. It was his father’s. Still sharp. Still bloodstained. He didn’t flinch.
I walked to the table. Set the journal down. Camille’s handwriting stared back at me. Names. Numbers. A time. I tapped the page.
“That’s where she is.”
Royal looked up. “How do you know.”
I stared at the pages. “That’s where I’d take her.”
Loyal nodded. Royal cracked his knuckles. Barron pulled the slide on his pistol. The room went quiet. Not from fear. From reverence. My phone buzzed once.
A new message. No name. Just the initials: MQ.
Forget the warehouse. Tower rooftop. Forty minutes. It’s real.
Mason.
I stared at it. Last I spoke to Mason, he was on recon. Watching the apartment. Watching her building. He touched her. Find him.
I hadn’t needed to say more. Now this. If Mason said move—
I moved. I strapped the last piece across my chest. Barron caught the look in my eyes.
“What is it?”
“Mason says to meet at the tower.”
Royal looked up. “Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Still, he’d never failed me before.
Loyal closed the laptop. “Then we go.”
“All of us,” Barron said.
“He’s waiting,” I muttered. “She’s close.”