My elbow catches his temple. He drops like a stone.
Brick Shithouse charges, all rage and muscle, no technique. I sidestep, let his momentum carry him past, and drive my knee into his kidney. Once. Twice. He stumbles and I'm on him, arm locked around his throat, squeezing until his struggles weaken.
"Tell Matthew Ashford," I murmur in his ear, "that The Wolf doesn't get neutered. He just gets hungry."
I hold until he passes out, then release him. He crumples beside his unconscious partners, and I straighten my jumpsuit like nothing happened.
The whole thing took forty-five seconds.
Guards finally notice, rushing over with batons raised. I raise my hands, compliant, and let them cuff me.
"Solitary," the lead guard barks. "Two weeks."
Fine by me. Solitary means no more of Matthew's hired muscle trying their luck. Means time to think, to plan, to figure out how to protect my family from inside these walls.
Except I don't get two weeks.
Monday morning,a guard appears at my cell. "Orlov. You made bail. Get dressed."
I stare at him. "What?"
"Bail posted an hour ago. Judge signed off. You're free to go." He unlocks the door, tossing me a bag with my clothes—the charcoal suit I wore to the custody hearing. "Move it. Processing takes time."
My brain stutters. Bail was set at $2 million. Even with my assets, liquidating that fast?—
Isabelle.
She did this. Somehow. Pulled strings or threw money or called in favors, and now I'm walking out after seventy-two hours, instead of rotting here for months waiting for trial.
Processing takes ninety minutes. Forms, releases, warnings about bail conditions and travel restrictions. I sign everything without reading, focused on one thing—getting to my daughter.
Getting to my wife.
The morning sun hits like a slap when I walk through those doors. I squint against the brightness, scanning the parking lot for Marco's town car or one of Andrei's vehicles.
Instead, I see her.
Isabelle leans against my SUV, all black leather and deadly elegance. She's wearing pants that hug every curve, heels that add three inches, and a jacket that screams expensive and dangerous. Her black hair falls loose around her shoulders, catching sunlight, and in her hands?—
Her dad's lighter.
She flips it open, closed, open, closed. That familiar rhythm I've watched a hundred times, but now it looks different. Not grief. Not remembrance.
Anticipation.
Our eyes meet across fifty feet of asphalt. Her blue gaze pins me in place, reading every injury, every bruise, cataloguing damage like she's planning retaliation.
Then she pockets the lighter and straightens. "You look like hell."
"Feel like it, too." I close the distance between us, and everything in me wants to pull her against my chest, bury my face in her hair, confirm she's real and safe. Instead, I stop a foot away. "Mila?"
"Safe. Hamptons. Andrei's watching her." Her eyes track the bruising on my jaw, the split knuckles. "You were jumped."
"Three of Matthew's men. Saturday afternoon." I flex my fingers, feeling the ache. "They're in worse shape."
"Good." She opens the passenger door. "Get in. We're going home."
I climb into the SUV, and Isabelle slides behind the wheel. She handles the vehicle like she's been driving it for years instead of days.
