Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
T he ride home is steeped in uncomfortable silence.
I didn’t have it in me to argue when Hunter offered to drive me, so I slid into the passenger seat and let him take me back to Lexie’s.
Twenty minutes later, I’m stepping out beneath the dim glow of the street lamps.
My feet throb, and the night air clings to my skin like a second, colder layer.
“Thanks,” I murmur for the third time, arms wrapped tightly around my torso. He walks me to the front door, his presence almost shielding. It dulls the edge of my vulnerability, but not the quiet unease curled low in my gut.
“Stay safe, Cassie,” he calls out as I linger in the hallway, caught in the space between hesitation and retreat.
I watch him slide back into the driver’s seat, the door shutting with a soft thud. He doesn’t pull away. He just waits, eyes fixed on the porch until I climb the steps and disappear behind the door.
Moving toward the staircase, my heels click through the quiet hallway like a warning bell. Each step feels louder than the last as I approach the door.
I freeze .
The sight of the door ajar sends a jolt of fear through me, my breath catching in my throat. I stare, waiting for someone to lunge out of the shadows. My pulse spikes, heart climbing into my throat as heat crawls up the back of my neck.
“Lexie?” I whisper urgently, nudging the door open with the tip of my toe.
“In here!” she calls out cheerfully, and I let out a shaky breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
I step inside and stop short.
Chaos greets me like a slap to the face. Shards of glass scatter across the floor, flowers strewn in every direction. Water bleeds into the floorboards from a shattered vase. And there, crouched in the center of it all, is Lexie, quietly collecting the mess.
“What happened?” I gasp, wide-eyed as I take in the destruction.
She doesn’t answer. Just keeps mopping at the floor, her movements tight and clipped.
“Lexie?” I step closer, ignoring the crunch of glass beneath my shoes.
“It’s nothing,” she mutters, glancing up at me. There’s irritation in her tone, but her face tells another story. Her lip is split, the faint trace of blood catching the light.
“What happened to your lip?” I kneel down beside her, gently catching her chin between my fingers to examine the cut.
“I fell,” she lies, brushing me off with a shrug.
“Lexie,” I frown, the disappointment sharp in my chest. Why does she feel the need to lie to me? Doesn’t she know I’d believe her—no matter what?
“Drop it,” she sighs, standing upright and dumping a dustpan full of broken glass into the kitchen trash with a sharp clatter.
“Who did this? Were we broken into?” I glance around, my gaze sweeping the room. The stools are scattered across the floor instead of lined neatly beneath the kitchen island. Couch cushions lie tossed like afterthoughts, and the coffee table—well, it’s barely recognizable as furniture anymore.
“No,” she cuts in quickly, crouching to retrieve her handcuffs and service weapon from beneath the wreckage. She tucks them into her belt with practiced ease.
“The place is trashed!”
“Cassie, please!” she pleads, voice cracking as she bows her head. Her shoulders slump under the weight of something she won’t name. “Drop it.”
She’s still in her work clothes; jacket torn, expression unreadable, which means she hadn’t been home long before I arrived. Whatever happened, it’s fresh. And raw.
I bite my tongue and nod. “Okay,” I say softly, crouching to gather the soaked towels scattered across the floor. They’ve soaked up most of the water, but everything still feels damp.
“How was your night?” she asks, her voice muted, barely above a whisper.
“I bumped into Cooper,” I answer without hesitation. Lexie’s head lifts sharply, eyes going wide.
“Or rather, he followed me.”
“What? What did he say?”
“That he was sorry,” I reply as I move around the kitchen island, joining her at the sink. I wring out one of the heavy towels, the water running red around my fingers from a faint nick I hadn’t noticed.
“That’s it?”
“Well, he didn’t really get the chance to say anything else.” I shrug, laying the first towel across the drying rack. “Hunter knocked him to the floor before he could get another word out.”
Lexie sighs, her focus fixed on tossing the ruined flowers into the trash. “I don’t like these men, Cassie,” she mutters, voice low. “They’re dangerous.”
I glance up, studying her. There’s something she’s holding back—something buried beneath the surface that only grows more troubling the longer I watch her .
“What happened here, Lexie?” I ask again, softly this time, almost timid. But it’s useless.
She exhales heavily, drops the plastic container on the counter with a dull thud, and walks off toward her room without answering.
I stay where I am, listening to her footsteps fade down the hall. I know her silence won’t last forever. It never does. Whatever happened here she’ll have to talk about it eventually. If it had been a break-in, wouldn’t she want me to know? Wouldn’t she want me safe?
The questions claw at me, spiraling, dragging me into a maze of possibilities that make less and less sense the deeper I fall into them.
Her door slams shut, the sound echoing down the hallway like a full stop. The silence that follows is louder than anything else.
By the time I finally drag myself to bed, the living room and kitchen are cleared of sharp edges and shattered glass. The place looks almost normal, but nothing feels it.
Emotionally wrung out and physically drained, I collapse onto the mattress, uncaring of the clothes still clinging to my skin or the tension coiled tight in my muscles. I let the darkness take me, hoping for stillness. For silence.
But the quiet doesn’t last.
By morning, I’m swallowed by a storm of paperwork and an endless string of phone calls, the weight of reality crashing back in before I even have a chance to breathe.
As soon as the day is over, and I’m stepping out of the office building, the evening air hits me like a balm—cool, sharp, and brimming with the kind of silence that makes me feel human again. Until I see the familiar SUV parked outside and that familiar ache I’ve been avoiding returns.
Trigger leans against the car, arms crossed, ankles stacked, smirking like this is just another casual drop-in.
But I see through the act. He’s wearing a mask of charm to cover the cracks beneath.
The bruising on his cheek is already turning a sickly purple, and his busted lip looks like it’s been split more than once. I stop in front of him, unimpressed.
“What happened to your face?” I ask flatly, eyes raking over the damage.
“If you need to ask that question, you need your head checked.”
Figures. Typical Trigger. Always deflecting, always full of shit.
“What are you doing here, Trigger?” I snap, swinging my bag up and over my shoulder. The feigned irritation slips out sharp, but we both know I’m more pissed about what his presence means than the visit itself.
“Axel wants to see you.”
“No, he doesn’t.” I fold my arms across my chest, mirroring him. “I went before. He didn’t want to see me then.”
“Look, between me and you,” he says, stepping forward, his voice low, eyes flicking sideways like the shadows might be listening, “Axel is a fucking mess. He’s not thinking straight. Drinking himself stupid. He’s shutting us all out and I don’t know what to do.”
His words hit harder than I’m willing to admit. It cuts me hearing Trigger sound this helpless, like someone who’s running out of road.
“If you’re defending him for my sake, I don’t?—”
“I’m not,” he interrupts, hard and certain, shaking his head. “It’s the truth.”
“Then tell him to come see me himself,” I bite. “Instead of sending his lap dogs to do the work for him. You all follow his orders like gospel.”
The insult hangs there, sharp and sour. I expect a snapback. Something venomous. But Trigger just stands there, jaw set. Silent .
I turn to walk, tired of playing games, but his hand clamps around my elbow. It’s not rough, not controlling. Just… pleading.
“He hasn’t left the house since the hospital, Cassie.” He lets go just as fast. “I’m not gonna lie. I’m worried about him.”
There’s something raw in his voice. Not the usual bravado. Not the barking commands or thinly veiled threats. Just a man who doesn’t know what the hell to do with another man’s unraveling.
“He doesn’t know you’re here, does he?”
Trigger shakes his head, mouth twitching. “Smart girl.”
“No, you’re just so transparent,” I mutter, rolling my eyes.
“So what do you say?”
He shifts his weight like he’s nervous, which is rare. I’ve never seen him this… open. The fact he’s here at all says Axel must be worse than I imagined. And Trigger, stubborn bastard that he is, is swallowing his pride to ask me for help. That alone twists something deep in my gut.
I hesitate. Not because I don’t want to help Axel, but because I do. And that’s the real problem.
“Fine,” I sigh. “But you’re taking me home afterward.”
Trigger doesn’t argue. Just nods once and opens the door like a goddamn gentleman.
He even lets me ride up front this time.
No silent treatment. No tension. Just the hum of traffic and the weight of everything unsaid pressing down on both of us as he pulls away from the curb and into the chaos of rush hour.
While horns blare and traffic grinds on in fits and starts, Trigger drums his fingers against the steering wheel, keeping time with the low hum of whatever track’s playing through the speakers.
I sit back, trying to brace myself for whatever version of Axel I’m about to walk into.
Physically, he’s probably fine. But if Trigger’s telling the truth—and this isn’t just some orchestrated manipulation—then Axel’s not coping. Not even close .
“Why do you all do what Axel says?” I ask, breaking the silence as we hit our third red light in under five minutes.
“You think that’s what this is?” Trigger scoffs, cutting me a sideways glance.
“Isn’t it?” My voice is steady, but my thoughts loop. Every interaction I’ve had with The Five replays like fragments of an unfinished puzzle.
The press paint them as five separate empires, always on the edge of war. But they don’t act like that. They move like a single machine—with Axel at the center. The others might wear different names, different histories, but they work together. Without question.
Trigger laughs, loud, sharp and full of disbelief.
What is it with these men laughing at my questions like I’m a kid playing make-believe?
“You really don’t understand how we work, do you?” he says, grabbing his coffee cup and taking a slow sip.
“Enlighten me.” I turn my face toward the window, watching as New York smears past in streaks of yellow cabs and impatient brake lights. We’re crawling toward the Williamsburg Bridge. Red. Green. Red. Start. Stop. Repeat.
“Axel is the oldest,” Trigger says eventually. “He’s the most experienced. And, well, he’s better than all of us.”
“You look up to him?” I glance his way. There’s no hiding the quiet respect that spreads across his face.
“Of course. He’s like our big brother. We are still five separate families, yeah, but we’ve built something different. Our own kind of family.” He turns the wheel, easing us onto the bridge. “We stay loyal. One of us calls? We show up.”
“What? No questions asked?”
“No questions asked.”
“What if?—”
“No questions asked,” he cuts in again, sipping from his cup like it’s the end of the conversation. And maybe it is.
I pivot. “So, who did that to your face?” I nod toward the swelling. The bruise on his cheek is darker now, angrier. His lip looks freshly torn.
“Just a disagreement with a mutual friend,” he mutters, tongue tracing the split like it stings to admit.
I blink, startled. “Axel did that to you?”
Trigger gives me a look. One brow arches high, his smirk laced with irony before he shakes his head. “No, Axel did not do this.”
Relief softens the knots in my shoulders. For a second there, I’d pictured him sending me into a den with a monster freshly unchained. If Axel had done that to Trigger, what the hell would stop him from hurting me?
But now, knowing he didn’t? I can breathe. Just barely.
Still, with these men, danger is always just beneath the surface. But so is protection. Twisted as it is, I always feel safer when they’re close.
Trigger veers off the bridge, weaving through side streets and past faded parks until we finally pull up outside Axel’s building.
“You look worried,” Trigger observes, turning to me as I stare straight ahead, unmoving.
“What if he doesn’t want to see me?” My voice is quiet, laced with hesitation. I look up through my lashes, hoping for some kind of assurance.
“He’s a stubborn man,” Trigger says with a soft smile. The motion stretches his busted lip, and he winces, catching a trickle of blood with his thumb. “But you’re his weakness.”
“Men like him don’t have weaknesses,” I snap. “Men like him prey on weakness.”
My words hit something tender—maybe in him, maybe in myself. There’s a silence, then Trigger answers with something quieter than usual.
“All men inhabit fragility. It just depends on where and how big the crack is.” He caps the sentiment with a wink and steps out of the car.
He rounds the vehicle, waiting as I steel myself. I draw in a slow breath, then another, and climb out to meet him on the curb.
The front door looms, a solemn slab of black steel. Trigger runs a hand through his hair, punches in the code, and nudges it open with a metallic clink.
He places a steadying hand on my back and leans in, voice low, almost amused. “Give him hell.”