Killian has spent his life carrying the name Wolfe like a curse, but now, for the first time, he’s digging into the truth of who he really is… and what Robert Wolfe tried to erase. This chapter marks a turning point. From here on, it’s not about survival, it’s about reclamation. Bloodlines. Vengeance. Legacy. And maybe, just maybe… love. Stay sharp. Things are about to unravel.
The garden was overgrown now. Vines climbed over cracked marble benches, weeds threaded through the paths once manicured by staff who’d long since been dismissed or silenced. No one visited this corner of the estate anymore.Except me.I knelt near the old stone sundial at the far end of the garden, the place my mother used to sit when she thought no one was watching. She’d come here often, sometimes for hours, hands folded in her lap, face turned toward the sky as if waiting for something. Or someone.I used to think she was praying.Now I knew better. She was mourning the man she loved. The man whose initials were etched into the back of the locket.K.J.For all the love we were never allowed.I rolled the locket between my fingers, letting it catch the late sun as it slid toward the horizon. The warmth didn’t touch me. Not anymore.I was colder now.Sharper.Hungrier.I stood, brushing dirt off my slacks, and headed for the gate at the edge of the property, where my bike waited. I’
The Wolfe estate had never been quiet.Even in the dead of night, something always hummed. The distant shouting of Robert. The whispers of Victor at my door, giving orders. The shift of guards moving past windows, their comms crackling low. I used to hate that noise.Now, I missed it.Now, there was only silence. And I hated that more.The curtains hung still against the windows, unmoving despite the storm that had passed through the night before. The morning sky was gray, swollen with the promise of more rain, but no wind stirred the heavy air. My tea had long gone cold beside the window seat. I hadn’t touched it.I couldn’t remember the last time I tasted anything and felt it.There were bruises on my ribs that had faded, but not completely. There were wounds lower, deeper, that hadn’t even begun to scar. And in the middle of it all, a strange hollowness, like someone had cut me open and left the cavity empty.Victor had barely been around for days now.And it felt like the rope arou
I couldn’t sleep.The photo burned a hole in my pocket the entire drive home. I didn’t take it out again. I didn’t need to. His face was already burned into my mind, the same eyes, same crooked smirk, same storm sitting behind the gaze. I looked in the mirror and saw that man staring back.Not Robert Wolfe. Not the devil who raised me with silence and control.The man Robert murdered.I dropped the photo on the desk, flicked the lamp on, and opened the box Ezra had given me Inside were things that belongs to my mother, things Robert took from her. A locket. Letters she never sent. A pressed flower from a garden she used to visit on the north estate. I’d never paid attention before to her frequent visits there.Now I wanted the truth so badly it tasted like iron in my mouth.I cracked the locket open. No photo inside. Just a name etched faintly into the inside curve.K.JAnd beneath it:“For all the love we were never allowed.”My jaw tightened.That was it. A ghost. A fucking initial
The cursor blinked against the dark screen like a warning.I leaned over the desk, the flash drive connected to my laptop, its contents slowly unraveling. Not all of it made sense yet, at least, not in a way I could use. But the patterns were beginning to emerge.Transaction logs routed through offshore accounts. Silent wire transfers to a company that didn’t exist on paper but somehow owned half the land surrounding Wolfe Enterprises headquarters. Surveillance clips, grainy, low-resolution, but damning, marked with metadata from a private contractor Robert Wolfe used when he wanted someone to disappear.I clicked through email threads next, buried deep in an encrypted folder, hidden under the name Foxglove. Fitting. Pretty name. Poisonous flower.Subject lines were mundane: “Q1 Reports,” “Asset Review,” “Meeting Notes.” But once decrypted, they bled meaning. Inside jokes about “wedding presents” that cost human lives. Attachments labeled with redacted contracts. Notes about personnel
The sheets were cold, and Ivy wasn’t in them.Victor sat on the edge of his bed, bare chest damp with sweat, the moon light bleeding through the windows. He hadn’t slept in two nights. Couldn’t. Not when the woman he wanted most was curled up in someone else’s thoughts, maybe even someone else’s arms right now if he did not have her under lock and keys. His brother’s.The thought sent a jagged burn through his veins.He stood, pacing to the minibar without flipping on a light. He knew this room like he knew his own skin, polished, expensive, hollow.One glass of scotch wouldn’t fix anything.But it would numb him enough to forget the ache between his legs, the frustration simmering just beneath the surface. He poured two fingers worth, drank it down in one swallow. It burned. Good.He didn’t just want sex. He wanted a war.And he couldn’t have it with Ivy. Not like this. Not when she looked at him with eyes full of guilt and lips full of silence. She was still sweet, still trying to l
The rain hadn’t started yet, but I could feel it coming.It hung in the air like a held breath, dense, electric, almost oppressive. From the floor-to-ceiling windows of my apartment, the skyline looked like it was holding a secret. The clouds above the city bruised darker by the minute, pregnant with a storm that had no intention of waiting long.I was nursing a glass of whiskey, pacing slowly through the dim light of my living room, thoughts spinning like a blade. Ezra had gone quiet. Again. He’d said he was working on it… “just a few more days”… but I knew better. Men like him didn’t go dark unless something bigger was at play.And right now, the silence felt like a warning.A knock cut through the quiet.I froze.Not the buzzer. Not the doorman. A knock. That meant someone had gotten past the front desk, past the private elevator, past the security I paid a small fortune for. Which meant whoever was on the other side of that door either had clearance……or didn’t give a damn about cl