Page 94 of His Wild Attraction

Not today.

I had to remind myself of that frequently as the driver maneuvered the crowded streets.

There was the usual rush hour traffic, plus the dinner crowd out and about on the glittering streets of Manhattan.

I understood the reason behind the sparkly shit. It was a little Mica and Silicarb mixed with the cement and asphalt.

Really, who needed to know all that?

To a kid from Hoboken, New York was still the Big Apple. It was a concrete jungle.

If you could make it there, well, you knew the rest.

I spent my youth staring across the Hudson River. Checking out the city people traveled to from all over the globe.

I always was ambitious.

Fact was the city streets glittered with asphalt and minerals. But I knew it represented magic. And what was magic but possibilities?

That was the heart of New York.

Smoke and mirrors to some, made to dazzle the tourists.

But I wasn’t one of them.

I wasn’t passing through.

New York City was my home now. And I was a wolf.

A Volkov.

The city was mine.

Ellie and Sammy were mine.

And tonight, I was going to use everything I had to protect what was mine.

I’d worked hard and long to become the man I was today. A man worthy of Ellie and Sammy. A man who could keep them safe and love them the way they deserved to be loved.

I inhaled a deep breath, sucking in the flavors of my wife as she sat still and silent beside me.

I couldn’t imagine what was going on inside her brain.

I hoped she would share it with me when she was ready. But I wouldn’t force it.

Never that.

The driver pulled up to the curb and exited the vehicle, but I was already opening my door. He knew better than to try to touch the handle on my wife’s side.

The driver just stood there, as did the other bodyguard who exited the passenger side of the SUV. I nodded, appreciating their professionalism.

But I expected nothing less from Sigma International. Josef knew what he was doing, and so did those who worked for him.

“Wait there, Angel,” I told Ellie, and she nodded.

She didn’t know about the meeting I had earlier with my investigators, her lawyers, and mine. I hadn’t told her yet.

Ellie was unaware of the intel I’d gathered on Gary Peters, and his current wife and ex-secretary.

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