Chapter Seven
THE CLUBHOUSE WAS loud.
Laughter, shouting, music turned up too high for anything subtle, it all tangled together into one chaotic, living storm that vibrated in my bones.
Lucy and Zeynep kept me anchored near the bar, introducing me around, making sure I survived my first night. Lucy thrived in the chaos, talking with half the room like she belonged to all of it. Zeynep was her opposite, grounded, quiet, the calm eye in a room full of teeth.
Me? I was somewhere in between, standing still, pretending the noise didn’t make my heart knock too hard against my ribs.
Freedom was loud. I wasn’t used to it yet.
Every breath felt borrowed, like any second now a hand would snap shut around my wrists, dragging me back under. But I stood my ground. Chin up. Shoulders squared. Fighting to hold my shape inside all the noise.
I wasn’t hiding. Not anymore.
Lucy leaned in and bumped my shoulder with hers. “You’ll get used to it. It’s gets loud and sometimes messy, but it’s like family.”
“Family,” I echoed with a crooked smile, and she grinned wide like I’d passed a test.
She said something else, something stupid and sweet, that dragged a real laugh out of me. Raw. Sudden. Unfamiliar. It felt strange. New. Like trying on a feeling I’d never been allowed to wear before.
And then I felt it.
Not a sound. Not a touch. Just presence.
A pull in the air. A subtle shift in gravity.
That kind of stare you feel before you even turn your head.
Chain.
Tonight was the first time I’d seen him since I’d been half-conscious in his arms, soot-streaked and shaking with fear.
He stood across the room, and for a second the noise around us just… drowned out. Like my body decided I didn’t need sound when my eyes were already full of him.
His broad shoulders filled the space, the black tee covered by his vest stretched tight across his chest, every line of muscle obvious even from where I sat.
His dark hair was a little messy—long enough to fall over his forehead, like he’d dragged a hand through it one too many times—but it only made him look rougher, harder, more like the man who’d carried me out of fire and never once looked back to see if anyone else was following.
And his eyes, I remembered them being piercing that night, fierce and relentless, but under the bar’s light they were something else entirely.
Blue, vivid and burning, like they saw more than they should.
Like they saw me, not the shadow I’d been trying to blend into.
I felt the weight of that stare along my skin, prickling heat, spreading slow, low, everywhere.
My gaze dropped before I could stop it.
His forearms flexed as he shifted, veins standing out, muscles moving beneath tan skin like they remembered the shape of my body from that night.
His hands were big, strong, calloused, hands made for work and for damage.
Hands that had once wrapped around me with absolute control and zero hesitation.
Then I saw the way his jeans fit, dark denim riding low on his hips, worn in all the right places, hugging every cut line of his thighs, and heat flared under my ribs sharp enough I had to steady my breath.
I wasn’t prepared for the way he looked in the bright light, with nothing burning around us, nothing to blur the edges.
He watched me the whole time.
Not curious. Not confused.
No—he watched me like a man measuring distance before he closed it. Like he was trying to decide if I was a line he shouldn’t cross… or one he wanted to step over slow, with both feet, and damn the consequences.
Like I might be the spark he hadn’t realized he’d been circling around, and he wasn’t sure whether touching me would light him up or burn him down.
He hadn’t looked at me like this the night he rescued me.
This was different. This was heat and intention. A kind of attention that pressed against the skin, slow and heavy.
I didn’t look away.
If he wanted to stare, he could do it while I stared right back.
His brow lifted slightly, just a breath of movement, a question I didn’t need words to understand.
I gave him the barest nod. Not an invitation. Not a warning. Something quieter. Stronger. What do you want?
His mouth curved, just barely—not a smile. Closer to a warning. Or a promise.
Something fluttered low in my stomach. A flicker of heat wrapped in irritation, confusing in its intensity. My palms went clammy, my skin too aware of itself.
Lucy followed my gaze and let out a long groan. “Oh, boy. Careful, sweetheart.”
“Why?”
“Because Chain doesn’t play fair.”
“I don’t either,” I said without thinking.
And it was true.
He started walking toward me.
Slow. Deliberate. Like a man who knew what kind of attention he commanded, and didn’t care who was watching. Like someone who didn’t chase often, but when he did, nothing got in his way.
The room faded around the edges, voices muffled, the music dropping into a background hum. My pulse stuttered, then surged, but I held still. Unwavering. Rooted. I wasn’t folding first. Not for him. Not for anyone.
His gaze didn’t shift. Didn’t soften. It held mine like a hand to the throat. Not threatening. Just… possessive. Like he meant to claim something if I let him close enough.
Another step.
Then another.
He was close now, so close I could feel the heat radiating off his skin, could smell the clean leather and smoke clinging to him. The air between us felt tight. Charged. Alive.
My fingers curled against the bar behind me, a quiet brace. My mouth parted, breath shallow. I didn’t say a word. Neither did he.
It felt like something was about to break open.
And then she appeared.
A brunette wearing a tight dress and candy-apple red lipstick. A woman with perfect timing, her hips swinging like she knew exactly what she was interrupting. She stepped into his path without hesitation, one hand pressed to his chest like she had every right to be there.
“Chain,” she purred. “Finally, I’ve been waiting on you.”
He grinned easy as he looked down at her.
And just like that, the moment between us cracked.
Not shattered—cracked. Like glass struck at its weakest point. Thin lines spidering across the surface. Still holding, but only just.
I didn’t let it show.
The brunette’s laugh curled around us, her hand splayed across his chest as she leaned in close, too close, close enough to break the line of sight between us.
And something inside me tightened — sharp, sudden, humiliatingly human — but I kept my expression smooth, the way I’d trained myself to do in rooms where the smallest flicker of emotion could cost me more than a bruise.
I refused to look away. Refused to let either of them see even a crack.
Instead, I felt my chin lift a fraction higher, my spine straightening until every part of me was made of angles and quiet defiance. Lucy glanced between us like she wanted to say something, but I gave her no opening, no reaction she could grab onto.
“I need to use the bathroom,” I said, tone even, controlled, fragile in ways no one could hear if I didn’t let it slip.
“Sure, sweetheart,” Lucy said, softer this time, but I didn’t stay long enough to figure out if it was concern or curiosity.
I slipped through the crowd, keeping my shoulders squared and my pace unhurried, ignoring the way my pulse thudded in my throat, ignoring the itch under my skin that made me want to run, ignoring the heat buzzing beneath my ribs — not desire anymore, not quite — but something wounded and furious and unfamiliar.
Something born from wanting something I told myself I didn’t want.
The hallway was dimmer, quieter, the music fading behind me until it sounded like it was underwater. I pushed the bathroom door open and stepped inside, closing it behind me with a soft click, and only when the latch caught did my breath leave me in a jagged rush I couldn’t hold onto any longer.
The lights hummed overhead, pale and cold, showing too much. There was a mirror above the sink. There was always a mirror.
I hated them.
Hated the way they stole truth and handed it back wrong, fragmented, distorted, the woman staring through the glass never quite matching the one inside me. I told myself not to look. I always told myself not to look. And like every time before, the promise slipped through my fingers.
My gaze lifted anyway.
Just a flicker.
A glance.
A reflex I couldn’t kill.
And there she was — the woman I’d tried so damn hard to outrun.
The one with the scar carved down her cheek where a sadistic bastard had branded into her skin.
The one who’d been punished for the crime of wanting a life that wasn’t silence and obedience.
The one who’d learned early that beauty could be snuffed out with a match and cruelty did not require a reason.
I snatched my eyes away, jaw tight, breath jagged, hating that moment of weakness — hating how fast it stole my breath, how quickly it made me feel small, how familiar the shame felt even though shame was something I swore I’d left behind.
My fingers brushed the scar before I could stop them, an old, stubborn habit, as automatic as breathing and just as aggravating. I pressed my palm against my cheek, grounding myself, trying to remember that this mark wasn’t weakness, wasn’t shame. It was survival carved into skin.
But pressing my palm there only reminded me of the rest of it, the uneven texture of my burned hands, the rough patches that still caught against fabric, the tender spots that never fully smoothed out.
Those scars didn’t show unless I reached, or touched, or held.
They were quieter, but sometimes they felt louder than the one on my face.
I wore all of it because I fought. Because I lived. Because I crawled out of fire and left the ones who tried to own me standing in the smoke behind me.
But some nights, in moments like this, it was hard not to wonder if anyone else saw anything past the ruins I carried.
For a moment, the old fear whispered, the one that told me I’d never be the kind of woman a man like Chain wanted, never be the one someone reached for first, not when there were women like the brunette with perfect skin and no history written across their faces.
But I’d escaped hell, and I didn’t do it to crumble over a man or the girl clinging to him like she belonged there.
I straightened, inhaling slow, letting the breath fill every hollow space in my chest. The air tasted faintly of cleaner and old wood, not pleasant, not comforting, but real. Mine. The kind of air I got to breathe because I’d taken back my life inch by inch.
I swept my hair away from my face, tied the ends together with trembling fingers, and lifted my chin, forcing myself to look at my reflection again, not at the scar, not at the parts I hated, but at my eyes. They were sure, focused, and unbroken.
I wasn’t here for him. I wasn’t here to compete or compare or crumble. I was here to build something that belonged to me and no one else.
Tension unwound from my shoulders as I turned away from the mirror.
I reached for the doorknob with a hand that no longer shook.
And when I walked back out into that hallway, I did it the same way I walked into this clubhouse, chin up, spine straight, heart loud enough to remind me I was still alive.
If Chain wanted games, he could play them alone. If he wanted to look at me like I was a challenge, fine. But I wasn’t going to be the one who broke the moment.
Not anymore.
Not ever again.