27. Zayn
CHAPTER 27
ZAYN
I sat in the car for a moment, centering myself. I really wanted to go back into the house, get ready for bed, and slide back into bed alongside my girl.
She loved me.
She hadn’t said the words, not directly to me. But she wanted to know what loving me might cost her.
Everything .
It could cost her everything, and I needed her to understand that. My palm hit the steering wheel in frustration. It should cost her nothing . Any other person in a normal relationship doesn’t enter it expecting to lose anything . It’s about gaining something.
Two was better than one; that was how it was supposed to be, right? You brought something, they brought something, and both of you gained. So why did it feel like I was the only one gaining when it came to me and Isla? What was I giving up for her?
Nothing.
Exhaling deeply, I started the car. It didn’t change anything. She wanted to be with me, and that was all that mattered. The rest...well, the rest we’d figure out. As long as it was together, I didn’t give a fuck who sacrificed what; as long as she was in my bed every night, I’d sort out the rest.
Figuring shit out. It was what I did best. It was what I was known for. With a final lingering look at the house, I drove away.
I spent the journey compartmentalizing everything I needed to regain control. Isla’s presence in my life was both something I wanted and needed, but I didn’t like the idea that others might see me as vulnerable.
Rye mentioned that she clearly saw something today that spooked her. He didn’t know what it was, and I hadn’t asked her directly. I was waiting for her to share it with me. I also wasn’t a patient man, especially when it came to my girl, so if she didn’t tell me tomorrow, I’d ask her. I wanted her to approach me with things, but I had no problem asking her directly if I had to.
Fuck this. I wasn’t a relationship guy; I never had been and never wanted to be in one. The closest thing I had to a partner in my life was Rye. The guy was like a brother. If I wanted my dick sucked, I found a woman in the same life as me, who wanted no strings as much as I did.
It worked. I was happy. They were happy. Life continued.
Until Isla.
With glossy brunette locks, wide eyes, and pout-perfect lips that begged for my cock, she’d turned everything upside down.
I was pulling into the underground garage of Elixir when I laughed.
I thought she was giving up everything to be with me, and Rye was worried I’d given up me to be with her. When in reality, we were just two people who loved each other.
I knew I had painted a huge target on my back and said “ Come take a shot.” Now, I needed to remind them, every night, every day, every fucking moment, that I was exactly the same bastard they knew.
And it started tonight.
They wanted to fuck with me?
Well, come on, fuckers. I’m here, and I’m waiting for you.
I bypassed the lower-level club and walked to the main floor of Elixir. I spoke with the staff, checked in with the bouncers, and sensed Rye’s shadow halfway through my rounds without acknowledging him.
It felt right. Routine.
Control.
The VIP booths were lively; three out of eight had far too much flesh on display. As I always did, I checked with the girls serving to ensure they were comfortable working the booths. Some nights, you simply didn’t want to witness a train being run on a girl while you served shots.
The girls were fine. They confirmed that all the girls involved were there willingly, just as my guys had, and Rye would have completed all the checks before the booths were even booked.
We were heading back down to the main floor when Rye chuckled low. “Fuck me, you got a girl at home, and you’re suddenly blushing like a virgin.”
“I’m not blushing,” I told him honestly. “I’m fucking wincing in sympathy. Did you see the size of his dick? That girl is never walking out of here tonight without crutches, at least.”
Rye laughed out loud, drawing attention to us both. I knew his laugh was louder than normal but not too loud. He brought attention to us without being obvious about it. I saw the glances, the hushed conversations behind the palms of hands as people watched .
Let them .
This was what they came to see.
We were heading out of the main floor when I heard the laugh.
Soft. Feminine. Familiar.
I slowed.
It had been years since I last heard it—but some sounds stuck, especially when they were accompanied by bare skin and sharpened smiles.
Rye spoke quietly. “You want me to walk her out?”
“No,” I said. “We don’t need the scene, and let’s not give her the ammunition.”
She looked over at us and saw that we’d seen her.
I paused to watch her spin her chair and face me fully. Her slender figure was dressed in black, her blonde hair swept high, and her legs were crossed in that calculated way that suggested everything was an invitation and nothing was a guarantee.
She tilted her head to the side, a playful smile dancing on her lips. She beckoned me forward with a finger, her nails painted black and embellished with rhinestones.
“Zayn McCabe,” she purred, her red lips curving like a weapon.
“Sabrina,” I said, kissing her cheek. “Who did I piss off they sent you?”
She smiled, her eyelashes fluttering innocently. “Little old me?” Her eyes were as sharp as razors. “What about you? I thought you only existed in myths these days.”
I looked over the people at the bar, seeing who she was with. “Myths don’t run payroll.”
She laughed again, tilting her head. “Still charming.” She reached out, her finger trailing down the buttons of my shirt, the skull design on her fingernail served as a fitting warning for anyone who believed that just because she appeared fragile that she actually was. “Tell me, have you been tamed ?”
“He’s still not interested,” Rye muttered behind me, loud enough to be heard.
Sabrina ignored him, her attention fully focused on me as I stepped out of her reach. “You don’t look soft,” she remarked. “But I’ve heard some intriguing whispers.”
My smile was as wide and fake as hers. “You always enjoyed the sound of your own voice.”
Sabrina leaned forward on her elbows, revealing a glimmer of a diamond-crusted dagger nestled between her breasts. “And you always liked women who didn’t need you.”
I didn’t answer.
She smirked. “So...is she the reason you’ve been missing on the floor of your clubs?”
My jaw flexed.
Sabrina leaned back in her seat, her dress stretching desperately over her tits, drawing the eye if you were stupid enough to look as she revealed more flesh than needed. “You have a new shadow, Zayn.” She cocked her head. “Julian Turner’s girl, right?”
My silence was her answer.
“Interesting,” she said softly, assessing me and receiving no response. “He used to talk about her as if she were made of glass. Is she… breakable ?”
My voice was flat. “Gossip? You know better, Rina.”
“Not gossip, no,” she said, her smile fading. “I’m here to tell you that Ferraro’s eyes aren’t just on your clubs. They’re on your house.”
I stepped closer, noticing her eyes widen slightly as I invaded her space. “Are you threatening me, Rina?”
She didn’t back down, but her eyes flicked to Rye behind me. “I would never,” she said with a blank smile. “I’m warning you. If they think she’s a weakness, she becomes your exit wound.”
My hand itched for the weight of my gun, but I didn’t move.
She stood, smooth and controlled, her body brushing against mine. “You used to be colder,” she whispered into my ear. “Cleaner.”
“I used to be alone.”
That shut her up. I noticed the flash of hurt she failed to hide before she assessed me one last time. She shot Rye a quick glare and slid between us, disappearing into the shadows of the club as if she had never existed at all.
But her presence and her warning stayed with me. Because for all the moves I made to stay in control, there was one truth I couldn’t outrun now.
Everyone who mattered knew who Isla was and were waiting to see what I would do to protect her.
Sabrina’s presence in my club confirmed they were all watching.
By the time Rye and I went downstairs, the lights were dimmed to their regular late-night low, and Elixir’s lower level had morphed into something quieter, meaner.
It matched my mood.
I moved through the rooms slowly, not inspecting anything but just reminding them who the fuck I was.
I belonged here. This was mine.
A couple of my regulars were already in one of the booths, their drinks untouched, the way they always were before business was handled.
Angelo was leaning back, his mouth in a thin line. The guy across from him was grinning. He was always grinning, always pretending the teeth didn’t hide something sharper. I’d gone two rounds with him in the ring when I was younger. Oleg Svechkov was a beast, and I hadn’t had to fake the dive when I fought him.
“Zayn,” Angelo greeted as I approached. “I’ve been waiting. You getting lazy?”
I smiled coldly. “Was talking to an old friend of mine upstairs.” I angled myself slightly away from the other guy. “Rina was out. Her knives are as sharp as ever.”
Angelo smirked. “Poisonous, that one.”
He gestured to the space between them. I didn’t sit. Rye flanked me, quiet and unreadable.
“What do you need witnessed?” I asked, my voice flat. I heard the terms, my eyes flicking to Angelo’s when Oleg suggested ten percent, and Angelo nodded in agreement.
What t he fuck was that? He never accepted anything that low.
I listened and remained neutral as my role was. When Oleg got up to leave, my hand flashed out and grabbed his wrist.
“Sit the fuck down,” I ordered him coldly. I didn’t give a fuck if he could break me; Rye would put a bullet in his head before he swung the first punch. I looked between the two of them. “You’re wasting my time.”
Oleg looked at my hand on his wrist and back at me. “Off.”
“I’ll break it fucking off if you don’t tell me what the fuck I just witnessed .”
Angelo picked up his vodka and downed it. “Draw up the paperwork, Rye.” He looked at me. “You and I are going for a walk.”
Rye looked like he was going to say no, but I removed my hand from Oleg, barely touching Rye on the arm as I pulled away, signaling him to stand down.
“Let’s walk,” I told Angelo .
We walked out of the club, and I knew Rye was going to kick my ass for being so rash. But they were testing me, and I would not fall at the first hurdle.
“You got a request from the boss,” Angelo said, his voice flat. “It comes with a deadline. I’m here to make a deal with that stronzo and you.”
“This isn’t how it works,” I told him as we walked. “You can deal with me in Elixir. Why you pushing?”
“Because they think you’re not in the game, and when someone is weak, there’s movement.” He grunted. “Bianchi’s looking at expansion.”
I scoffed at the thought of who he was competing against. “You mean he’s looking at overstretching,” I replied. “There’s a difference.”
Angelo paused mid-step. “You knew?”
I nodded tersely. “It’s my job to know.”
He resumed walking. “So it’s like that?”
“It’s always like that,” I reminded him. “You want a clean drop, go through me. You want flashy bullshit that’ll burn your ass in six months, take it to New York.”
Angelo smiled. “You always did have a talent for diplomacy.”
I didn’t smile.
“What’s the deadline?”
“Friday.”
It was my turn to stop walking. “Friday?” I asked. “This Friday?”
“Problem?”
It was make-or-break time. This was the consequence of the fuck up with the ledger.
“If you want it clean by Friday, then you need to follow my rules. Same crew, same hours, same accounts. You blink out of order, I’ll drop the entire load in Lake Michigan. ”
His face twitched. Barely. But the message landed.
“All right, I’ll let him know.” He tipped his head to me. “Your way. For now.”
I left him standing there, turning back to my club, not giving a flying fuck I’d just turned my back on the most dangerous man I’d ever met. I had work to do. I didn’t have time for their fucking tests.
I walked back into Elixir, looking around at the patrons. Familiar faces—all power-hungry, none brave enough to challenge my presence. Some were surprised to see me walk back in alone. The message landed here just as it had outside with Angelo. They nodded their greetings. I nodded back.
No words. No need.
I moved through the rooms as I had done a thousand times before, observing hands shake, cash exchange, and products vanish into expensive coats.
Presence .
It was everything in this world. Because if they didn’t see you, they started to forget what you were capable of.
And I had no intention of being forgotten.
Rye was sitting at the back table. His phone was on the table in front of him, the screen dark and his expression darker the longer it took for me to make my way there. “You went out alone,” he said flatly.
“You know I needed to,” I replied, sliding into the seat across from him. “I thought it might help you unfuck your attitude.”
His mouth twitched. “It didn’t.”
I leaned back, folding my arms. “Tell me.”
He flipped the phone toward me. On the screen was a transaction summary—amounts, routing paths, and shell company names that were vaguely familiar .
“New money coming in from the Ferraro side,” he said. “It’s too much to run through the usual fronts.”
I scanned the screen, my brow furrowing. “They want it by Friday.”
Rye laughed. He didn’t give a fuck more than one head turned our way. “Then they may as well as ask me to shit rainbows.”
I gave a quiet laugh. “Quite the image.”
“No shit,” he muttered. “You said yes?”
“Or I’m shitting blood, not rainbows.” I took the phone from him. “So we use the new funnel that just opened, skim the top, and make sure there’s enough paperwork to keep anyone poking their noses in satisfied.”
“This is insanity,” he muttered, looking down.
“It’s a punishment.” I could practically hear the snarl in my voice. “If I can’t deliver this, they’ll only get bolder until I need to make a move.” I looked away from the main club, my voice low so only he could hear. “I can’t fight them all. I need allies.”
“The best ones come with the biggest guns,” Rye mused. “You can’t look desperate.”
I glanced at him sharply. “I’ve never been desperate yet.”
“They’re watching how you move now that Barnie’s in the picture.”
There it was. I braced myself for his lecture. “Of course they are.”
He leaned forward, his voice low. “This is where it starts, Zayn. One misstep. One poor choice. Just once they think you’re distracted.”
“I’m not distracted.”
He didn’t blink, but his look was considering. “Okay.”
My jaw flexed. This wasn’t how I wanted this to happen, but if this was the call, then I needed to make sure they knew nothing had changed. I tapped the phone once before sliding it back. “We push it through the venue accounts and the construction site. Staggered drop. Keep the numbers low and the paper trail tighter. No direct links.”
“And the people involved?”
“Clean hands only. No one new. I want anyone we’re not sure of kept the fuck away from this.”
Rye nodded once.
“And while we’re discussing loyalty,” I added, “I put someone on Julian.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You did?”
“He’s used me for the last time,” I said. “He used her.”
“You think he’s working with Delaney?”
“No. But if anyone knows my pressure points, it’s Julian.”
Rye exhaled, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Always knew he was a rat.”
“He’s a liability, yet he cares for her. I don’t want Isla getting caught in the fallout when he burns.” I met his stare. “Oh, he’ll burn,” I assured him. Maybe not the way Rye would want it, but Julian would never be able to use his connection to me again. I’d make sure of it.
He looked relaxed for the first time in weeks. “You need to warn her.”
“I’ll handle, Isla.”
He stood, pausing with his hand on the table’s edge. “You tell her all of this, and she’ll understand more about what she’s getting involved with.”
“She knows enough.”
Rye left to check upstairs. I sat in the club’s quiet, phone in hand, watching the men in my club pretend they weren’t watching me just as closely.
I picked up my phone, got out of the seat, and walked up the stairs to my office. Once in my chair, I pressed Julian’s number. It rang for so long that I almost thought he wouldn’t answer.
“Zayn?” I heard him moving, and then the background noise quietened.
“A flash drive, Julian?” I leaned back in my chair. “A fucking flash drive?”
I heard the sigh. It sounded weary. “I was stupid, I know that. I didn’t even mean it to become a thing.”
My eyes stayed trained on my piece of art on my wall, the slash of vibrant red seemed to reflect my anger. “But it did become a thing, it became a very big fucking thing. It became dangerous.” I paused. “Why would you have it if you never intended to use it?”
“It was never to be used against you, Zayn.”
I snorted. “And pigs were never meant to be bacon.”
“I fucked up. Okay? I know that. I’ve… I’ve got a fucking gambling addiction,” he said and I heard the bitterness in his voice. The disappointment in himself . “I had everything, everything, a nice house, a great job, good friends, and I lost all of it to a shitty hand of poker.”
“Not just one hand,” I reminded him, unmoved by his remorse. “None of this tells me why you kept a ledger on me, Julian. All this tells me is that your therapy lessons aren’t working.”
I heard the low grunt. “You put someone on me? On me ?”
“You kept a record of my movements?” I mocked his shocked tone. “You’re lucky you aren’t face down in the back of a car.”
“And why aren’t I?” he challenged. “I’ll tell you why, because we’re friends . Remember?”
“We’re not friends. You’re still breathing because she asked me not to hurt you. ”
The silence was heavy, and then he finally spoke. “What do you want from me?”
“How many copies?”
“None.” He hurried on. “It’s the truth. I put everything I had on the flash drive and then deleted it from my computer.”
“Why?”
I heard his breathing change, and if he were in front of me, I knew exactly what he would look like. A man barely hanging on.
“Because I didn’t want to fuck up again.”
I leaned forward. Anger coursing through my veins. “No, Julian, you didn’t trust yourself not to sell me out again.”
“Zayn—”
“Leave town,” I told him curtly. “You need a break. I don’t want to see you here, and I want you far away from Isla.”
“You can’t dictate?—”
“Yes I fucking can!” I was on my feet. “You gave her to fucking Delayney you piece of shit. You get this one pass, one pass. Because she pleaded for you. You won’t get another.”
There was silence. I waited, my temper high, almost hoping he would argue.
“I never meant it to come to this,” he finally said.
“It was always going to come to this.” I hung up.
I tapped out a message on my phone, letting them know he had twenty-four hours to get out of Gracemont, telling them to confirm the moment he was gone.
I sat back in my chair and looked at the door. Anyone else would be dead. I owed him nothing. Rye was right, Julian was a loose end. I rolled my head on my shoulders, loosening up the tension in my neck.
I got up, fixed my suit jacket, checked my cufflinks, and ran a hand through my hair, willing my temper to cool down but knowing I was a long way from calm. I’d not been calm since the moment I knew they took her.
But I would be.
Nothing had changed; they just needed to see that, even though I had nothing to prove, I knew that in this world, assurances had to be given. Loyalties proved.
I’d remind them exactly who I was, and if they didn’t like it, they could go fuck themselves.