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T hey say the pain of losing a limb is nothing in the moment when compared to the pain of its ghost.

It’s called having a phantom limb.

Now, I don’t know what gives people with all their fucking parts the right to make such statements, but it doesn’t seem to stop them.

I guess I’m a hypocrite because I am one of them.

See, my body might be whole, but there’s a part of me that’s been missing, maybe since the day I was born.

A wound I can’t see, can’t stitch up, can’t bandage.

And just like a phantom limb, that missing piece has haunted me for most of my life.

But I never realized what it was—what she was—until the summer she turned sixteen.

Aella Fury.

Her name alone sounds like the whisper of a storm, and Jesus, did she ever hit me like one.

Her sweet sixteen party was one of those extravagant, Gatsby-level affairs—chandeliers dripping with crystal, gold-rimmed champagne flutes, a live orchestra playing under the stars.

The kind of party that only serious money can throw.

The kind where everyone sips, smiles, and pretends there aren’t bodies buried in the family name.

I have no problem with that.

How could I when I was a Volkov for all intents and purposes?

Vipers and Wolves.

That’s what we are.

And I never felt more like a Wolf than I did the day she turned sixteen.

I can still see her on that day in my mind’s eye.

Her pale green dress was so pretty and fresh, fluttering around her soft, youthful body.

The color made her unusually light eyes glow like fireflies in the dark.

Aella Fury .

Untouchable, ethereal, and mine in some unspoken way I had no right to claim.

When I took a turn with her around the dance floor, I knew I was in trouble.

So I did the only thing I could.

I left town the next morning.

Packed a bag, enlisted , and threw myself into the kind of violence that carves a man hollow.

I spent seven years overseas, getting good at killing, getting worse at feeling.

MARSOC— the Marine Forces Special Operations Command —turned me into a weapon, honed to precision, sharpened with blood.

I stopped being a man and became a blade, wielded in the dark by the hands of my government.

A tool for war.

A ghost in the shadows.

The men and women I served with might have started out with visions of glory, but war has a way of stripping away illusions.

Some made it home in body, but not in mind. Others? They came back in flag-draped coffins.

Me? I came back, and that was all that mattered, right?

So what if my hands were bloodied?

Sure, I have nightmares. Who doesn’t?

But there’s one thing I have that most don’t.

A reason.

One thing that kept me sane.

One thing I held onto when everything around me was chaos and carnage.

Her.

Every time I closed my eyes at night, I saw her.

Aella.

Her name became my lifeline, the only tether keeping me from slipping into the abyss. She didn’t even know it, but she saved me more times than I can count.

I stayed in MARSOC for seven years. Seven years of unspeakable things. Seven years of blood and fire. Until I couldn’t stay away any longer.

I did my job. I served my country. My conscience is clear—or at least, as clear as a man like me can hope for.

People think war is something that only happens on battlefields, but they’re wrong. War never ends.

There’s always another enemy, another operation, another dirty job that needs doing in the name of national security. Some covert op designed to save the world that no one ever hears about.

That’s what me and my team did. That’s what we bled for.

My last mission? It cost more than I was willing to pay.

Half the team didn’t make it.

The ones who did? I made sure they came home with me.

Now, I keep them close. Hired them to work for me.

That’s what men like me do—what I was taught to do by my family.

I take care of my own.

Some soldiers can’t leave the fight behind, and the least I could do was give them something to hold on to.

A purpose. A job. A way to survive outside of war.

Most ex-military go into security, and I had enough connections in that world to make sure my people were covered.

Some say you never really leave the battlefield. I don’t know if that’s true, but I know this—violence doesn’t own me anymore.

I know how to temper my mind, how to separate the man I was from the man I need to be now.

Leaving Aella behind?

Staying away from her?

That was the hardest thing I ever did.

But now I’m back.

So is she.

And this time?

I’m going to claim what’s mine. She’s finally old enough, and I’ve had enough waiting.

For years, Aella was this ghost, my very own phantom limb, haunting my every thought. Taking up space rent free in the jumble of my mind.

The men who raised me, my father and uncles, had a history with obsessive behavior when it came to their wives, and I had a feeling I was cut from the same cloth.

It made sense, right?

Even now, those thoughts swirled around my head as I grip the leather armrest of my seat in the private jet.

The engine hums beneath me, my blood buzzing with something close to anticipation.

The girls— my sisters, cousins, honorary and not —are in the back, giggling over drinks, Aella tucked right in the middle of them.

We’re headed to Vegas of all places.

Of fucking course we are.

I wonder if I’ll make it through this weekend without starting a war with my own family.

See, I know her father. Hell, I even called him uncle when I was a kid.

We aren’t related, but I know how protective he is of his daughter.

I’ve been waiting for years for the opportunity to make Aella mine. Yeah, I tried to resist, but it’s no good.

I can’t hold back any longer.

See, Aella is my missing piece. My phantom limb.

But she’s not out of reach anymore.

And I don’t think I have it in me to walk away, even if I’m too fucked up for a woman like her.