Chapter 6 Valentina
VALENTINA
I sit on Xavier’s desk with my legs crossed, boots dangling over the edge like I’m a trespasser waiting to be caught.
The mahogany is solid beneath me, carved with the scars of rings, knives, and every bad night he never talked about.
Being up here feels wrong in a way that settles deep in my spine.
Like I’m perched on something that holds too much history, too much weight, too much of him.
It feels like sitting on a coffin that hasn’t finished closing.
I smooth my palms on the wood, chewing the inside of my cheek. My stomach swirls at the thought of claiming Xavier’s territory, his world—and he isn’t here to smirk about it, bark at me, or shove me off.
“At least pretend you’re listening.”
Asher’s voice cuts clean through my spiral. He stands in front of me, posture rigid, shoulders squared. He’s been explaining things for the last twenty minutes: routes, lieutenants, territories, supply cycles, debts owed, debts collected.
“I am listening,” I say.
He lifts his eyes—pale, unreadable, too observant for my liking—and the single glance is enough to tell me he sees everything I’m failing to hide.
The tension in my hands. The nerves pulling at my spine.
The way my gaze keeps drifting to the corner of the room where Xavier’s jacket hangs limp over the back of a chair.
“No,” Asher says, voice cool. “You’re not.”
I exhale sharply. “What gave me away?”
“You haven’t blinked in forty seconds.”
I blink. Hard.
His eyebrow twitches—the closest thing Asher gets to a smirk now-a-days.
He taps the top page next to me on his desk with the blunt end of his pen. “This is the Riders’ route map. You have three crews scheduled for runs tonight, and you’re supposed to green-light them.”
I stare at him, then the paper. “Runs where?”
He inhales, slow, patient in the way that makes me want to stab him and kiss him at the same time.
“North Dallas, South Dallas, and Waco,” he answers. “And if you accidentally approve overlapping territories, they’ll end up shooting each other.”
“Oh.” I clear my throat. “Yeah, don’t want that.”
“Correct,” he says, dry.
He hands me the papers, and I take them, though they feel like lead in my hands. My eyes flick over the messy scrawls of names, arrows, highlighted boxes. My brain is still lagging two seconds behind everything.
“Why is there so much?” I mutter.
“Because you’re the leader,” Asher says, as if that explains anything.
He might as well have said because gravity pulls down or because bullets kill. I set the papers down beside me and lean back on my hands, stretching my legs out so the tips of my boots almost brush his thigh. He doesn’t move away.
“I thought being leader meant I got my own room and people had to shut up when I walked into breakfast,” I say. “No one mentioned homework.”
The corner of his mouth twitches like he’s trying not to encourage me. “This isn’t homework. This is the livelihood of the Raiders.”
“Feels suspiciously like math.”
“Math is power,” he says. “You sign the wrong line, people die. You sign the right ones, we eat.”
I make a face. “You’re terrible at pep talks.”
“I’m not giving a pep talk.” His gaze sweeps over me, cool and assessing. “I’m telling you what sitting on that desk means.”
I wiggle my toes, nudging his leg. “That I have a great view?”
His hand snaps out, fingers closing around my ankle before I can pull back. The grip is firm, not painful, a clear I let you poke at me because I let you, not because you can.
“Valentina,” he warns.
I tilt my head, letting a slow smile curl at my mouth. “You’re the one who put me up here. Don’t get mad when I act like I own it.”
“You don’t own it,” he says.
“Don’t I?” I lean back further, bracing my palms behind me so my spine arches, bringing me closer to his height. “You just told me I’m the leader. Leaders sit on desks. They don’t stand there taking orders.”
His eyes drop to my mouth before he drags them back up. “You’re not taking orders.”
“No?” I ask. “What is this, then? You standing there telling me where to send people, what to sign, who to trust? Sounds a lot like control.”
His grip on my ankle tightens for a beat, then releases. He steps in, closing the space between us, until his thighs brush the front of the desk and my knees frame his hips.
“Someone has to know how all this works,” he says. “You want to be in charge, you have to understand what you’re in charge of.”
“So teach me,” I say. “But don’t confuse that with you being the one in control.”
He studies me, head tilting just a fraction. “Is that what you think this is? A fight over control?”
I shrug, letting my boot slide slowly up the side seam of his jeans before dropping it again. “Isn’t everything with you?”
The air between us thickens. His hands plant on the desk on either side of my hips, boxing me in without laying a finger on me.
“You’re on Xavier’s desk,” he says quietly. “In Xavier’s office. Wearing Xavier’s crown.”
I swallow. “I noticed.”
“Every man in this building is waiting to see if you drop it,” he continues. “If it slides off your head, if you crack under the weight. And you are sitting here trying to bait me into proving whether I can handle you having power.”
Heat rushes to my face—half embarrassment, half rage. “You don’t think I can?”
“I think you’re terrified you can,” he says. “And you’re hoping I’ll give you an excuse not to.”
That stings.
I push myself upright, my chest almost flush with his. “If I didn’t want it, I would’ve told you to give it to Jackie or Zay last night.”
“No,” he says. “You would’ve tried. And I would’ve ignored you.”
I lean in, lips curving. “Hmm, so you like me to be in control?”
“You think I care about what you control?” His voice drops lower.
“I think,” I say lightly, “that a man like you isn’t exactly thrilled by the idea of kneeling.”
A sharp breath leaves him. His fingers flex against the desk.
“Be careful,” he says softly.
“You be careful,” I echo, matching his tone.
His hand comes up, slower than a strike but with all the inevitability of one.
Fingers trace my jaw, trailing along the line of my throat—and then his palm settles there, the span of his hand wrapping easily around my neck.
He doesn’t squeeze. Not yet. Just holds.
His thumb rests against the pulse thundering under my skin.
Every thought I had scatters.
“Asher—”
He steps in until his hips press against the desk between my knees, forcing me farther back, crowding out oxygen, options, sense. The wood bites into my palms when I reach back for balance, my fingers splaying hard against the edge as if the desk can anchor me against him.
“Shhh,” he murmurs, his voice a low, commanding rumble that vibrates through me.
His other hand slides down my arm, his fingers brushing against the inside of my wrist before he takes it, gently but firmly, and pins it to the wall above my head.
He’s so close now, his body pressing into mine, the heat of him searing through the thin fabric of my clothes.
“Do you think we have time for your little tantrums?”
I whimper, my free hand instinctively reaching for him, but he catches it mid-air, trapping it against the wall alongside the other. “Ah-ah,” he chides, his voice soft but laced with steel. “Answer me. Do you think we have time?
“No.” The word comes out breathy. “But I’m not throwing a tantrum.”
He lets out a low growl, the sound reverberating through his chest and into mine. His grip on my wrists tightens slightly as he presses his forehead against mine, our breaths mingling in the small space between us. “So you’re not being a brat so I fuck you into paying attention?”
Fuck me. I shake my head no, but his hand tightens a little more, enough pressure to hold my focus, not enough to scare me. My lungs can’t remember how to work, but they do it around him, every inhale brushing against the bracket of his fingers.
“You don’t want me to fuck you?” he asks quietly in my ear.
My lashes flutter. “I do.”
“I know killer,” His thumb strokes the side of my throat. “But you need to show me you can listen to instructions first.”
He releases me, pulling back so abruptly my body sways. I almost reach for him on instinct, but catch myself and curl my fingers back around the desk instead.
He turns away, picking up a thicker folder from the stack he brought in. His composure slides back into place as if he didn’t just have his hand around my neck, as if my pulse isn’t still racing from the echo of it.
“Look at this,” he says quietly, the word clipped, decisive.
My voice takes a moment to show up. “What is it?” I manage, though my throat feels tight.
Asher opens the folder and sets it carefully on my knees, his fingers brushing the edge of the page.
The contact is brief but enough to make my pulse hitch.
Names stare up at me in tight, merciless columns—some highlighted, others underlined, a few slashed through so violently the ink almost grooves the paper.
My stomach drops hard. “What am I looking at?” My voice sounds thin even to me.
“The club,” Asher says. His tone is neutral, but his eyes track my reaction. “Council members. Crew leads. Patched Raiders with access to anything that matters. And the hanger-ons who matter more than they’re supposed to.”
I run my gaze down the first column. Johnson. Baylor. Reese. A few faces I recognize only from how they looked at me this morning—sideways, measuring, doubting, hungry, ready for something ugly.
My fingers tighten around the folder. “What are the marks? These highlights. These lines.”
“Trust levels,” he says. “Xavier’s trust, not mine.” He points, tapping lightly—highlighted names, underlined ones. “These, he trusted. These, he didn’t. And the ones crossed out…” His jaw ticks. “He was planning to move them.”
I swallow. “Move them where?” The question feels stupid, but I ask anyway.