Chapter 15
15
B ass pounds through me like a second heartbeat, throbbing through the soles of my boots and up into my chest.
Lights flash across the faces of my crew, my people, their features twisted into expressions of victory I can’t bring myself to mirror. The night’s so-called victory tastes bitter, and my hand clenches around the drink, long grown warm and forgotten.
I can’t stop kicking myself for the heartbeat of hope where I made a fool of myself for asking Raphael to come back. What the fuck was I thinking? That one night of fighting and fucking would change his mind after all this time?
Three shots of whiskey have done nothing to blur the edges of that memory. I take another sip, relishing the burn as it travels down my throat and settles into a pool of heat in my empty stomach. The club throbs with life around me, a living, breathing entity feeding on the adrenaline of its occupants. Sweat, perfume, and pheromones blend with the sharp scent of alcohol, forming an intoxicating fog in the air.
My fingers tighten around the glass as I scan the crowd. The job went perfectly, despite not finding Jade. We took down some Omega traffickers, saved people from a life of slavery, and no one on our side died. I should be celebrating with my crew.
Instead, I’m hiding in the shadows at the edge of the dance floor, trapped between wanting to leave and knowing I can’t.
Lena catches my eye from across the room, and she raises her glass in my direction.
I lift mine back, forcing my lips into a rough acknowledgment. Not a smile, though. I don’t have one in me tonight.
She turns back to her conversation, but she’s still watching. She always is.
The younger members of my crew bounce to the rhythm of the music, their bodies fluid with alcohol and the sweet relief of survival. They look so fucking young under these lights. Young and alive and unbreakable.
“To the best damn boss!” someone shouts, and a chorus of cheers erupts from our tables.
I raise my glass again, holding the image of the unshakable leader while my thoughts churn. The mask never slips, not even now.
The crowd shifts again, bodies pressing together in the limited space, and I lose sight of my people. The music grows louder, the deeper bass vibrating in my chest. I try to let it wash over me, to drive out this useless ache.
A body molds to my back, solid and warm and familiar. Too familiar. The scent hits me, Cassian’s pheromones muddied with alcohol.
“You were amazing tonight.” His lips brush my ear as his hands find my hips, fingers digging in with possessiveness, like he has the right to touch me like this. “The way you handled that bastard was so hot.”
My throat tightens, my body going rigid within his hold. Cassian has never crossed this line before and has always maintained the careful distance of my second-in-command. But tonight, alcohol and the high of success have unraveled his inhibitions.
“Quit it.” I try to step away, to create space between us, but his grip tightens.
His hot breath caresses my neck, and my stomach churns at the scent of bourbon it carries. Or maybe it’s the pressure of his body weight pinning me while his fingers creep beneath the hem of my shirt to seek bare skin.
“You’ve had enough.” I twist in his grip to confront him, only for my stomach to tighten into a sour knot at the raw hunger that stares down at me. “Time to back off.”
A flash of hurt crosses his features before he masks it with a crooked grin. “Come on, Avery. We’re celebrating. You and me, we did this together.”
“We did this as a team,” I correct, placing my glass on the nearest surface and pushing his hands away from my body. “All of us. And you’re drunk.”
He leans in closer, invading my space again. “We should celebrate.”
My hands find his chest, creating space between us with firm pressure. “Drink some water, Cass, and get your head on straight.”
Anger or confusion flickers over him. I can’t tell which, and I don’t wait to find out, already turning away, pushing through the crowd toward the back of the club. The music seems louder now, the lights too bright, every sensation amplified by the tension running through my body.
I need air. I need space. I need to not think about Cassian or Raphael or the way my life is splitting at the seams.
The back hallway offers a reprieve from the chaos of the main floor. The bathroom is down here, along with the emergency exit and a few storage rooms. The bass becomes muted, a distant thunder rather than an immediate assault. I rest against the wall, the cool concrete pressing into my back, and breathe.
Alone at last, I let the mask slip. My hands tremble as I press them flat to the wall behind me, the faint vibration of the music traveling up my arms while the night replays in my head, a film on an endless loop I can’t escape.
Raphael’s hands on me, his mouth, the warmth of his body. Having him again, right where he belongs, and then being rejected a second time.
My chest aches with a feeling I refuse to name. It’s not longing. It’s not hurt. It’s pure and cleansing anger. It has to be. Anything else would mean I’m still caught in his gravity, still orbiting the sun that burned me once before.
I need to go back to the party. My crew needs me to be strong, celebrating with them, unaffected by so many near deaths tonight.
Heavy footsteps echo behind me, and I straighten, my muscles tensing in preparation for an argument I don’t want to have while Cassian is drunk. Because, of course, he followed me here. He refuses to leave me alone.
“Avery.” My name bounces off the concrete walls on an impatient growl.
I turn, keeping my back to the wall, maintaining distance between us. Cassian stands at the mouth of the hallway, his broad frame blocking the colored lights and the exit. The dim glow of the emergency fixtures casts him in shadows, but I notice the rigid set of his shoulders and the way his hands curl into fists at his sides.
“I told you to get some water.” I steady myself, pushing down the anxiety that bands around my chest. Five years of commanding respect from people twice my size has taught me how to sound unafraid, even when my pulse races. “You’re drunk, Cass. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
He takes a step forward. Then another. Steady, despite the alcohol. A predator on the hunt. I’ve never thought of myself as prey before. Not with anyone, and especially not with Cassian.
“I’m not drunk,” he says, though the slur in his words betrays him. “My eyes are open for the first time in years.”
I hold my ground as he approaches, refusing to back further down the hallway. To move would mean being cornered, and instinct warns me of the danger.
Cassian has never been a threat before. He’s been my right hand, my most trusted ally in rebuilding what Raphael abandoned. But the person in front of me now is a stranger.
“You need to back off.” I inject authority into my tone. “Right now.”
Ignoring my warning, he stops close enough for the heat that radiates from his body to press in on me, the sharp tang of Alpha aggression rolling off him in waves. “I hate the way you stink of him .”
I didn’t shower before we headed here, and Raphael’s pheromones saturate my body from the inside out. “That’s not your concern. What happened today was business.”
“Business.” Cassian spits the word like a curse. “Is that what you call it when you look at him like you’re still his?”
The accusation hits like a physical blow, and I flinch, unable to deny it. How can I, after I all but begged for Raphael to come back to me right in front of everyone?
Cassian catches the reaction, his features tightening. “I’ve waited. I’ve been patient. I’ve stood by you, fought for you, bled for you. Despite that, one word from him, and you?—”
“That’s enough.” I move to step around him, to end this conversation before it goes somewhere we can’t come back from.
His hand shoots out, slamming into the wall beside my head with enough force to send a jolt through me. I freeze, trapped between his arm and the wall, the warning signals in my brain flashing red.
“I’m. Not. Done,” he growls.
For the first time in all our years together, fear creeps along my spine. Not the calculated awareness of danger that keeps me alive in my line of work, but a deeper instinct hardwired into my secondary gender.
Cassian has never used his size to dominate, never leveraged his Alpha status to intimidate. That unspoken respect has been the foundation of our working relationship.
Until now.
“Move your arm.” I fix him with a glare to show him how serious I am. “Now.”
His other hand comes up to complete the cage of his body around mine. “Not until you listen.”
I press my palms flat on his chest, pushing him back. “Get off me.”
He grabs my wrists, pinning them to the wall on either side of my head. The action is so sudden, so at odds with the man I believed him to be, that I don’t react before he traps me.
Cassian inches closer, his breath hot and alcohol-soaked. “His pheromones are all over you. Is he still in your body? Are you wet from him?”
“You’re going too far.” I struggle in his grip, but he’s stronger, the combination of adrenaline and alcohol making him impossible to budge. “What the hell are you doing? Let go of me!”
His demeanor shifts, anger softening, and that’s almost worse, this tenderness a lie after the violence of his grip.
“Avery,” he says, my name a plea on his lips. “Don’t you see what he’s doing? He left you once. He’ll do it again.”
“This isn’t about Raphael!” I strain to break Cassian’s hold. “This is about you crossing a line. What are you thinking?”
Instead of answering, he leans in and presses his mouth over mine, his lips rough and demanding, nothing like the Cassian I know. His tongue shoves past my lips, flooding my mouth with bourbon-laced betrayal.
Shock freezes me for a heartbeat, my brain unable to reconcile my trusted second with the man forcing himself on me. Then instinct takes over, and I bite down, not hard enough to draw blood, but enough to force him to pull away.
His eyes widen in surprise, as if he can’t understand why I’m fighting him.
“What the fuck?” I spit, twisting one hand free and shoving at his shoulder. “Get off me!”
He doesn’t budge, his grip on my other wrist tightening. “You don’t mean that.” A strange calm settles over his features. “You’re just confused. After seeing him today, your Omega instincts are all mixed up. But I’m here. I’ve always been here.”
The words hit me like ice water. Omega instincts. As if everything I’ve built, everything I am, can be reduced to biology. As if five years of proving myself means nothing because of Raphael’s scent on my skin.
Rage replaces fear, white-hot and clarifying. I bring my knee up hard, not quite connecting with his groin but hitting his thigh with enough force to send him stumbling back. The space gives me room for leverage, and I plant both hands on his chest, shoving him backward.
“You don’t have the right to lay a hand on me.” My hand drops to my knife, like I should have done the second Cassian followed me down this hallway, but I had stupidly trusted my second-in-command. “You don’t control who I choose. And you sure as hell don’t get to use your strength against me.”
Cassian regains his balance, drunk with confusion and hurt at not getting his way. “Avery, please. We’ll be so good together. We’re unstoppable as a team.”
“There is no ‘we,’ Cassian.” My hand tightens around my knife hilt. “There’s my crew, which you’re a member of. That’s it.”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to pretend anymore.” He takes a step toward me again, and I tense, ready to fight if I have to. “I’ve noticed how you look at me sometimes.”
“You see what you want to see,” I snap, my wrists stinging from his hold, but I refuse to rub them while he’s watching and show that he hurt me. “Stop with your expectations. Nothing is happening between us. Nothing .”
Anger darkens his features. “I’ve waited five years, watching you pine for a man who threw you away. I deserve more than that. I deserve you.”
“You deserve nothing.” My stomach churns with the sense of entitlement oozing off him. As if I’m a prize to be earned, a possession to be transferred from one Alpha to another. “Not one damn thing from me. You’ve just destroyed five years of trust in five minutes.”
“You’ll change your mind.” He takes another step forward. “Once Raphael is out of the picture.”
The confidence behind the words sends a chill through me, the horror of discovering this ugliness in someone I trusted sinking in.
“Hey, Cass.” Lena’s voice cuts through the tension. She stands at the entrance to the hallway, her stance casual but her eyes hard in the dim light. “The kids are getting rowdy. They need someone to keep them in line.”
I’ve never been so grateful for her.
Cassian’s nostrils flare, his focus shifting from Lena to me and back again. He’s outnumbered now. Lena may be a Beta, but she’s respected, and her loyalty to me is absolute.
“This isn’t over,” he says to me, low enough not to carry. “We’re meant to be together. You’ll realize that once he’s gone.”
He turns and pushes past Lena, his footsteps heavy with resentment as he disappears back into the pulsing lights of the club.
Lena turns to keep him in her sights until he vanishes back into the club. Then she turns back to me, assessing my disheveled appearance. “Are you okay?”
I run a hand through my hair, trying to steady myself. Am I okay? My most trusted lieutenant just forced himself on me.
Beneath the anger and betrayal is a far worse emotion. A deep, cutting disappointment. Another person I trusted has let me down in the worst way imaginable.
“I don’t know,” I admit, my throat thick with emotion. “I think... I think Cassian might need to go.”
Lena’s eyebrows shoot up. Cassian has been with us since we started over, a cornerstone of our current operation. Removing him will be like cutting off a limb.
“If that’s what you need,” she says, no questions, no judgment, just acceptance of my decision, whatever it might be.
I push away from the wall, straightening my shoulders. “I need you with me for the final drop. I no longer trust Cassian. Not with this.”
Her spine straightens. “You want me on the roof or the ground?”
“Ground. With me.” I run a hand through my hair again, the strands damp with the residual heat of the club. “This won’t be a normal money exchange.”
I stride toward her, the club floor sticky beneath my boots. “Join me at the bar, and I’ll fill you in on the plan.”
“Sure thing, boss.” She falls into step beside me. “I’ve always got your back.”
I hope that’s true. I can’t handle another betrayal right now.