He leaned closer, voice low and deadly honest.
“To use myself as bait.”
Fear stabbed through me — sharp and immediate.
“No,” I said. “Absolutely not.”
Wolf met my gaze evenly. “Nora. They want proximity. Control. They want to reassert dominance over what they failed to shape. They have to be finished.”
Tears burned my eyes. “And what if they hurt you?”
His voice softened. “Then they die trying.”
I shook my head. “I won’t lose you.”
He reached up and brushed his knuckles along my jaw.
“You won’t,” he murmured. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”
I searched his face — this man who stood like a shield and a weapon all at once.
“Promise me,” I whispered.
His eyes locked onto mine.
“I promise,” he said. “They don’t get you. They don’t take you. And they never touch your life again.”
The vow settled into the room like steel.
Havoc exhaled. “Alright.”
Trigger adjusted his gear. “Then let’s end this.”
Saint shut his laptop with a decisive click. “Keller thinks he’s still the smartest man in the room.”
Wolf smiled — slow, dangerous.
“Then we let him believe that,” he said.
“And we burn his program to the ground.”
I reached for Wolf’s hand.
He squeezed back.
For the first time since the nightmare began —
I wasn’t being hunted.
I was part of the fight.
38
Wolf
The lodge went quiet after the plan was set.
Not the calm kind of quiet —
