Chapter 6 #2
It’s unfair the way I punish her for indiscretions that I trick her into committing.
The injustice of that should bother me, but all I can think about is her in a gown and the feel of her on my arm as I introduce her to my world.
She may be an easygoing wildlife veterinarian who saves every broken creature she finds, but she has an innate elegance that puts most socialites to shame.
She’s a far better person than most of the people who will attend the gala.
For the first time in my life, Damien Wolfe feels like more than the mask I wear during business hours. With Luna at my side, he might actually become real.
The soft murmur of Cade’s voice draws my attention away from the bank of monitors displaying feeds from around Estes Park. He uses that voice only with one person.
He’s seated at the breakfast bar, laptop open, speaking into his headset. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of our rented Stanley Hotel residence, snow continues to fall in lazy spirals, adding to the already thick blanket covering the streets.
“I know you want to go to Cancun with your friends, MJ, but winter break would be a perfect time for you to visit Colorado.” Cade’s tone is gentler than I’ve heard it in months, the harsh edge softened as he leans back in his chair. “When’s the last time we spent more than a weekend together?”
I glance at him from my position at the dining room table to see something I rarely witness—the stoic mask slipping from his face. Twenty-two years old, and his daughter still has the power to make him vulnerable. It’s both fascinating and unsettling.
“Dad, I’m an adult now.” Mary Jane’s voice carries through his headset, tinny but animated. “Besides, you’re always working. What would we even do for two weeks?”
Cade’s jaw tightens, but his voice remains controlled. “I could take time off. We could go skiing, or—”
“Or I could get a tan in Mexico with my girlfriends.” She pauses. “Please, Dad? Spring break is forever away, and this might be my last chance to travel with everyone before we graduate.”
Cade’s shoulders drop, revealing the disappointment he’s trying to hide in the set of his mouth.
“Fine. But you text me when you get there. And every day you’re gone. Cancun can be dangerous for tourists, especially a group of twenty-something girls by themselves. If a day goes by that I don’t hear from you, I’ll fly down there. And you don’t want that, MJ, trust me.”
“I will! Thank you, Dad. Love you!”
Cade sits motionless for a moment, staring at his laptop screen. The harsh lines return to his face like armor sliding back into place, but I caught that glimpse of the father beneath the soldier, the man who would move mountains for his daughter but settles for phone calls and brief visits.
He closes the laptop and turns toward me, his expression once again unreadable.
“I’m sending two men to Cancun to keep an eye on her.”
I nod. Part of his compensation package allows him to use members of Wolfe Group’s private security force when needed. Our teams provide security for some of the wealthiest, most influential people in the world.
“Why don’t you take a couple of weeks off and go down yourself?”
“Because MJ doesn’t want her uncool father cramping her style.”
My mouth curves into a smirk. “I don’t blame her. You are completely uncool.”
“Fuck you.”
“Don’t feel bad, old man. Kids grow up. They move on. It’s what they do.”
He reaches for his tea, his movements sharp with irritation. The man’s a former Army Ranger who chooses oolong tea over coffee. I’ll never understand it.
My attention shifts back to the monitors. Luna stands in front of a boutique mirror, holding up different scarves. First a dark one, then something lighter. The black and white feed makes it impossible to tell what colors she’s considering.
Maren hovers behind her, pointing at something off-camera. Luna shakes her head and puts the scarf back on the rack.
She’d mumbled something about shopping today while I carried her sated, exhausted body to bed last night, boneless and still trembling from what I’d done to her on her kitchen counter.
So, I hacked into Estes Park’s public webcam system. Perks of having Wolfe Technologies wire the whole damn town, and I always build backdoor entrances into every system my company touches.
“Why are you doing this from here? You could have hacked the public cameras from your house in Aspen Ridge.”
I keep my eyes on the screens. “Range limitations.”
“It’s the internet. There are no range limitations.”
“I wouldn’t have been close enough to run into her on the street.”
Silence stretches between us. I can feel him staring at the back of my head, processing what I just admitted.
“So, you rent an entire house for what, a few hours?”
“What do you care? It’s my money. Why did you follow me here anyway?”
“Because we need to go over the last details for the gala, and trying to nail you down since the good doctor came into your life is like herding cats. If I’m not in the same room as you, I’ll never get the answers I need.
” He opens the laptop again, fingers already moving across the keys.
“Let’s do this. I have to get back to the office. ”
The video call with Tiffany takes forty-three minutes. She runs through the guest list, seating charts, and menu selections. Cade chimes in occasionally about security protocols.
I give the required responses while half my attention stays on Luna, who’s moved to a different store.
“The mayor’s office confirmed.” Tiffany looks over a list on her desk. “Along with both senators.”
“What about the Governor?”
Luna tries on a pair of fuzzy mittens, holding her hands up to examine them.
“He RSVP’d last week.”
“Good. Are we done?”
The call wraps up. Cade closes his laptop and begins packing up, which means I can stop dividing my focus. I can just watch Luna browse without pretending to care about hors d’oeuvres versus canapés.
“I asked Luna to go with me.”
The words tumble out of my mouth before I even realize I’m speaking. Cade goes very still, the kind of stillness that precedes rare explosive action.
“What? Is that why you wanted to run into her?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus Christ.” Cade moves to stand in front of the dining table where I’ve spread out my equipment. His expression hardens. I’m tempted to tell him his face will freeze that way, but given his current mood, I doubt he’d appreciate my humor.
“You’re introducing her to your world? To Denver’s high society, while there’s an active murder investigation, of your making, by the way, tied to her sanctuary? You don’t want that kind of scandal anywhere near the foundation.”
“I want her there.” The words come out just as possessively as I intend. The truth is carved into my bones now. “She belongs with me.”
Cade runs a hand down his face, his frustration with me bleeding through.
“You’re dragging her deeper into your life even as she drowns in your secrets.
If the truth ever comes out about your other life, she’ll be caught in the blast radius.
It’ll get her arrested as an accessory. If she means as much to you as you say she does, then you need to make protecting her a priority. ”
Blood roars in my ears, and my hands curl into fists.
“Protecting her is all that matters.”
What I do puts everyone in my life at risk.
Cade and I are both damned already, and we agreed long ago that drawing others into our twisted world was a mistake.
It’s the reason neither of us has maintained a permanent relationship.
Cade avoids them for the same reason he didn’t fight harder for MJ when his ex took her.
Keeping his daughter close would taint her life if our actions ever came to light.
The scandal, the investigation, the media circus—she'd be buried under it all.
My avoidance is different. My parents didn’t just damage me.
They demolished my capacity to connect with people in any meaningful way.
It’s the reason I never intended Luna to be more than a physical release.
I wouldn’t even consider the possibility at the start.
But she worked her way inside me like water finding cracks in stone.
That light of hers reached something I thought had died long ago and coaxed it back into beating.
“This isn’t just obsession anymore. You’re in love with her.”
“Yes.” The snarl rips from my throat. “I told you the other day that she’s everything.”
“You’ve been saying that for a while, almost since the beginning. I didn’t realize that meant you were in love with her.”
“Neither did I.” The confession feels like swallowing acid. I’ve spent weeks trying to understand these new feelings, this overwhelming need that goes beyond possession into something vulnerable and terrifying.
“What are you going to do? You don’t know how to have a normal relationship.” His tone is matter-of-fact, not cruel, but it still cuts. “And you’re deceiving her about who you are. You’ll have to tell her the truth if there’s any chance for the two of you to have a relationship.”
“You think I don’t fucking know that?”
“Are you sure you can trust her with the truth?”
“Yes. I trust her as much as I trust you.”
For once, Cade is unable to hide the surprise on his face.
“She knows what I’ve done and hasn’t betrayed me yet.”
He crosses his arms over his broad chest, the movement pulling his black sweater tight across his shoulders. “She’s been lying to the sheriff, covering for you, but for how long? What happens when the veterinarian who took an oath to ‘do no harm’ decides she can’t be complicit in murder?”
I stand, the motion sharp enough to make him pause, my chair tipping back onto the floor.
“She won’t say anything. Luna understands why I do it, even if she doesn’t condone it. She has darkness in her too.”