8. Zayn
CHAPTER 8
ZAYN
The moment the door closed behind her, the tension in the room shifted. The air which had been thick, almost suffocating, as I sat in silence and listened to Isla tell her story, settled into something sharper as I locked my attention on Julian.
I watched him exhale. Shaky and unsteady, he ran a hand over his face, the first to break the silence. “What a fucking mess.”
I didn’t respond because what was there to say? She’d spoken the words out loud, and we all realized the truth of them.
They said Zayn McCabe would pay any price to get her back, and I hadn’t disputed that. No one had. Least of all me. Because it was true. I was ready to wipe the floor with all of them.
“What’s your plan?” Julian asked as he watched me warily. He gestured to the door. “Will you deal with it? With the fact that Delaney knows she’s more than what he thought she was?”
“And what did he think she was?” I asked him slowly. I hadn’t moved from where I stood, observing the way he practically vibrated with tension. If this was how he played cards, no wonder he lost all his cash.
Julian shrugged. “I guess some people who don’t know us that well could think she was my girlfriend or something…”
“And do you dissuade them from this misconception?” Jealousy surged within me, which was ridiculous because I knew they were nothing like that. I knew it. I had witnessed it. Fuck, it was my name she screamed when she was coming around my cock, not his. What the fuck was wrong with me?
I looked away from him, my jaw tight, the muscles in my shoulders tense. “I’ll deal with their belief that Isla is worth more to me than what you owe.” I saw him flinch at my flat tone.
Julian made a sound that could have been a huff of laughter or a snort of disgust; it was hard to say. “Sure, you will. It’s what you do, right?”
I ignored him because I didn’t have an answer to that. I shouldn’t need to answer it. This was his mess. Not mine. He was still sitting, but he was avoiding eye contact, and I could feel his guilt radiating off him in waves.
I still wanted to hit him. I wanted to cross the room, slam my fist into his jaw, and remind him that she was taken because of him, not me. But I didn’t because I had spent too many hours thinking about something worse. Thinking about what they could have been doing to her.
Being relieved in a way that it was Delaney who took her just emphasized how fucked up this was. He was scum, but he was scum who was only interested in money. There were worse out there who would have done a whole lot more than stick her in a dark room.
“Do you think he already knew about you two and he used my debt as an excuse? ”
Yes . But I would never admit it. Not to him. Not today. “Or is that an excuse you need to stop you from feeling like the shithead you are”
I would never admit that the gamble Delaney had played, if he had played it like I thought he had, had fucking worked.
“She was never supposed to be on their radar,” Julian mumbled. “You believe me, right?”
I nodded despite the urge to hit him still loitering beneath my frustration. I reached for a glass of whiskey, pouring it sloppily and downing it in one go. The familiar burn did nothing to dull the fact that I’d played right into their hands.
I had never been one to be accused of being predictable. I didn’t make mistakes like this. I didn’t let people see my weaknesses.
I didn’t have fucking weaknesses.
But someone had seen something. Seen her? And probably me. We’d stuck to the club. We hadn’t gone on dates. Fuck, the day she spilled coffee on herself had been the first time we’d been out in public.
But we’d been careful after the first night I was at her door. I remembered the night she was in the club with Sienna. I’d given zero fucks as to who might have been watching. My staff knew to give her water. Knew to let her in. Knew she went to the higher level of the club and used the room only Rye and I used.
Someone had seen more than I was ready to admit. Fuck .
Julian shifted in his seat, bringing my attention back to him. His voice was hoarse when he spoke. “It was never meant to get this far.”
I laughed. Sharp. Cold. “Wasn’t it?” I asked him, giving him my full focus. “That’s cute, Turner. Because this is what fucking happens when you owe loan sharks shitloads of cash you can’t fucking cover. ”
He ground his teeth, and that familiar stubborn set of his jaw made me want to hit him. There was a lot about him today that made me want to hit him.
“I was handling it,” he ground out.
I slammed the empty glass on the countertop, my patience snapping. “The only thing you were handling was digging your grave faster.” I leaned forward, voice low, deadly. “And you almost put her in it with you.”
Julian paled. His fingers flexed against his chinos, his knee bouncing before he forced it still. He wasn’t stupid. He knew how close he’d come to losing her. He’d crossed a line he would never be able to uncross. Isla would probably forgive him, but she would never forget.
And me? The loyalty we had to each other because we were friends? It had been hanging by a fucking thread for too long, I was ready for it to snap.
“You’re going to fix this,” I told him, my voice like steel. “You’re going to pay every goddam cent, and you’re going to make sure that no one ever breathes Isla’s name in connection with you again.”
Julian was nodding in agreement. “Yeah. It’s done.” He floundered. “I’ll find the money…”
I took a step closer, watching him. Daring him to fuck up. Daring him to try to tell me that her being taken wasn’t because of him . But he must have a better sense of survival instinct than I gave him credit for. He didn’t say it.
Because he knew .
I nodded once. “Leave.” He looked at me in surprise. “Go downstairs, get whatever the fuck you need. I need ten minutes. Then get your ass back here and bring a list of all the shit you owe.”
He hesitated but only for a second. Then he stood, running his hand through his hair. He looked at me but kept his mouth shut and headed to the door. He didn’t look back before it shut behind him.
The room was silent, and I inhaled deeply. I looked at the empty glass. I didn’t need another. I needed a few minutes alone, a shower, and a solution.
What I needed was to make sure this never fucking happened again. What I needed was ? —
What I needed didn’t matter.
Beside my bed, I picked up my phone, opening messages and seeing nothing from Rye.
You there yet?
If I was, I’d have told you
Prick.
Is she okay?
Quiet. It’s a better side of her.
I smirked at his dickishness.
Don’t text and drive.
Don’t fucking text me then.
All good with you?
I didn’t answer. Because I didn’t know. I didn’t know what I could say to make any of this go away. I didn’t know how to fix the fact I’d put Isla Wells on the radar because she meant something to me and wasn’t just some woman.
But she would never be a pawn in this game. She wasn’t a player in this fucked-up world. She was mine. And now, I needed everyone to know it.
Including her. She just didn’t understand what that meant.
I showered quickly, my mind racing with scenarios of how to make this problem disappear. I dressed in simple black jeans and a black T-shirt. It was too early for me to be awake; usually, I had just gone to bed. But unlike my usual, I had slept through the night, only waking once or twice to pull Isla closer to me when she grumbled in her sleep. I thought that holding her closer would let her know she was safe.
We’re here. She looks…underwhelmed.
I smiled at that. I had a large house set back from the roads, situated between here and Chicago. I’d had it built a few years ago and used it as a quiet retreat. It was registered under a fake company’s name, which couldn’t be traced back to me. Only Rye and I used it. Julian had designed it. It was a spacious house, admittedly too big for just me. But it had everything I needed, and I enjoyed going there when I wanted to step back from the world.
I thumbed off a text to tell him to stop being a prick, and then I texted Julian, letting him know his time was up.
He’d had time to stew in his guilt and let his pulse settle. Just enough time to hope he was walking away clean.
Debt had a weight, and Julian Turner was drowning.
I was making coffee when the elevator doors slid open. He walked into the loft slower this time, shoulders drawn tight, looking every bit the man who was waiting for the axe to fall.
Good. He deserved that.
When he approached me, he took a folded piece of paper from his pocket and laid it on the table as if it might explode .
I opened it, saw the shaky handwriting, and looked up at him. “This is for two hundred and fifty grand.”
He nodded.
“That’s the original debt?” I asked, knowing it was. He didn’t say anything. I turned to face him. “Julian.”
He swallowed hard. “That was how much I lost.”
“And how much did you borrow to lose that?”
Julian hesitated. “Seventy-five.”
My hands curled into fists. “So, you played, you lost. You borrowed more, and you lost that too?”
“Yeah.”
“So, you owe two fifty including the seventy-five or as well as the seventy-five?”
“I thought I could win it back,” he said, his voice tight, defensive, like he knew how fucking pathetic he sounded.
“You’re not a gambler,” I snapped at him. “You’re a fucking idiot.”
“I know.”
I fought the urge to pace. Pacing wouldn’t help. I was barely keeping my temper contained as it was. What I wanted to do was break his nose, maybe a rib or two, and then ask him how that felt with interest.
Instead, I breathed through it. Controlled it. Because my rage wouldn’t clean up this mess, my control would.
“And who else have you borrowed from?”
“I paid him already.”
I waited, and I saw him hesitate. “Julian.”
“Some guy I met at the club. He has a name from Shakespeare, but I can’t remember it. But I paid him.”
This laugh was genuine. “Well, you threw your money away on that one,” I told him, pouring myself a coffee. “Mercutio is dead. ”
Julian looked at me like I’d dropped a fucking bomb. He looked frozen.
And guilty.
Very fucking guilty.
“Tell me,” I said with a sigh. When had he become such a fucking liability?
“He worked for someone,” Julian told me, not making eye contact. “I dealt with him, but I think the money came from…somewhere else.”
The slippery bastard.
I took a drink of hot coffee, enjoying the burn, much like the whiskey but with a different burn. Hotter. Scalding.
“Well, that will be a big fucking problem,” I told Julian. “Because he worked for a mafia boss. A very fucking big one.” I finished my coffee. “Tell me you never took money from the mob, Julian.”
Because if he did, the goalposts would move, and this would become a different game. Aldo Bianchi didn’t care about money—he hadn’t for a long time because he had a lot of it. What he cared about was pressure. Control. About finding something or someone to lean on until they broke and bled out secrets.
And he’d found the perfect crack in Julian Turner.
“You went to Bianchi?” I asked, my voice barely containing my fury. “Out of everyone you could’ve begged from?”
“I didn’t know Mercutio was mafia,” he told me, desperate now. “I didn’t want to come to you. I didn’t want you involved?—”
“Well, I’m involved now,” I snapped at him. “ Isla’s involved. My club is under the microscope because you couldn’t keep your fucking mouth shut.”
Julian winced. “I didn’t tell them anything about you?— ”
“Of course you fucking did!” I took a breath. My head dropped while I fought to keep my fury from exploding. “You would never have got invited to any of their games without dropping my name. You used your connection to me to get a seat at the fucking table.” I looked up at him, seeing his pale face. “Didn’t you?”
A long silence stretched out, and he finally gave a small nod. I turned my back to him, needing distance before I did something I’d regret. Well, I wouldn’t, but Isla would be upset when I put her best friend in the hospital.
Controlling my need to lash out, I asked the only question that mattered. “What do they know about Isla?” Julian didn’t answer immediately. I turned, eyes cold. “Julian.”
He exhaled like the weight was finally too much. “Everything.”
I stared at him. And for the first time, I saw the man I’d known for years not as a brother, not as a friend, but as a burden .
And burdens? I got rid of them.
I looked him over, sharp and final. “How much do you still have to pay?”
“Seven hundred and fifty.”
“That’s all of it?” I asked, my tone cool, businesslike.
“Eight twenty-five.”
“Because you never paid back the seventy-five?” I guessed. He nodded, and I knew I was going to hit him. “So, you never paid back Mercutio?”
“He went missing.”
“ Dead . He went dead,” I corrected him. “But his boss isn’t.” Julian looked close to tears. “I’ll handle it.”
His shoulders sagged with relief. “Zayn, I don’t know what to?— ”
My fist cracked against his jaw, snapping his head back—but he stayed on his feet.
“I don’t care what you know or don’t know,” I said, my voice like steel. “You’re not worth this. Don’t think for one minute that I’m doing this for you.”
He flinched.
I stepped closer. “I’m doing this because they came for Isla. Because of you . Because of what you’ve told them. I have to clean this up, or she’ll never be free of this.” I let the mask of control drop, and he saw the depths of my fury. “ You did this. You opened your mouth and gave them information. How many fucking times have I told you to say nothing? Pretend you don’t know me? You think I was being coy?” I glared at him. “Do you think I was protecting your social reputation? Was I making sure your stuck-up colleagues remained oblivious to your connections to me? The money behind your fucking company? Your silent partner? No.” I leaned closer, crowding him, letting him see how very close I was to losing control. “I was protecting you from the very fucking people you sold me out to. Sold Isla out to.” I never blinked as I looked into his eyes which were wide with panic. “Say one more sniveling word and I will lose my shit completely and even knowing Isla will hate me for it, I won’t regret a single thing."
I walked away from him, picked up my phone, and got ready to call Rye. I wanted to make sure she was okay.
I didn’t look at Julian as I prepared to hit the call button. “Get out.”
He didn’t argue because what was he going to say? He’d fucked up. He had just learned the most brutal truth of all. Being associated with me didn’t make you safe.
It just made it harder to decide whether to save you or let you burn, and Julian Turner could burn.