“I said she’s not your concern.”
The silence stretched, taut as a wire about to snap.I could hear Viktor weighing his options, deciding whether to push.He was my brother in arms, one of the few wolves I trusted with my back in a fight.But even trust had limits in the Bratva.Especially when the Alpha was watching.
“Be careful, Raphael.”His voice was almost gentle.Almost kind.The tone of a man delivering a warning he wished he didn’t have to give.“Attachments make us weak.And weakness gets people killed.”
He hung up before I could respond.
I sat in the cold study, surrounded by the evidence of my obsession, and felt the walls closing in.Viktor was right.Max was right.The rules existed for a reason.I’d seen what happened to wolves who let themselves get attached to humans.I’d lived through the aftermath of my father’s particular brand of love.
I should tell her.I should wake her up, tell her everything, give her the truth she deserved.She would hate me.She would run.But at least she would understand what she was dealing with.At least she would have the information to protect herself.
Tell her.The wolf was howling now, desperate and furious.Truth.She deserves truth.Our mate deserves truth.
But if I told her, she would leave.And if she left, she would be unprotected.The stalker was still out there, still watching from inside her own hotel.Whoever had killed her friend’s dog, sabotaged her heating, leaked her private information to the press.My people hadn’t been able to identify them yet, but I knew they were close.Too close.Watching.Waiting.Patient in a way that made my wolf’s hackles rise every time I thought about it.
If she ran from me, she would run straight into danger.
I couldn’t allow that.
She’s safer not knowing.When the threats are eliminated, when the stalker is found and the Senator is finished and the dust has settled, then she can know.Then I’ll tell her everything.The justification tasted like ash.
The lie tasted like the whiskey.Bitter and burning and too easy to swallow.
I knew what I was doing.I knew the justification was hollow.I was keeping her in the dark not to protect her, but to protect myself.To keep her close.To delay the inevitable moment when she looked at me with those clear eyes and saw the monster I really was.
I was controlling her for her own good.
Just like her father had.
The parallel made me sick, bile rising in my throat.I poured another drink anyway.Let the alcohol blur the edges of the recognition that was eating me alive.I was no better than Richard Hughes.No better than my grandfather.I’d told myself I was different, that my darkness served a purpose, that I would never be the kind of man who hurt the people he claimed to love.
But here I was.Building the same prison her father had built around her, just with different bars.
The wolf howled, furious and desperate, clawing at the inside of my skull.
I drank until he went quiet.
The pre-dawn light was gray through the windows when I finally made my way back to the bedroom.Hours had passed in the study, watching the news cycle feed on the scandal I’d created, tracking the first cracks appearing in the Prescott dynasty.The Senator’s office had gone dark, no response, no denial.Political analysts were already calling it the end of an era.
I should have felt satisfied.I felt nothing but tired.
The hallway was cold beneath my bare feet, but the bedroom was warm when I pushed open the door.She’d shifted in her sleep, reaching for the empty space I’d left behind.Her arm was stretched across my side of the bed, fingers curled around my pillow like she was trying to hold onto something that wasn’t there.The sight made something ache in ways I didn’t want to examine.
I stripped off my clothes and slid back under the covers.The sheets had gone cool in my absence, the warmth she’d generated long since dissipated.But she turned toward me immediately, her body seeking mine even in sleep, and when I pulled her against my chest she made a small sound of contentment that nearly undid me.
“You were gone.”Her voice was thick with sleep, barely conscious.
“I’m here now.”
She nuzzled into my neck, inhaling, her breath warm against my skin.Even half-asleep, she was learning me.Reading me in ways no one else ever had.
“You smell like whiskey.”
My arms tightened around her.She noticed too much.She saw too clearly.Every day she spent with me, she got closer to the truth I was hiding.
“Go back to sleep.”
But she was waking up now, her body responding to the tension in mine.She pulled back just enough to look at my face, her eyes searching in the gray light filtering through the curtains.Those eyes.Shining and honest and seeing more than I wanted her to see.
