Matias hums, thoughtful.“The terms have changed.”
“What?”Blood drains from my cheeks.“How?”
“The wolf comes with you.”
“No.That isn’t—”
“We’ll discuss in person.Youandthe wolf.”
I feel Wolf vibrating beside me, every instinct screaming at him to intervene.But he doesn’t.He trusts me.Or he’s trying to.
Every instinct I have wants to push, threaten, bargain, anything that proves I’m still in control.I swallow all of it.I know better.
Thejefeis waiting for the crack, waiting for me to bleed into the line.I don’t give it to him.I don’t argue, plead, or ask for mercy that doesn’t exist.
I make one request.“Let me hear her voice.”
“Send the Russians away.”Matias exhales slowly.“Then we speak.Tomorrow night.”
“Put her on the phone.I need to hear—”
The line goes dead.
“Fuck!”I hurl the cradle across the room.“Fuck!Fuck!Fuuuuck!”
I need her.
I need to see her.I need to hear her breathe, hear her say my name, curse me to hell, or tell me to stop controlling everything.Anything.This silence is killing me faster than Crowe ever could.
The setback drops me like a collapsing floor.
Ten days in the kill room come rushing back, light that never dimmed, chains that never loosened, the screen that never shut off.And it keeps going.Years pile on.Decades.Running, planning, cutting pieces off myself to survive.All of it crashes into me, and I can’t pull in enough air.
My chest caves in, and my hands claw uselessly at my shirt.Black rings the edges of my vision, and I make a sound I don’t recognize.A raw, tortured sound.It wrenches out of me before I can stop it.
A sob.Loud.Ugly.Out of control.
I know I’m frightening Wolf.He crouches beside me, grabbing my shoulders, my face, my hair, shouting, demanding, and pleading, ready to fight the world for me.I don’t want him to see this.I don’t want anyone to see this.
But I can’t shut it down.
Everything is everywhere.Fear, rage, grief, regret, there’s no order or hierarchy as the vicious storm barrels through me.I double over, elbows on my knees, and forehead in my hands, unable to stop another sob shuddering out of me, broken and useless.
I’ve spent my entire life being the one in control, and now, I have none.
The spiral grows louder.Images of Dove, bound, raped, and screaming where I can’t reach her—it’s all I see.
Until a fist grips the back of my head.Fingers tighten in my hair.My neck is forced back, my lips opened without negotiation as Wolf’s mouth attacks mine.
He doesn’t ask.He doesn’t tease.
He demands.
The kiss hauls me back from the edge by force, rough and unbending, all teeth and growl.It’s an order delivered with a strong, combative tongue, lapping the air from my lungs and replacing the noise in my head withStay here.Feel me.
I snarl into it and grab him back, one hand around his neck, the other catching his hip.I drag him onto my lap, and he straddles me like that was always his destination.
The kiss turns feral, licking and biting in a clash of mouths that edges toward fighting, both of us pouring everything we want into the connection.
