I want to sleep. I need to sleep. But more than that, I need to turn on a light. The Bad Men come in the dark.
Something rotten coats the back of my throat.
“Sleep,” he says again.
That’s an order I can’t obey. Not in the dark. “I can’t,” I say, panic rattling through my voice.
“I’ll take you back to your hotel in the morning.”
“I don’t care—” I start to argue, because it’s not the hotel that has me panicked. “I— I need light.”
“Shh,” he says again.
But I’m sitting up. I’m fumbling for the nightstand, for the lamp. I’m searching for a button to push, a toggle to rock, anything to flood the room with light. I’m shaking. I’m frantic.
He finally reaches across me and triggers the control Icouldn’t find. Light flares and relief rolls over me in waves. “I’m sorry,” I say, a sob swelling the back of my throat. “The dark… I can’t…”
He smooths my hair from my face. He pulls me back to rest against him. “Shh,” he says one more time.
“Don’t turn it off,” I beg.
“I won’t.”
“I mean after I’m out. So you can sleep.”
“I don’t sleep.”
That’s a lie. Everybody sleeps. But even though I don’t believe him, I’m too tired to fight now. I’ll call him a liar in the morning. When I remind him that I hate him. That this was a mistake. That we’re never doing this again.
With the light on, I finally give in to my exhaustion. I don’t dream. I don’t move. I just sleep, deeper than I have in years, maybe since the Bad Men, maybe ever.
Which means I’m completely confused when I hear the jangle of a phone. After a lifetime, I fumble for mine, wondering who could possibly be calling. But my mobile isn’t on the nightstand. I remember it’s in my pocket. In my skirt. In the other room.
Wolf finds his phone while I’m still piecing things together. I feel him shift, and I open one eye to see him glaring at his own device. He swears at the screen, then stabs at the glass with one insistent finger.
“Wolf,” he says, and I realize he’s put the call on speaker.
I’ve made it up to one elbow. I start to twist, looking for a clock, but I’m frozen by the voice that booms from the phone.
“Mr. Wolf,” my father says. “I have a business proposition for you.”
7
COLE
If this were a typical morning, I’d end the call right now. That’s the main perk of being a billionaire—I choose whom I work with. And I have absolutely no desire to do business with Barry Lynch. He’s a petty mob boss in a minor territory, with limited potential for growth in a highly competitive field.
Plus, his wife is a narcissistic bitch who abuses her daughter.
The daughter I tied up last night. Who cuts herself. And who can’t fall asleep in the dark.
But after Kate finally did sleep, I spent my time fielding messages on my phone. Three more clients have heard about the dark web hit list. One—Sungold Logistics—was mentioned by name, another reference I supplied confidentially to Banque Wagner. The other two aren’t listed anywhere, but they’re running scared.
Seven million dollars here, eleven there—we’re starting to talk real money.
I could survive perfectly well if I never earned anotherdollar for the rest of my life. But I’m not ready to retire. I need Lone Wolf to keep my overactive mind busy, so I don’t become just another dickhead with a superyacht.
And I don’t run a charity. The best way to measure Lone Wolf’s success is counting dollars in and dollars out. I’m forty million in the hole after Kate’s Red Cap venture yesterday. I need to balance the books.
