“Remember what I said.”Kodiak clasps Frankie’s hand and pulls her toward the door.
She glances back once, worry wrinkling her brow.He doesn’t let her stop.
When they’re gone, the silence they leave behind is anything but empty.
“Show me how you’re monitoring Dove.”Wolf casts a glance around the sparse break room.“Where’s all your equipment?”
“You’ve seen my equipment.”I wink.“But I’ll gladly show you again.”
“Spare me the punchlines, Pornhub.”He crouches beside me, arms resting on his knees, a glint of the Arctic in those too-blue eyes.Persistent.Unamused.He’s not going to let this drop.
With a sigh, I fumble with my phone, swiping through some of my security programs.His eyes flicker over the screen, narrowing when I pull up the mechanic shop camera.
There she is, skating lazy circles around the grease-stained bays, headphones on, lost in her own world.Her hair is loose today, blue waves streaking down her back, catching the fluorescent lights.
Stunning.
Wolf’s gaze softens, almost imperceptibly.“She’s safe.”
For now.
But I’m not watching her.I’m watching him.
The sharp planes of his face.The full mouth that never stops twisting into sardonic shapes.The tension riding his shoulders like a mantle he never sets down.
He called his family to mend my hand.No one’s done anything like that for me.Ever.
“Who’s following her?”He pins me with a murderous stare.“If it’s not you, then who knows she’s here and what do they want?”
I know who’s following her.I’ve known since the moment the feed glitched for three seconds at 2:14 this morning, just long enough for a fingerprint to brush across a relay node I built myself.
They found us.
If I tell Wolf the bad news, it’s over.He’ll react.Explode.Bring the whole fucking circus down on us.He’s too impulsive, hot-blooded, and emotional.
Just like she is.
She can rebuild engines in her sleep and hotwire a city block with a screwdriver and a paperclip.But when it comes to survival, real survival, she’s still that little girl in the system, trusting the wrong foster brother, seeking affection from the wrong family.
She trusts too easily.Loves too hard.And she’ll get herself killed if she knows who’s hunting us.So I keep my secrets and stick to the plan.Like always.It’s muscle memory wired into my fucking DNA.
“Tell me what you know.”He points at the screen.“You’re hacking private cameras.How?Where is all your computer shit?”
“Blue princess.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Whatever you want.”
“I want answers!”He punches the mattress.
“So protective,” I murmur, voice roughened by fever and something hungrier.“If I ask nicely, will you climb on my lap and make me forget how you broke my wrist?”
“In your dreams, kitty cat.”His eyes remain on the screen.On Dove.
“Oh, I dream.”I grin slowly, feverishly, delighted.“You, me, and the make-out booth I built for you.Bet you’re curious how soft I can purr when you’re on top.”
He snaps his gaze to me, eyes wide, before he narrows them.“Didn’t peg you for a bottom.”
