2. Declan #2
I flex my damaged hand, feeling the sting spread up my wrist. "Need you to come somewhere with me."
"Where?"
"You'll see when we get there."
Stellan stops walking entirely, turning to study my face with that unnerving intensity he has. Like he's reading words I haven't written yet, parsing meaning from silence.
"This about her?"
"Yeah."
"Christ." But he's already moving toward his car, resignation in every line of his body. "Fine. But if this is some romantic bullshit where you need me to help you pick out flowers or whatever the fuck people do, I'm out."
"It's not flowers."
"Then what is it?"
I don't answer, just head for my own car. He'll follow. He always does, even when he's giving me shit about it. That's the thing about Stellan—he needles and mocks and acts like he doesn't understand half of what I do, but when it matters, he's there. No questions. No conditions.
Brothers. In blood and everything that comes after.
The engine rumbles to life under my hands. I pull out my phone, checking for messages from Zola. Nothing yet. She's probably still asleep in my bed, wrapped in sheets that smell like both of us now, her dark hair spilled across my pillow.
The image makes something in my chest squeeze tight.
Stellan climbs into the passenger seat. "You telling me where we're going or am I guessing?"
"You'll see." I put the car in gear, Marcus already fading from my thoughts. "And Stel? Thanks."
He looks at me for a long moment, something almost like understanding flickering across his face.
"Yeah, yeah. Let's go before I change my mind about the whole domesticated thing being entertaining."
The streets of Philadelphia slide past my windows, early morning light turning everything soft gold and shadow.
Most of the city's still asleep, just delivery trucks and die-hard joggers breaking the silence.
I prefer it this way—empty roads, nobody to navigate around, just the hum of the engine and Stellan's occasional sigh from the passenger seat.
My knuckles ache where I grip the steering wheel, the splits still raw but already starting to scab over.
I should probably wash them when I get home, but there won't be time.
Zola will be gone by then—she has classes this morning, then her shift at that overpriced café in Center City where tourists pay eight dollars for mediocre coffee.
She'll have slipped out of my bed while I was handling Marcus, maybe left her scent on my pillow, a ghost of warmth in the sheets.
The thought makes me grip the wheel harder.
But I'll get her back tonight. Text her around three, casual but insistent.
Dinner at mine. Already got everything. She'll pretend to consider it, like she hasn't been coming over almost every night this week, like my place hasn't become as familiar to her as her own cramped apartment.
Then she'll say yes because she always does, because whatever's building between us has momentum now, gravity pulling us together whether either of us planned for it or not.
Stellan shifts beside me, checking his phone with that habitual swipe and scroll. His face is bathed in blue light, making the sharp angles sharper.
"You really have an issue with her?" The question comes out rougher than I intend, scraping past my throat. "With Zola?"
He glances up, surprise flickering across his features before he shutters it. "What?"
"All that shit you were saying back there. About domestication, about going soft." I navigate around a delivery truck, watching its brake lights flash red. "If you've got a problem with her, say it now."
Stellan's quiet for a long moment, the kind of silence that means he's actually thinking instead of just deflecting with sarcasm.
I wait him out, patient in a way I'm only patient with him and with her.
Nobody else gets this—the space to breathe, to gather thoughts, to exist without my immediate pressure.
"No." He locks his phone, setting it in his lap. "I don't have a problem with her."
"But?"
"No but." He shifts to face me more fully, and there's something in his expression I rarely see—genuine consideration, the mask of cold detachment lowering just enough to let me glimpse what's underneath.
"I like her, actually. She's sharp. Doesn't take your shit.
Doesn't try to change you into something you're not. "
I process that, turning left toward South Street. "Then why the commentary?"
"Because..." He drags a hand through his dark hair, messing it up in a way that makes him look younger, less like the calculating strategist everyone else sees.
"She's too good for all of this. For us.
For the blood under the floorboards and the bodies in warehouses and every fucked up thing we do to keep this empire running. "
My jaw tightens. "I know that."
"Do you?" His gray eyes pin me, sharp and searching. "Because from where I'm sitting, you're pulling her deeper. Making her care about you, making yourself essential to her life. And when she figures out the full scope of what we are, what we do—what happens then?"
The question sits heavy between us, weighted with all the things I don't let myself think about too hard.
Zola knows I'm not legitimate, knows the money comes from places she doesn't ask about.
But knowing in abstract and knowing in concrete detail are different countries, separated by oceans of blood and moral compromise.
"She deserves better," Stellan continues, voice going soft in that way that means he's being serious for once, really serious.
"Someone clean. Someone who doesn't come home with split knuckles and other people's blood under his nails.
Someone who can give her a normal life, whatever the fuck that means. "
"Yeah." The word scrapes out. "She does."
"But you're not letting her go."
It's not a question. I don't treat it like one.
"No." I navigate through a yellow light, watching the sun climb higher, burning off the last of the morning mist. "I'm not."
"Why?" No judgment in it, just curiosity. Stellan genuinely doesn't understand romance, looks at relationships like algebraic equations that never quite balance. "If you know she deserves better—"
"Because maybe I'm selfish." The admission tastes like copper, like blood and honesty mixed together. "Or maybe I'm delusional enough to think I can protect her from all of it. From us, from this life, from every consequence that comes with being mine."
"Can you?"
"I'll die trying." The certainty in my voice surprises even me, but it's true, solid as the concrete that built this city.
"Everything she's been through—growing up without a family, losing her mom, clawing her way up from nothing—I want to give her the world.
Want to make sure nothing ever hurts her again. "
"Declan—"
"I know it's impossible." I cut him off, needing him to understand. "I know I can't protect her from everything. But I can try. I can be what she needs, give her stability and security and someone who actually sees her instead of just looking through her."
Stellan's quiet again, processing. Then, surprising me: "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay." He settles back in his seat, something almost like approval in the set of his shoulders. "If you're all in, then you're all in. Just don't fuck it up."
I almost laugh. "That's the plan."
"Your plans are shit."
"Your face is shit."
"Weak." But he's smirking, the tension broken, and we slip back into familiar territory—brothers who needle and mock because actual affection is too raw, too vulnerable for men like us.
I turn down a narrow street near the waterfront, buildings crowding close on either side.
The club's ahead, nondescript brick facade that most people pass without noticing.
It's technically closed now, early morning sun making the neon signs look tired and washed out.
But there's always activity in the back, always games running, always people who live in the spaces between night and day.
"Where are we?" Stellan straightens, scanning the street with automatic assessment—exits, threats, territory markers.
"You'll see." I pull around to the back entrance, parking in the narrow alley where garbage bins crowd against graffitied walls. "Come on."
He follows without further questions, curiosity winning out over his usual caution.
The back door's propped open, morning light spilling into dimness that smells like cigarettes and spilled liquor and the particular musk of a place that never fully airs out.
I nod at Tommy, the day manager, who waves us through without comment.
The main floor's empty, chairs stacked on tables, cleaning crew working their way through last night's damage.
But I can hear voices from the back room, low murmur of conversation punctuated by the shuffle of cards and clink of chips.
Poker game, probably been running since midnight, probably won't stop until someone loses everything or the sun gets too bright to ignore.
I push through the door to the private room.
Smoke hangs thick in the air, blue-gray haze that makes everything slightly unreal.
Five men around a table covered in green felt, chips stacked in varying heights, cards held close.
They glance up at my entrance, tension flickering across faces before recognition settles in.
"Wolfe." The dealer nods, respectful but not servile. Good. I don't need people crawling. "You here to play?"
"Not today." I scan the room, finding who I'm looking for in the corner. "Just visiting."
Stellan tenses beside me as I head toward the man sitting apart from the game—older, maybe fifty, wearing too much gold jewelry and a leather jacket that's seen better decades.
Viktor. Sometimes fence, sometimes broker, always connected to the kind of people who can get things nobody else can touch.
"Declan Wolfe." Viktor's smile reveals a gold tooth, deliberately gaudy. "What brings you to my table?"