“It’s not a choice.It’s what’s happening.”He gestures to the cot as if offering accommodations instead of confinement.“They’ll bring you food.Water.Whatever you need.”
“You can’t keep me—”
“I need sleep.You need sleep.Neither of us is making decisions until that happens.”
Fucking hell.This is completely, catastrophically inconvenient.
“Don’t do this.”I step toward him.“Let me go, pup.”
“I’m not locking you up because I want to.Kody was going to throw your ass in Sitka jail overnight and charge you with trespassing.I convinced him this was better.”
Fuck.
I stare at him, furious and unwilling to admit the spark of gratitude burning under my ribs.
Without looking away, he reaches for the book on the table.
“My story.”He presses it into my hands.
I look down at it, confused, then back up at him.
“The journal explains things like this.”He pulls down the neckline of his shirt, exposing the scars on his shoulder and chest.
“Why?”My fingers tighten around the book.“You can’t possibly trust me with this.”
He shrugs, casual on the surface, but there’s tension beneath it, a risk he’s taking whether he wants to or not.
“Trust isn’t a transaction I want to hold hostage.I’m offering it to you.”He gestures at the journal.“I’ll see what you do with it.See if you’ll build it with me or burn it.”
That’s a dangerous philosophy.A naïve one.Coming from him, though?It feels like he handed me a bomb.
“I won’t regret giving you my ugly secrets.”He takes a breath.“Iwillregret letting you leave without hearing yours.”
My throat closes.
“I’m offering you a choice.”He shoves his hands in his pockets.“Read my story or don’t.When I come back this afternoon, if you tell meyourstory, who’s hunting you, and why they want you, I’ll use every Strakh resource available to help you.”
Help me.
He says it so simply.So confidently.Because he doesn’t understand the impossibility of it.
Before I can respond, he turns and opens the door.
“Wolf—”
He doesn’t look back.Doesn’t stop.Doesn’t give me a single second more.
The door shuts, and the silence that follows crushes my ribs, leaving me hollow and breathless.Because I know, with a clarity that flattens me, that was the last conversation Wolf and I will ever have.
The yacht hasn’t fully docked before I jump, my rain boots slamming down with more urgency than grace.
I’ve been gone too long.Dove didn’t want me to escort Jag to Sitka in the first place, and now she’s been sitting here for two hours with nothing but her imagination to keep her company.
Kody lands beside me with four guards at his back.
The other four guards stayed at the tattoo parlor, stationed outside Jag’s room with orders not to let him sneeze without checking on him.
Jag definitely wants to kill me for this.I get it.The idea of anyone containing him makes my skin hum with something I don’t want to look at too closely.
