Chapter 11
Almost a week later, the Obsidian’s VIP lounge feels smaller tonight with all four of them in it.
I hadn’t planned this. I hadn’t expected Dom to call a meeting the same night Marcus asked me to come discuss security arrangements.
I hadn’t anticipated Kieran showing up unannounced with a bottle of expensive scotch and that dangerous smile, and I certainly hadn’t foreseen Axel materializing from whatever shadows he haunts with perfect timing and that knowing look in his amber-brown eyes.
Yet here we are, five people in a room built for intimate conversations, the air thick with testosterone and unspoken challenges.
It certainly doesn’t help any that I’ve kissed them all. Most against my better judgment.
Dom stands near the window overlooking the fight cages below, his massive frame tense with barely controlled aggression.
He’s changed from his usual all-black ensemble into dark jeans and a navy henley that stretches across his shoulders in ways that should come with a warning label.
His knuckles are already showing the telltale signs of recent contact with someone’s face, fresh scrapes that suggest whatever “incident” called him away from my apartment last night required very personal attention.
Marcus occupies the leather chair closest to the door, every line of his expensive suit perfectly pressed despite the late hour.
His designer glasses catch the low lighting as his dark eyes track between the other three men with calculating precision.
He looks exactly like what he is, an apex predator in a boardroom analyzing threats and planning five moves ahead.
Kieran has claimed the spot at the bar, leaning against it with deceptive casualness while he nurses two fingers of scotch.
His platinum hair is slightly disheveled, like he’s been running his hands through it, and there’s something sharp and dangerous in his ice-blue eyes that makes my heart skip a beat.
The expensive watch on his wrist catches the light as he raises his glass, a subtle display of wealth and power.
And Axel perches on the arm of the couch like he might bolt at any second, all coiled energy and predatory grace.
His black hair falls across one eye, partially obscuring the silver streak that makes him look otherworldly.
Tonight, he’s wearing dark jeans and a fitted black t-shirt that shows off the intricate tattoos covering his arms. There’s something almost feral about his stillness, like a wild animal pretending to be domesticated.
I’m the only one sitting normally, curled into the corner of the leather sectional with my legs tucked under me, but even I can feel the tension crackling through the room like electricity before a storm.
“So,” Kieran says, breaking the silence that’s stretched just past comfortable, “this is cozy.”
Dom’s jaw ticks once. “You weren’t invited.”
“Neither was he.” Kieran nods toward Axel, who grins in response—all teeth and sharp edges.
“Nobody invites Ghost anywhere,” Axel says, his voice carrying that slight rasp that makes everything sound like a secret. “I just show up where I’m needed.”
“Talking in the third person. How original. And where exactly did you decide you were needed tonight?” Marcus asks, his tone perfectly polite yet absolutely lethal.
“Wherever Raven is.” Axel’s mostly brown eyes find mine across the room. “Seems like that’s the same place all of you keep showing up too. Funny how that works.”
The temperature in the room drops several degrees.
Dom turns from the window, his expression thunderous. “Something you want to say, Rivera?”
“Just making an observation.” Axel’s grin widens. “Four grown men, one woman, and a lot of unresolved sexual tension. It’s like a really expensive porn setup, except everyone’s too proud to admit what they actually want.”
“Axel,” I warn, but he just shrugs.
“What? I’m not wrong.” He hops down from the couch arm with fluid grace. “We’re all here for the same reason. Might as well be honest about it.”
“And what reason is that?” Kieran’s voice is silk over steel.
“Her.” Axel points directly at me. “Everything else is just excuse and justification.”
The room falls into the kind of silence that precedes violence.
It’s building in each of them—from the set of Dom’s shoulders and the whitening of Kieran’s knuckles around his glass to the dangerous stillness that’s settled over Marcus.
Even Axel, for all his casual provocations, is sitting up straighter and gone very alert.
“Enough,” I say, my voice cutting through the tension like a blade. “All of you, sit down.”
“Raven—” Dom starts.
“Sit. Down.” I let command ring in my voice, the tone I learned watching my father control rooms full of dangerous men. “Now.”
To my surprise, they comply. Dom takes the chair across from Marcus, his movements sharp with suppressed aggression.
Kieran abandons the bar for the opposite end of the sectional, putting the length of the couch between us but keeping me in his direct line of sight.
Axel drops back onto the couch arm, closer than before.
Marcus remains exactly where he was, but something in his posture has shifted. He’s more attentive, more focused.
“Better.” I lean back into the cushions, letting them all feel the weight of my attention. “Now, since we’re all here, let’s have the conversation none of you seem willing to start.”
“Which conversation is that?” Kieran asks, though his tone suggests he knows exactly which one.
“The one where you stop dancing around each other like territorial wolves and acknowledge that you all want the same thing.” I meet each of their eyes in turn. “Me.”
Dom’s hands curl into fists. Kieran’s jaw tightens. Marcus goes very still behind his glasses. Axel, predictably, looks delighted by the chaos.
“It’s not that simple,” Dom says finally.
“Isn’t it?” I tilt my head, studying him. “You kissed me last night, Dom. You told me again that you don’t share and that I need to choose. What exactly is complicated about that?”
His dark eyes flash with something between desire and frustration. “The fact that you kissed Kieran days before that.”
“And spent an afternoon in Marcus’s office looking very thoroughly kissed when you left,” Kieran adds, his voice deceptively calm.
All eyes turn to Marcus, who adjusts his glasses with deliberate precision. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
“But you do kiss,” Axel observes cheerfully. “Interesting development.”
They’re all watching me. All keeping tabs on me.
This is quickly becoming a problem, one I need to handle. I have so much pressure right now. What Marcus shared was a bomb, and I’m still processing it.
“What’s interesting,” I say before this can devolve into the testosterone-fueled pissing contest it’s clearly heading toward, “is that you’re all sitting here acting like I’m a prize to be won instead of a person capable of making my own decisions.”
“That’s not—” Kieran starts.
“That’s exactly what this is.” I stand up, needing the advantage of height and movement. “You want me to choose. Fine. But you’re going to hear my terms first.”
The room goes silent again, but this time, it’s expectant rather than hostile. Four pairs of eyes track my movement as I head to the window. I look down at the fight cages where other people are working out their aggression in more straightforward ways.
“I spent five years thinking I was alone,” I say without turning around. “Five years believing that everyone who mattered to me was gone, that I had nothing left but revenge and the need to rebuild from nothing.”
I can feel them listening, waiting, the predatory stillness of hunters who’ve caught the scent of something important.
“Days ago, I found out my father left me an empire worth over a hundred million dollars. I discovered that Marcus has been protecting me for five years without my knowledge. Not that long ago, Kieran told me his family wasn’t responsible for my father’s death.
And last night, Dom kissed me like he’s been waiting his whole life to do it, and it wasn’t our first kiss either.
” I turn back to face them, letting them see the resolve in my expression.
“I also know that Axel has been watching me for months, showing up wherever I am with perfect timing and that look in his eyes that says he knows secrets I haven’t figured out yet. ”
Axel’s grin falters slightly, surprise flickering across his features.
A man with shaggy black hair with a natural streak of silver and multiple piercings including a brow bar and several ear piercings is not exactly forgettable. It took me a bit to realize that the man watching me was the fighter before me, but I put two and two together.
“Yes, I noticed. I notice everything.”
“What’s your point?” Dom asks, though his voice has gone rough.
“My point is that for the first time in five years, I’m not alone. For the first time since my father died, I have people who matter to me, who I trust, who I—” I pause, the word catching in my throat before I force it out. “Who I care about.”
The admission costs me something, strips away a layer of armor I’ve worn for so long I’d forgotten what it felt like to be without it.
I refuse to believe I’m na?ve. I can’t dare try to reclaim my father’s empire and forge it into my own without allies. I’ll be killed and buried next to my father if I go alone.
If I trust the wrong people, I die.
But if I don’t trust anyone, I lose everything my father built.
“You want me to choose,” I continue, my voice steady despite the way my heart is racing, “but here’s what I’m realizing. I don’t want to choose. Not between Dom’s fierce protection and Kieran’s dangerous intelligence. Not between Marcus’s steady devotion and Axel’s wild unpredictability.”
The silence that follows is deafening. I can see shock written across their faces, followed quickly by calculation, desire, and something that might be hope.