Chapter 7 Caged with the Wolf #2
"Because I'm not the type of woman who needs rescuing."
"No," he agrees, moving closer until I can see the gold flecks in his dark eyes. "You're the type who rescues others. Even when it costs you everything."
The compliment, if that's what it is, makes heat unfurl in my chest. When was the last time someone saw me clearly? Really saw me, not just the badge and the gun and the professional competence?
"You don't know me."
"I know you spent your own money to buy coffee for the homeless woman who sits outside your office building every morning.
I know you volunteer at a literacy program on weekends.
I know you send half your paycheck to your mother in San Antonio because your father's medical bills are crushing your family financially. "
How the hell does he know about my father?
"You really have been stalking me."
"I told you. I've been protecting you." He reaches out, fingers barely grazing my cheek. The touch is soft, reverent, completely at odds with his reputation as a killer. "Someone had to."
"I can protect myself."
"Can you? Because from where I'm standing, you've been fighting a war with both hands tied behind your back. Following rules that your enemies ignore."
He's not wrong.
The realization burns. For two years I've been playing by the Bureau's rules, following proper procedure, trusting the system to deliver justice. Meanwhile, Harrison has been trafficking witnesses and framing honest agents while hiding behind his badge and his position.
"I believed in the system."
"The system failed you."
"So what's the alternative? Become like you? Kill people who get in my way?"
"I kill people who hurt innocents." His voice hardens. "People who profit from others' pain. People who use positions of trust to destroy lives."
People like Harrison.
"That's not justice. That's vigilantism."
"Justice is a luxury for people who can afford to wait for it." He steps back, giving me space to breathe. "Tell me, Agent Castillo, how many witnesses died while you were building your case the proper way? How many families were destroyed while you followed protocol?"
The questions hit like physical blows because I don't have good answers. Because maybe he's right. Maybe sometimes justice requires getting your hands dirty.
Stop. Don't go down that path.
"I'm not a killer."
"No," he agrees. "But that doesn't always make you innocent by default.."
The words hang between us, loaded with implications I'm not ready to examine. Before I can respond, he's already moving toward the kitchen.
"You should eat something. Then we need to plan our next move."
Our next move. Like we're partners. Like I've already agreed to work with him.
I follow him to the kitchen, where he's already pulling ingredients from the refrigerator. Eggs, cheese, vegetables that look fresher than anything I've managed to keep in my own fridge. His movements are efficient, practiced, revealing that he actually knows how to cook.
Another surprise.
"You cook?"
"Enough to survive." He glances at me over his shoulder. "Fifteen years of living alone teaches you practical skills."
"Fifteen years?"
"Since I became Ghost."
Since his family died. Since Mikhail Kozlov disappeared and something harder, colder, more dangerous took his place. Fifteen years of isolation, of being feared and hunted and completely alone.
No wonder he knows how to cook, and how to treat a wound. No wonder his house feels more like a museum than a home. When you can't trust anyone, you learn to do everything yourself.
"That sounds lonely."
"It was." He cracks eggs into a bowl with mechanical precision. "Until recently."
Until recently. The implication makes heat unfurl in my chest that I absolutely cannot afford.
Don't read too much into it. You're useful to him. That's all.
But the way he looked at me when he said it suggests something deeper. Something personal that has nothing to do with usefulness and everything to do with the connection that's been building between us since that first moment in the burning warehouse.
He makes omelets that rival anything I've had in expensive restaurants, serving them with fruit and toast on plates that probably cost more than my monthly grocery budget. We eat in comfortable silence, as if we were suspended in time, or in another world.
I really wish that were the case..
"I have a scar," I say suddenly, the words emerging without permission.
He looks up from his plate, dark eyes questioning.
"On my shoulder. You mentioned it earlier." I touch the spot automatically, feeling the raised skin through my sweater. "You said I always keep it covered."
"You do."
"It's from my first year with the Bureau. Training exercise that went wrong. I was trying to prove I belonged, that I was tough enough to handle the job."
"What happened?"
"I took a risk I shouldn't have. Tried to be a hero instead of following protocol." The memory still stings, even after all these years. "Nearly got myself and two other agents killed."
"But you didn't."
"No. But I learned something important that day."
"Which was?"
"That heroes also could get innocent people killed. That following the rules keeps everyone alive." I meet his dark gaze across the table. "That there's a difference between bravery and stupidity."
"And now?"
And now I'm sitting in a criminal's house, sharing breakfast and personal stories like we're old friends instead of natural enemies.
"Now I'm not sure about anything."
Something shifts in his expression. Something that looks like understanding, or maybe approval.
"Good," he says. "Certainty is dangerous. It makes you predictable."
"Is that why you've survived so long? By being unpredictable?"
"I've survived by being useful. By eliminating problems other people can't handle." He finishes his omelet with the same efficient precision he does everything else. "But mostly, I've survived by not caring whether I lived or died."
Not caring whether you lived or died. The words make my chest tight with something I don't want to examine.
"And now?"
"Now I have something worth surviving for."
The words hang between us like a confession, loaded with implications that make my pulse skip. He's looking at me like I'm that something. Like somewhere in the past two years of watching me hunt shadows, I became important to him.
Dangerous territory, Mariana.
I stand up abruptly, needing distance before I do something stupid. Before I let myself believe that the connection I feel building between us is real instead of just circumstantial.
"I should call my mother."
"Of course."
He doesn't ask who my mother is or why I need to call her. Doesn't offer unwanted advice or try to talk me out of it. Just accepts my need to reach out to the one person in the world who loves me unconditionally.
Even when I don't deserve it.
I dial the familiar number, stomach clenching as it rings once, twice, three times.
"Mija?"
Mamá. Just hearing her voice makes my chest tight with homesickness and guilt and love so fierce it hurts.
"Hi, Mamá."
"Mariana, thank God! I saw the news, saw your picture on television. They're saying terrible things, impossible things!"
Of course she saw the news. My mother watches CNN religiously, terrified that something will happen to her daughter who chose to chase criminals for a living instead of settling down with a nice man and giving her grandchildren.
"It's not true, Mama. None of it."
"I know, mija. I know my daughter. You could never hurt innocent people."
Innocent people. The contractors who tried to kill me weren't innocent. But they were human beings with families and lives and futures that ended because of choices I made.
Choices Mikhail made to save you.
"Mamá, I might not be able to come home for a while. There are people trying to hurt me, and I need to stay somewhere safe until it's over."
"Who would want to hurt my little girl?"
My boss. My own department. The system I swore to serve and protect.
"Bad people, Mamá. But I'm safe now. I'm with someone who can protect me."
"A man?"
Trust my mother to focus on the important details.
"Yes."
"Is he good to you?"
He saved my life. He's letting me stay in his home. He makes perfect coffee and omelets that taste like heaven. He knows things about me that I've never told anyone.
"Yes, Mamá. He's good to me."
"Then I will pray for both of you. And mija?"
"Yes?"
"Be careful who you trust. Sometimes the people who claim to protect us are the ones we need protection from."
Too late for that wisdom, Mamá.
"I love you."
"I love you too, mija. Come home to me when you can."
I hang up before the tears can start, before the homesickness and guilt can overwhelm what's left of my professional composure. When I turn around, Mikhail is standing in the doorway, watching me with those dark eyes that see too much.
"She sounds like a wise woman."
"She is."
"She raised a remarkable daughter."
The compliment makes heat unfurl in my chest that I absolutely cannot afford. Not now. Not when I'm vulnerable and scared and completely dependent on his protection.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't try to charm me. Don't pretend this is anything other than necessity."
He steps closer, moving with that predatory grace that makes my pulse skip. "And if it's not pretense?"
If it's not pretense. The possibility hangs between us like a live wire, dangerous and electric and completely inappropriate.
"Then we're both in trouble."
"We're already in trouble, little wolf. The question is whether we face it together or apart."
Together. The word carries implications I'm not ready to consider. Partnership beyond necessity. Trust beyond circumstance. Something that looks dangerously like the beginning of feelings I can't afford to have.
"I need to see it," I say suddenly.
"See what?"
"Your scars. You know about mine, and I want to understand what you've been through."
For a moment I think he's going to refuse. Then something shifts in his expression, and he pulls the black sweater over his head in one fluid motion.
Holy hell.
Mikhail without a shirt is a study in controlled power.
Broad shoulders, defined chest, abs that suggest serious dedication to physical fitness.
But it's the scars that steal my breath.
Not just one, but dozens. Some surgical, others clearly from violence.
A roadmap of pain written across skin that's otherwise perfect.
"Jesus, Mikhail."
"Fifteen years of making enemies," he says matter-of-factly, like we're discussing the weather instead of evidence of a life lived on the edge of violence. "Some of them fought back."
I reach out without thinking, fingers tracing a particularly vicious scar that runs along his ribs. His skin is warm, smooth except for the raised tissue that speaks of old pain. He goes completely still under my touch, like he's afraid to breathe.
"Does it hurt?"
"Not anymore." His voice is rougher than before. "Most of the time I forget they're there."
"How do you forget something like this?"
"Practice."
Practice. Learning to live with pain until it becomes background noise. Learning to function despite carrying the evidence of violence on your skin.
I trace another scar, this one near his shoulder. "What about this one?"
"Knife fight in Prague. Three years ago."
"And this?" My finger finds a circular mark that's obviously from a bullet.
"Moscow. Five years ago."
Five years ago. While I was building cases and following protocol and believing in justice, he was bleeding in Moscow from a gunshot wound that nearly killed him.
"Why?" The question emerges without permission. "Why live like this?"
"Because someone has to."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer I have." He catches my hand, stilling my exploration of his scars. "I became what I am because the world needed someone willing to do ugly things to protect beautiful ones."
Beautiful ones. Like Mila. Like the reformed families trying to build legitimate lives. Like federal agents who believe in justice even when the system fails them.
Like me.
"I should hate you," I whisper.
"You should."
"I should arrest you."
"You should do that too."
"But now I don’t want to do it anymore."
He steps closer, close enough that I can see the gold flecks in his dark eyes, can smell the clean scent of his cologne mixed with something uniquely him.
"Because you're beginning to understand that the world isn't black and white. That sometimes the monsters wear badges, and sometimes the heroes work in shadows."
Heroes. The word makes me think of that training exercise, of the lesson I learned about the difference between bravery and stupidity. About following rules versus doing what's right.
Maybe there's a third option I never considered. Maybe sometimes being a hero means choosing the gray areas. Means working outside the system when the system is broken.
Dangerous thinking.
But maybe dangerous thinking is exactly what this situation requires.
"What happens now?" I ask.
We discussed this briefly before. The possibility of a life beyond this crisis. Beyond the hunt and the hunted, the phantom and the agent who chased him. He doesn't say "together," but it hangs between us anyway.
"I've never run from anything in my life."
"I know."
"I don't know how to be anything other than FBI."
"You'll learn."
He talks like he's already decided we're in this together for the long haul.
Like he wants us to be.
"This is insane."
"Completely."
"We barely know each other."
"I know you'd rather die than compromise your principles. And that’s enough for me." His thumb traces across my knuckles, the touch gentle but possessive. "You're the strongest person I've ever met, and the most beautiful."
The words make heat spiral through my chest in ways that are completely inappropriate given our circumstances.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't say things this personal."
"It's been personal since the moment I decided saving you was worth exposing myself."
Since the moment I decided saving you was worth exposing myself. The confession hangs between us like a bridge I'm not sure I'm brave enough to cross.
"Okay," I whisper.
"Okay?"
"We do this together. We clear our names and expose Harrison's network." I look into those dark eyes that see everything. "And afterward..."
"Afterward we figure out what comes next."
The possibility hangs between us like a promise or a threat, depending on how brave I'm willing to be.
But for the first time since this nightmare started, I don't feel completely alone.
And that's enough for now.