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)
“Frankie was there.” I start slow, making small, careful circles. “The last time you drew this on.”
He makes an uncomfortable sound in his throat.
“That’s why you don’t want her to see it?” I keep my touch light. “It’ll traumatize her?”
“Yeah.” His mouth flattens beneath my fingers, troubled and sad. “Like a breaking storm.”
I work the sanitizer into the ink, watching the lines blur, lift, and surrender in streaks of gray and pink. His skin is already irritated, tender from over-cleaning.
I think about the life he survived. The isolation, starvation, kin punishment, molestation, and men who enjoyed breaking things. Loss layered on loss until pain became background noise. Worse than the hell Dove and I navigated, and ours was fucking brutal.
I’m glad he let me read the journal.
Without it, I don’t think I could sit here like this. I’d still be guessing at his depths and angles instead of understanding the cost. It gives me the clarity I need to move forward with him, whatever forward ends up meaning.
The cloth darkens. The smile fades.
In Sitka, I’ll get my equipment back. I’ll contact Restrepo. I’ll bargain, threaten, and trade favors I shouldn’t owe.
I’ll sell my soul to get Dove back.
Whatever is left of me when it’s done, I’ll give to her and Wolf.
I know what I am now. A hacker for the cartel, and they don’t let go. I won’t pretend I can escape, not without dragging hell behind me. That door is closed.
But if I let myself dream, just for a second, I would give Dove and Wolf the world. Not to own it. Not to stand in the middle of it. Just to be allowed to exist at the edges of their life together.
Eventually, the last of the ink disappears. I use a bottle of water to wipe away the harsh sting of sanitizer.
When I’m done, I tip his chin up with two fingers and look him over. “It’s gone.”
“Blue princess.” He studies my face.
I hold his gaze, waiting for the questions.
“Were you leaving breadcrumbs for me on purpose?” His eyes sharpen despite the exhaustion. “Or was it a slip?”
“It was a clue. Insurance. One I didn’t think you’d ever need.”
He nods, absorbing that, then tilts his head. “What about the rock at the gravesite? The passcode?”
“That was for Dove. I left it the last time I went to California.”
“When you killed Gavin.”
Shock grips me, followed by a hard snap of defensiveness. I don’t know why I bother feeling either. Wolf doesn’t miss details. He devours them.
He’s frighteningly smart.
And Dove? Yeah. She pieced it together, too.
“I’d do it again.” I let the confession hover.
He watches me, seeing everything, and somehow still staying right where he is.
“You know all my secrets. I’m fully exposed.” His mouth tips. “You have the advantage, because I don’t know yours.”
“Dove told you everything, I’m sure.”
“Only what she knows. I want your story.”
“There’s too much to unpack.” I lean back along the sofa, air leaving my lungs. “None of it happens with Russians on board.”
“Then start with the past ten days.” He softens his tone. “Tell me about the kill room.”
The engine hum fills the space between us. I close my eyes for a second, seeing concrete and chains and torture that never turns off.
Then I open them and meet his patient gaze.
“All right.” I shift on the couch and open my arms.
He moves in, careful at first. We adjust without speaking, twisting our too-big frames in the narrow space. I stretch along the seats with my back to the wall, and he settles on his side against my chest and between my legs. His head fits just right in the crook of my shoulder, and I rest my arm around him.
Dove is the only person I’ve ever held this way. That long-lost familiarity burrows inside my chest, old and warm and quietly devastating.
Christ, I miss her.
Closing my eyes, I let myself sink beneath the heat of Wolf’s body. Then I tell him about the kill room.
I don’t linger on the beatings. Those were crude and predictable. I move past them and go straight to the part that mattered.
“The screen never turned off. They unhooked the rig sometimes so it wouldn’t damage my eyes. But when I closed them, she was still there. That was part of the torture. Let me think I escaped for a minute. Then find her again inside my head.”
Wolf stays still, breathing steady, listening.
“I refused to cooperate.” I run the backs of my fingers along his arm. “I told Crowe I’d do nothing until I saw her in person. Not on a feed or through a camera lens. Something felt wrong. I couldn’t explain it, but my gut kept telling me the video wasn’t right. How did you know it was a fake?”
“Mikhail said the shadows didn’t line up. So I looked closer.”