“I don’t like options that involve you or males you know.Go away.”
“Butyourbrother is an option?”He drifts closer, charging the air with his overbearing maleness.“You want to wake with a knife to your throat?”
I know he’s right, but accepting his help feels reckless.I’d rather take my chances with Jag.Better the enemy I know than the one I don’t.
“I have a better idea.”He shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it over my shoulders.“Come to the island with me.”
Heady notes of vanilla vodka, weathered leather soaked by rain, and a trace of tobacco overwhelm my senses.Wolf’s scent.Masculine and dangerous, like a motorcycle ride through a thunderstorm.
I frown.“What island?”
“My father’s.”He motions toward the harbor.“Just across Sitka Sound.”
“I don’t know you.”
“My father is Monty Novak.Google him.”He studies his chewed fingernails.“Go ahead.I’ll wait.”
I pull out my phone, and the search results punch the breath from my lungs.
Monty Novak.The richest man in Alaska.His name is everywhere—business articles, interviews, photos of him standing beside world leaders and celebrities.
“This isyourdad?”I lob a dubious look at Wolf.
“The captain of his yacht will confirm it.”
“And this captain will take us to your dad’s private island?”
“You’ll be safe there.”
“I don’t need you to keep me safe.”
“I know.You handled yourself like a shield maiden back there.”Raindrops cling to his lashes, softening his eyes.“I was just there to make sure you didn’t have to do it alone.”
“Why?”Heat flares up my spine.
“She wants a reason,” he mumbles to himself.“Right.Okay.I need to earn your trust.Let’s see…” He paces in the rain, shoulders hunched in his black T-shirt.“Being alone sucks.That’s the reason.”
His expression contorts, revealing raw, unexpected vulnerability that pinches my chest.I expect him to leave it at that, but he doesn’t.
“For twenty-four years, I was held captive by a psychopath in the Arctic Circle.”He rubs a hand down his shirt as if massaging wounds beneath the fabric.“I’ve only been in civilization for six months.”
His words penetrate my chest and punch the air from my throat.He says it so plainly, like it’s just a fact of life, like it doesn’t crack open the world beneath him.
“You’re lying.”
“Look up my brothers.Leonid and Kodiak.Same last name as mine.Strakh.”
I hesitate before searching, and sure enough, their names flood the screen.
Kidnapped as children.Raised in isolation.Stranded until starvation and near death.Escaped on a plane after teaching themselves how to fly it.
A lifetime of horror buried under sensationalized headlines.It’s all there.Including a heavily-reported missing persons case.Frankie Novak, wife of billionaire Monty Novak, was found alive one year ago when she escaped with the Strakh men.
I remember this story, but the details are fuzzy.Wolf’s involvement doesn’t ring any bells as I search on variations of his name.Wolf, Wolfson Strakh…
“Your name isn’t mentioned in any of this.”I glance up at him.
“Because I didn’t exist.”His lips flatten.“Not in records.No birth certificate.Not until my father aided in my escape six months ago and forged the documents to make me a legal citizen.”
