Chapter Seventeen #2
“Tonight, Viper left the route I put him on because you moved. Jackal pulled off the south side with fucking stitches still in him because you moved. Raven changed the whole tactical picture because you moved, and I stopped running my operation because I had to go get you before the armed trafficker you were walking toward decided he had changed his mind.”
“I didn’t ask anyone to follow me.”
The second the words left my mouth, I knew they were wrong.
Wolf’s eyes went flat.
“Say that again.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“No. Repeat it.”
“Wolf.”
“Repeat the fucking sentence.”
Heat crawled up my neck.
“I said I didn’t ask anyone to follow me.”
“And you think that means what?”
“Nothing. I-I said it wrong.”
“You think Viper gets to watch you run into an open lot and decide he’s off the clock because Mercer didn’t request assistance? You think Jackal looks at Wolf’s analyst breaking position and says, well, she didn’t ask, so I guess she can handle the machine gun by herself?”
“No.”
“Again.”
“No.”
“Louder.”
“No!”
“What happens when one person breaks the plan?”
“Everyone else has to compensate,” I whispered.
“Again.”
My hands curled at my sides.
“Everyone else has to compensate.”
“And tonight?”
“They did.”
“Because of who?”
“Me.”
“Again.”
The humiliation burned hotter than the anger now.
“Because of me.”
“Good.”
“Stop saying that like I’m a fucking dog.”
Wolf leaned closer.
“A dog would have stayed where I put it.”
For a second I could only stare at him, half offended and half disbelieving that he had actually said what he did.
“Fuck you.”
His gaze fixed harder on me.
“What did you say?”
I knew exactly what the smarter answer was. I gave him the other one.
“Fuck. You.”
Wolf stopped moving altogether.
The car conversation came back so clearly that for a second, I could hear the wet road beneath us.
I remembered sitting in the passenger seat, asking what he liked, pushing when he told me I might not like the answer.
He had warned me that the fantasy version was easy.
He had talked about the moment control stopped being something I imagined and became something another person actually expected me to surrender.
I had joked that maybe I wouldn’t reach for the door.
Maybe I’d be interested.
Standing against his desk with his eyes fixed on mine, I understood why he had looked at me the way he did that day. This was the side of him he had been talking about.
I was not thinking about any door and that fact should have concerned me more than it did.
Wolf’s voice dropped lower until I had to listen closely.
“You want to keep using that dirty fucking mouth, Mercer?”
I swallowed. “Maybe.”
“Wrong answer.”
“I didn’t know it was a yes or no question.”
“Still doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Trying to get cute because you don’t like being made to sit in what you did.”
“I’m not trying to get cute.”
“No?”
His eyes took in my face, then trailed down the front of my shirt before settling back on me.
“Then quit performing and answer me like an adult.”
My pulse beat hard against my throat.
“Yes. I want to keep using my mouth.”
“And what kind of mouth is it?”
I scoffed. “You really are an arrogant asshole.”
He took one slow step closer.
“If you’re so determined to run that fucking mouth tonight, keep going.”
He still had not threatened to touch me, and the patience in his stare made the warning uglier. He was giving me room to push while making it clear he intended to remember every inch I took.
“You think yelling at me changes the fact that the operation was a win?” I said.
“I’m not yelling.”
He was right. He had raised his voice a few times, but now it was low again, stripped down to something rough enough to make my skin tighten beneath my shirt.
“Thirty-one women are out. The case is ours. Kade got away, but now we have a way into Paris.”
“And Keller is dead.”
My mouth closed.
After a few seconds I said, “I know.”
“You watched him die.”
“I know.”
“You had his blood on your hands when you walked toward Kade.”
“I know.”
“And somehow you decided you knew Kade would not shoot you.”
“I made a judgment call.”
“Based on what?”
“The pool party.”
“So a pretty boy talks to you for a few minutes and you trust him with your life?”
“I didn’t trust him.”
“You walked within range of him while he was armed.”
I looked away with no answer. Wolf’s hand came up and caught my chin just hard enough to turn my face back.
“How many fucking times do I have to tell you? Eyes on me.”
My breath caught against his fingers. He held me there until he knew I had heard him, then released my jaw. I should have been more offended by that than I was.
“You ever do that again, I pull you from the field.”
My temper came back immediately. “You don’t get to make that call alone.”
“I do when you’re on my operation.”
“Vale classified me as field capable.”
“Vale wasn’t standing in that lot watching you walk toward a fucking MAC-10.”
“I’m not your property.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You keep talking like you own where I stand.”
“On an operation? I do.”
Wolf stepped closer again.
“You want to argue about the rest of your life, go ahead. You want to tell me what you eat, who you fuck, where you sleep or whether you ever speak to me outside this building again, that’s yours.”
His voice roughened.
“But when you’re in my comms and my people are carrying rifles around you, you stand where I fucking tell you to stand until the order changes.”
A hot pulse moved through me at the anger in his voice and the complete lack of apology for the command. I hated that he could be right and still make me want him.
Because I did.
I wanted him.
“You done?” I asked.
Wolf stared at me.
“No.”
“Of course not.”
“Take the attitude down one more fucking notch.”
“Or what?”
Or what. The question I had been asking him in different forms since the day I arrived.
Wolf’s eyes narrowed inside the black mask.
“You really want the answer tonight?”
The office seemed warmer than it had when I walked in. I could hear the low hum of the lamp and somebody moving downstairs beneath us. My pulse sounded louder than both.
“Maybe I do.”
“Then stop saying maybe.”
I frowned.
Wolf reached down and touched his tactical belt. My eyes dropped before I could stop them.
“Eyes up.”
I looked back at him. His fingers remained at the belt.
“Again,” he said.
I realized he was not talking about the mission this time.
“What?”
“Look away again. See what happens.”
The muscles low in my abdomen drew tight. I kept my eyes on his.
Wolf unhooked the holster and removed the Glock, then opened the small lockbox beside his desk.
He checked the weapon before securing it inside with the practiced efficiency of someone who had done it a thousand times.
The black retention webbing stayed clipped near his hip.
I saw it without looking directly at it.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Making sure you don’t confuse what comes next with punishment.”
Wolf closed the lockbox and turned fully toward me.
“This argument is finished now. You broke protocol. You understand why it was a problem. You do it again, I pull you.”
I opened my mouth.
“Shut that mouth.”
I closed it immediately.
“The briefcase is useful. You were still wrong. Both things can exist without you turning one into an excuse for the other.”
There was the briefing version of him again for only a moment, then he gave me a quick once-over and the tone changed.
“Now you decide whether you’re walking out that door or staying for the other conversation you’ve been trying to start since you’ve been here.”
My heartbeat went uneven.
“O-other conversation?”
“Don’t play stupid with me.”
“I’m not.”
Wolf unclipped the folded webbing and let it hang from one hand. I stopped breathing for a second.
“You keep looking at this every time I wear it. You spent an entire car ride asking what I like. You stand there and mouth off every time I get close enough to make you nervous.”
He stepped toward me.
“So quit pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
His anger had not disappeared. He was still furious with me, still carrying Offenburg in the set of his shoulders, but the fury had sharpened into the exact kind of dominance he had warned me about.
I realized he was not trying to make me comfortable with it.
Wolf was making me choose whether I could handle it.
“You said I’d want to reach for the door,” I said.
Wolf’s eyes held mine.
“I said you might.”
“You sound disappointed that I haven’t.”
“I haven’t given you a reason to yet.”
A shiver ran down my back.
“Is that supposed to scare me?”
“No.”
He took another step.
“It’s supposed to make you decide.”
I looked at the door and Wolf did not move to block it.
The conversation in the car came back with embarrassing clarity, along with his hands steady on the wheel while I kept pushing out of sheer curiosity. I thought the test would begin when he touched me but it had started the second he told me to close the door.
I looked back at him.
“I’m staying.”
“Not enough.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t give a fuck what sounds good. Tell me what you actually want.”
I wet my lips before answering while Wolf stood there waiting, the webbing still wrapped around his fist. I knew I could leave if I wanted to, and somehow, having that choice made the fact that I wanted to stay feel more important.
A yes means more from someone that can say no.
“I want you to use it.”
“Use what?”
“The webbing.”
“Where?”
I glanced down.
Wolf’s hand caught my chin hard before my eyes reached his belt and brought my face back up.
“Did I tell you to look away?”
My breath caught.
“No.”
“Then stop fucking doing it.”
He released me.
“Answer the question.”
“My wrists.”
“Where?”
I swallowed.
“Behind my back.”
“Full sentence, Mercer.”
The demand sent another rush through my body that made it harder to stay angry at him in any useful way.
“I want you to tie my wrists behind my back.”
“Again.”
“Seriously?”
Whatever patience had been left in his eyes disappeared.
“Was that what I told you to say?”