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“No bargains.” Wolf massages his forehead.
“That’s right, dickhead. No bargains.”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“This isn’t your fault,” I say to him while glowering at Leo.
“We shouldn’t have left.” Leo anchors his fists on his hips, his legs braced shoulder-width apart. The breadth of his stance transmits a subconscious claiming of territory. “She doesn’t fucking belong to him.”
While I agree with him, it doesn’t change the past three weeks. Rehashing our mistakes won’t help.
The report of gunfire continues outside. As long as she’s shooting, my brothers have my attention. But we need to pull our shit together.
“How are you holding up?” I ask Wolf as I rise and snatch the pack of smokes from him.
“It’s all good in the hood.” He lifts a shoulder, the movement jerky, lacking his usual carefree grace.
“Cute. Now tell me the truth.”
“I’m better now that you’re here. Honestly, I’ve been going out of my mind. I didn’t know what to do or how to stop it.”
“Start from the beginning.” Lighting a fresh cigarette, I offer it to him. “Tell us what happened.”
“She puked her guts for the first two days. When she got better, I told her to fake it. So she did. But Denver knew. Of course, he did. He calculated when the poison would leave her system.” He draws in a shaky breath. “On the fifth night, I found her tied to the bed.”
He recounts that night with harrowing detail—every word exchanged, every abuse inflicted, every tear shed. Most of those tears were Frankie’s. Even though she wasn’t the target of the assault, she experienced it, nonetheless. Afterward, she refused to have sex with Wolf. I know it wasn’t out of cruelty or selfishness, and I can’t help but admire her even more for that.
I think, beneath the rejection and hurt, Wolf admires her for that, too.
He looks away, staring at nothing. Then I watch the slow, heartbreaking collapse of his composure.
Face buried in his hands, shoulders shaking with silent sobs, he tries and fails to hide his tears.
I share a look with Leo and approach Wolf cautiously, unsure of what to say.
“Hey.” I take a seat next to him on the crate, wrap an arm around him, and pull him close. “Shh. We’re here now.”
“I failed.” He wipes his face with the back of his hand. “She needed me, and I just…I couldn’t protect her from herself.”
“You didn’t fail, Wolf. Remember, Leo and I have been there, too, and you were there for us. We’ll figure this out. We always do.”
“I wish I had your strength.” He takes a shaky breath. “Your confidence.”
“You have your own strengths. You’re smarter than Leo.”
“Fuck you.” Leo crosses his arms.
“You have more raw musical and artistic talent in your pinky finger than Leo and I have combined.”
“Can’t argue that.” Wolf smiles weakly. “My dick is bigger, too.”
“Let’s not get carried away.” I smack him on the back of the head and stand, sobering. “We’ll face this storm together, and when it passes, we’ll be stronger than ever.”
The three of us share a quiet moment of eye contact, finding solace in togetherness. We have one another, a united front. We’ll always care, and we’ll always fight for our family—that knowledge has dug us out of our lowest points.
“I told her everything.” Wolf rakes a hand through his messy hair. “She knows about the others, about what happened to them. We had a connection that night. I can’t explain it, but when she promised me she would take me from this place, I believed her. When I fell asleep beside her, I never felt safer.”
“She had a plan.” My chest aches. “She went to Denver that night?”
He nods. “After I fell asleep. The next day, she wasn’t the same, and I knew. I knew what she did, and I confronted her. But it was like I was talking to the walking dead. Like her soul had left her body, and all that was left was a robot, going through the motions.”
A guttural noise comes from Leo, but I don’t acknowledge it.
“Did she tell you anything?” I ask. “Like what she’s planning or thinking?”
“That morning, she asked me if I can break into the plane.”
That gets Leo’s attention. He lunges toward Wolf and grips his shoulders. “Why? What asinine bullshit is she planning?”
Wolf pushes away from him and paces toward the workbench behind me. Crouching, he picks at something beneath the countertop.
“She told me she would keep Denver occupied while I broke into the plane and drew a diagram of the dashboard.” He unfolds a piece of sketch paper that was taped to the underside of the counter. “She asked me to give this to you.”
He hands the drawing to Leo.
“Jesus.” Leo stares at the detailed illustration, tracing a finger over the labels of each gauge and lever. “If he knew you did this…”
