Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Acceptance. Belonging. That’s what this strange elastic band is around my chest.
I didn’t hack my way into this family. Didn’t break into it or outmaneuver it.
I earned it.
A swallow sticks in my throat. My jaw aches, and my eyes burn to the point of pissing me off.
The Strakhs have claimed me, but my life is no longer my own.
I made a deal with no escape. I’m dangerous, compromised, and hunted. But I’m not alone.
That changes everything.
I set my fingers on the keyboard. The screen resolves. A door opens in code. I lean in, pain forgotten, every sense narrowing to the thread that leads outward, off the island, across the dark, toward the only point that matters.
No more delaying. It’s time to tell him.
“Two weeks ago, I made a painstaking decision.” I twist in the chair and grip Wolf’s wrist, pulling him to stand before me. “I traded my life in exchange for protection. Protection for you and Dove.”
“Traded…” His eyes thin to deadly slits. “With whom?”
“The Restrepo cartel.”
“I’m sorry… What?” His face turns violent-red. “You traded your life? To a cartel?”
“I need you to remain calm.”
“I will do no such thing!” His snarl whips through the room. “Undo it, Jag. Undo it, right now. You have ten seconds to reverse the trade before I walk into traffic and make this weird, public, and deeply regrettable.”
“Shut up and listen.” I launch to my feet and grab his throat. Not hard. Just enough to get his attention. “This isn’t about me. It’s about getting Dove back.”
“She’s with the fucking Restrepo cartel!” His eyes bulge, and his breath seethes. “You told me she was safe!”
“Goddammit, she is!” I lower my voice and look him square in the eyes. “I’m getting her back, but this is delicate.”
“How delicate?”
“They’re paranoid. I’m calling them now, and I need you to be dead quiet. Okay?”
He blinks, presses his lips together, and nods.
“Okay.” I blow out a breath and return to the chair.
No hesitation this time. Same burner. Same cradle. Same ritual. Set the token, enter the code, and don’t breathe until the lights cycle and the line tunnels its way around the world.
It rings once.
Twice.
Then the click.
I put the call on speaker and give Wolf a warning look.
“¿Otra vez?” The voice is unmistakable. Calm, amused, and predatory in the way only men with nothing to fear can afford. “El Vigilante already spent his favor.”
“You know why I’m calling.”
“Si,” Matias Restrepo says. “We have her.”
Wolf goes rigid beside me, his body sharpening like a blade about to slip its sheath.
“I agreed to your terms.” I force my hands to relax on the keyboard. “Those terms did not include taking her.”
“We had two options,” Matias says mildly. “Save the bird. Or save you. Did we make the wrong choice?”
“No. You didn’t.” I swallow the roar in my throat. “Return her to me, and I’ll come to you freely and permanently.”
Wolf’s head snaps toward me, shaking hard, furious disagreement reddening his face.
I jab a finger at him and give him my stoniest expression.
Matias hums, thoughtful. “The terms have changed.”
“What?” Blood drains from my cheeks. “How?”
“The wolf comes with you.”
“No. That isn’t—”
“We’ll discuss in person. You and the wolf.”
I feel Wolf vibrating beside me, every instinct screaming at him to intervene. But he doesn’t. He trusts me. Or he’s trying to.
Every instinct I have wants to push, threaten, bargain, anything that proves I’m still in control. I swallow all of it. I know better.
The jefe is waiting for the crack, waiting for me to bleed into the line. I don’t give it to him. I don’t argue, plead, or ask for mercy that doesn’t exist.
I make one request. “Let me hear her voice.”
“Send the Russians away.” Matias exhales slowly. “Then we speak. Tomorrow night.”
“Put her on the phone. I need to hear—”
The line goes dead.
“Fuck!” I hurl the cradle across the room. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuuuuck!”
I need her.
I need to see her. I need to hear her breathe, hear her say my name, curse me to hell, or tell me to stop controlling everything. Anything. This silence is killing me faster than Crowe ever could.
The setback drops me like a collapsing floor.
Ten days in the kill room come rushing back, light that never dimmed, chains that never loosened, the screen that never shut off. And it keeps going. Years pile on. Decades. Running, planning, cutting pieces off myself to survive. All of it crashes into me, and I can’t pull in enough air.
My chest caves in, and my hands claw uselessly at my shirt. Black rings the edges of my vision, and I make a sound I don’t recognize. A raw, tortured sound. It wrenches out of me before I can stop it.
A sob. Loud. Ugly. Out of control.
I know I’m frightening Wolf. He crouches beside me, grabbing my shoulders, my face, my hair, shouting, demanding, and pleading, ready to fight the world for me. I don’t want him to see this. I don’t want anyone to see this.