Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
She pulled out Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On and held it up by the sleeve.
“That one’s not for touching.” Danger’s voice drifted over from the couch.
“I’m just looking.” Zena smiled, carefully sliding the legendary record back into its slot before moving down the row.
His collection was immaculate. Her fingers brushed past Amy Winehouse, Kate Bush, and a copy of Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt in a protective sleeve so pristine it looked like it had been pressed yesterday.
“You have at least a thousand of these,” she said, looking back at him.
“Closer to fourteen hundred.”
She arched an eyebrow over her shoulder. “You counted?”
“I cataloged.” He said it simply, as if it were a perfectly ordinary Sunday afternoon activity, which, for him, she was beginning to understand was, absolutely, so.
Her fingers settled on D’Angelo’s Voodoo. She had been hunting for this vinyl since they’d visited Belle’s. Pulling it from the shelf, she held it up, flashing him a look that said, This is the one.
Danger offered a slow, approving nod.
She carefully set the needle on the turntable, letting the analog crackle fill the room before crossing over to sit beside him on the couch. Tucking her feet beneath her, she accepted the bowl of popcorn he passed her and took a handful.
After a few tracks bled into one another, the ambient mood loosened her tongue. “So…why do they call you Danger?”
Danger smiled, the corner of his mouth ticking upward. “Long story.”
“I have nothing but time.”
He leaned back against the cushions, he locked in on the ceiling as memories surfaced.
“When Havoc was coming up in the amateur boxing ranks, he used to train at Q’s gym after school.
I’d tag along, do my homework in the corner while he sparred.
One day, this kid named Chauncey… real big kid, had to be twice my size…
called me out in front of everybody.” He paused.
“I’d never backed down from a fight in my life, so I suited up. ”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve.”
Zena’s breath hitched slightly.“Dmitri.”
“I held my own,” he said. “We went back and forth for a while. Then I caught him with a tight left hook and put him flat on the canvas.” He looked over at her. “After that, everybody at the gym started calling me 'Dangerous.' Eventually, I shortened it.”
Zena studied his face, her intuition picking up on the silence radiating between his words. There was a darker undercurrent to the story than the one he was presenting.
“That’s the good version,” she noted softly.
He focused his dark brown eyes on her. “What makes you say that?”
“Because you smiled at the beginning,” she said, “and you stopped smiling in the middle.”
The room fell quiet except for D’Angelo’s raspy, soulful vocals moving like smoke through the space.
“Found out later my father had set the whole thing up,” Danger admitted, the truth dropping heavily between them. “He told Chauncey to call me out. Wanted to see what I was made of. Whether I was worth betting on.”
“Betting on,” she repeated, a chill running down her spine.
“He used to run illegal bets on amateur fights,” Danger explained.
“Havoc was undefeated, climbing the ranks fast. My father saw that Tyson and Mayweather were making money and decided to build a lucrative boxing brand around his sons. He treated us better when we were winning. When we were making him money. His love was always… conditional like that. Tied strictly to what you could earn.”
“I know that kind,” Zena said quietly.
He looked at her, his brow furrowing slightly. “Your father?”
“My father threw money at things instead of showing up. Yours sounds like he showed up for all the wrong reasons.” She slowly turned the popcorn bowl in her hands, staring into it.
Danger nodded slowly, absorbing her words. “Havoc went all the way. Undefeated for years, I was right behind him.” He paused. “Then I decided to go to college...”
“He was angry?” Zena asked.
“He acted like I’d burned the house down.” A grim shadow crossed his mouth. “Which, given everything that happened later, is ironic.”
Sensing the chill of the memory, Zena gently placed her hand over his on the couch cushion. Danger didn’t pull away. Instead, he turned his palm up, threading his fingers through hers and holding on tight.
“Do you ever talk to him?” she asked softly.
“Not in a while,” he said, his eyes following the outline of their joined hands.
“He went away when I was in college. Federal drug charges. By the time I was out here building the label, the distance had only made our relationship worse. But… Q told me something a while back about my father’s case. ”
“What did he say?”
“That the weight he was carrying wasn’t actually his.
” He chose his words carefully, as if still working out how to hold the information.
“Q got caught up in some heavy shit that would have ended their entire operation. My father stepped up and took the fall. I didn’t know that.
For over a decade, I’ve been carrying around a version of my father who did something stupid and got himself locked up. ”
“Have you called him?”
“No.”
“Are you going to?”
He fell silent, the quiet stretching long enough that Zena didn't press him for an answer. She just let him process.
“I don’t even know what I’d say,” he confessed, his voice dropping an octave. “I’ve been angry at him for so long that… I don’t know how to talk to him without my armor. Does that make sense?”
“It makes complete sense,” she said, nodding and squeezing his hand. “Sometimes anger is the last thing holding a relationship together. You take it away, and you’re terrified of what you’ll find underneath.”
His eyes lingered on her face.“What was going on with your father?” he asked.
Zena’s mind drifted back to her childhood home.
The achievement wall. The ringing phone she hadn’t answered in months. September ninth.
“Grief,” she whispered, the word catching in her throat. “Just pure grief. Missing each other from a distance we both built, one neither of us knew how to cross.” She paused, a tear threatening to spill. “And then I ran out of time to fix it.”
Danger’s hand tightened firmly around hers, offering an anchor.
“Call him,” Zena pleaded, looking him in the eyes. “Not because he deserves it. Not because your anger isn’t valid. Just—” She swallowed hard. “Don’t run out of time, Dmitri.”
He didn’t respond, but he didn’t let go of her hand either.
The smooth, rhythmic tracks of Voodoo continued to spin, providing a sanctuary against the truths they had just shared.
After a long moment, Danger cleared his throat, breaking the silence. “You got your hands too low, by the way.”
Zena blinked, caught off guard by the abrupt shift. What?”
“Earlier, when we were joking around, and you put your fists up.” He demonstrated, freeing his hand to raise his knuckles perfectly in front of his face, protecting his jaw. “You leave that space open right there, and anybody can hit you.”
“I’ve only been in three fights in my entire life, Danger.”
“I know. That’s why I’m telling you.”
He reached over, his large, warm hands gripping her wrists. He guided her arms upward, adjusting her posture and placing her hands in the proper defensive stance. His touch was firm yet tender, his knuckles brushing her cheeks as he set her stance.
“You protect yourself at all times,” he said. His face only inches from hers. “You lower your guard only when you’re absolutely certain you’re about to strike.”
She looked at him over the barrier of her own fists, her heart doing a slow flip. “Is that a boxing lesson or life advice?”
“Both,” he said softly.
Slowly, Zena lowered her hands. Danger caught them on the way down, wrapping his fingers around hers again. They sat together like that in the low light, saying nothing, letting the vinyl turn as the music shielded them from the rest of the world.
They had just finished Dinner and ventured outside to enjoy their last night in the mountains.
Danger scrolled through his phone, looking for a specific audio file deep in his cloud drive. Once he found the MP3, he hit play. In an instant, Zena’s vocals floated into the space.
It was her cover of Mint Condition’s “Breakin’ My Heart.
Zena’s eyes grew wide, her entire body freezing. “How did you get that? I thought they scrubbed everything from the internet.”
A slow smile graced Danger’s lip. “I have my ways.”
Truthfully, Danger had been following her voice for years.
When he first launched his imprint, he used to stay up late, going on deep digital sprees searching for undiscovered talent on YouTube.
That was how he had stumbled across her page.
She had been so young, so bright, just singing her heart out in front of a low-res camera, but her tone had captivated him.
He had an encrypted folder on his phone and hard drive dedicated solely to her. He’d saved every single one of those erased YouTube clips, her earliest rough demos, and even tracked down a grainy cellphone video of her very first live performance at Lucky’s.
Zena stepped into his space, her eyes gleaming with sudden emotion as she hooked her arms over his broad shoulders.
“Thank you,” she whispered, leaning her forehead against his chest. “Thank you for sharing this with me. For keeping this. I appreciate you.”
Danger didn't answer with words. He just leaned down, capturing her lips in a deep kiss.
When they broke apart, Zena cleared her throat, a playful spark in her eyes as she looked out toward the deck. “Let’s get in the hot tub.”
Without waiting for his approval, she shed her pants and slid them down her legs, tossing them onto a nearby chair. Pulling her oversized shirt over her head, she stepped out into the crisp night air and slid into the steaming, bubbling water.
“Come on, stop being a baby!” Zena teased, looking back at Danger, who was still standing by the glass door.
Danger took his sweet time, unbuttoning his shirt and stripping down to his boxers before stepping outside and joining her in the water. At first, the cool mountain air made him tighten up, but he relaxed as the intense heat embraced his lower half.
“See? Told you it was nice,” Zena said, floating backward and swishing around in the water.
“Come here,” Danger commanded.
Zena didn't protest. She moved swiftly through the water, sliding right up against his side.
Danger reached out, his hand cupping her jaw to tilt her head back while his other arm securely anchored her waist against his chest. Slowly, his warm tongue trailed down the sensitive skin of her neck. Zena squirmed against him, her body immediately submitting.
Their entire dynamic had become an exhausting roller coaster—up and down, blazing fast then agonizingly slow. Both had spent months skipping around their explosive chemistry, terrified to speak the truth out loud.
“I want you so fucking bad,” Danger whispered against her skin.
“Then have me,” Zena panted, the physical heat radiating off her flesh merging with the steam of the tub.
Danger pulled back to look into her eyes. “I mean for real. I want us. I want this. Not just the sex.”
“What’s stopping you?”
Instead of answering, Danger guided her toward the edge of the hot tub, lifting her gently so she was resting against the ledge, the water lapping at her hips.
His hands slid down her waist, his fingers slipping beneath the edge of her underwear.
With a tug, he pulled the fabric down her legs and tossed it onto the deck.
“Dmitri…”
“Let me,” he murmured.
He stayed in the water, leaning in to run his tongue over the soft curve of her stomach before tracing a path downward.
Glistening under the moonlight, she looked entirely ethereal to him.
He gripped her thighs, his hands anchoring her as he pressed his lips to her inner thigh, moving closer until his tongue found her sensitive center.
Zena let out a gasp, her hands flying to the back of his head, her fingers tangling into his short waves. He took his time, his movements steady, getting thoroughly acquainted with her body as if he were memorizing a song.
Every moan she made only urged him on, his thumb working in slow circles until she was arching her back against the tile.
“Good girl.”
Realizing the water wasn't enough, Danger stood and lifted her fully into his arms. Never breaking the heat of their eye contact, he carried her over to one of the padded lounge chairs on the deck.
He laid her down gently, the cool night air a stark contrast to the heat of his body as he settled between her thighs.
He paused at her entrance, his eyes slamming shut as he slowly eased inside her, adjusting to her tightness. A low grunt escaped his throat.
“Ahhh…Dmitri,” she cried out, her fingers digging into his shoulders as he found a steady pace.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this, Zena. Look at me,” he commanded softly.
She opened her eyes, meeting his gaze. He looked down, watching the seamless slide of their bodies as they connected. This exact feeling was the reason he had tried so hard to avoid this for so long. He knew the moment he touched her like this, he would be addicted.
Zena reached up, framing his face with her hands and pulling him down into a deep kiss.
Fueled by the emotion vibrating between them, she shifted her weight, rolling him onto his back and climbing on top of him to take control.
Straddling his hips, she began to ride him to the rhythm of her own voice still drifting out from the speakers. He gripped her hips, matching her stride stroke for stroke, anchoring her to him as they made love into the night.