17. Vale
Vale
The club is built underground, all black walls and low ceilings, the bass punching through the floor like a second heartbeat.
Red light bleeds over everything, turning skin slick and strange, making people look meaner or prettier depending on where they stand.
The air smells like liquor, sweat, and something chemical under it all, sharp enough to sit at the back of my throat.
Bodies move everywhere, packed tight near the dance floor, looser around the edges where the real business happens, where people talk too close and exchange things with their palms half-hidden.
We spot him behind the bar.
He’s not hard to find once you know what you’re looking for.
Tall. Lean. Dark shirt rolled to the elbows.
Hands too steady for a man working a Saturday-night crowd this deep into the hour.
He moves fast, but never rushed. Never sloppy.
Pouring, collecting cash, sliding glasses down polished black wood, and all the while his eyes keep lifting, scanning the room in pieces.
Entrance. Back corridor. VIP stairs. Exit by the bathrooms. Me. Havoc.
His mouth flattens when he sees us. He’s definitely not happy we’re here.
His name is Gabriel Voss now, or that’s what he’s using.
I doubt it’s the name he was born with. In the Brotherhood, names are just coats.
You wear one until it gets dirty enough to throw away.
Havoc is the oldest of the three of us, and Voss older than him by maybe ten years.
Quiet reputation. Never rose high because men like him don’t need rank to be feared. Everybody knows what he is anyway.
In the Brotherhood, Shepherds clean up what everyone else leaves behind. Bodies. Witnesses. Mistakes. They make messes disappear. They make people disappear too. They’re the ones called when something goes wrong and nobody wants to hear about it again.
I knew him before I knew what he was.
Not well. Not personally. But enough.
I saw him twice when I was younger, back when my father was still alive and our house still had people coming and going at all hours.
He was never there long. Never sat. Never drank.
Always standing near a doorway like he was already on his way to the next mess.
Once, when I was maybe fifteen, I came downstairs for water and saw blood on his cuff.
He noticed me looking and covered it with his other hand.
A blonde in silver cuts in front of us before we reach the bar, smiling right at Havoc. “Buy me a drink?”
Normally that would be all it takes. Havoc has never been hard to distract with a pretty face and an open invitation. He smiles at her, warm and easy, then steps around her without touching her. “Maybe later.”
She looks annoyed. I look at him.
Another girl catches his arm two seconds later, pressing in close like she already knows what kind of man he is. He gives her the same smile, peels her hand off, keeps walking.
That gets my attention.
Havoc doesn’t usually pass up girls throwing themselves at him. He especially doesn’t do it twice.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask quietly.
He glances at me. “Nothing.”
“You’re ignoring women. That’s unnatural.”
His mouth twitches, but he doesn’t look away from the Shepherd. “Try not to sound jealous.”
I snort.
We stop at the bar.
The Shepherd sets down a glass he’s drying and looks straight at me.
Not Havoc. Me.
“You shouldn’t be here, Vale.”
His voice is rough, low, familiar enough to bother me.
I lean against the bar. “Good to see you too.”
Only then does he look at Havoc, and the dislike is immediate. Havoc notices and smiles like he enjoys that.
The Shepherd looks back at me. “You look like your mother.”
There’s a beat where all I hear is the music and the noise around us and that one sentence sitting there between us. I stare at him. He stares right back. Same unreadable face I remember. Same sense that he sees more than he says.
Havoc leans one elbow on the bar. “We didn’t come here for family history.”
The Shepherd finally looks at him again. “No. You came here to make trouble.”
“That too.”
A waitress brushes past behind the bar and gives the Shepherd a quick look, like she can tell something’s off. He ignores her.
I fold my arms. “Why don’t you start with why you’re acting like we ruined your night?”
“Because you did.”
“Funny,” Havoc says. “You don’t look like a man who was having much fun.”
That almost gets a reaction out of him. Almost.
The Shepherd’s attention returns to me. “You need to leave.”
“Not happening.”
“Vale.”
The way he says my name stops me more than it should. Too direct. Too familiar. Like he thinks he’s allowed.
I straighten. “Don’t do that.”
His eyes narrow slightly. “Do what?”
“Act like you get to tell me what to do.”
The muscles in his jaw tighten. “I’m telling you because you don’t understand where you are.”
I give him a flat look. “I understand exactly where I am.”
“No,” he says. “You don’t.”
That pisses me off.
Before I can answer, a dark-haired girl comes up behind Havoc and slides a hand over his back, smiling like she’s already decided how the night ends. He turns, gives her that same beautiful, dangerous smile, and gently removes her hand. “Not tonight.”
She actually looks confused.
So do I.
Because Havoc never says not tonight. He says yes, or later, or come with me. He doesn’t wave off women when they’re practically in his lap.
The girl leaves. I glance at him again.
He catches it this time. “What?”
“You’re distracted.”
“Maybe I’m being respectful.”
I laugh once. “Since when?”
The Shepherd cuts in before Havoc can answer.
“What do you need?” His tone is flat. Done with the small talk. Done with us standing here at his bar like we’re customers instead of a problem.
Havoc shifts his weight, still loose, still smiling, but I can see the edge under it now. “Private.”
The Shepherd stares at him for a second, then looks at me. Not him. Me.
That annoys Havoc more than he lets on.
Finally, the Shepherd jerks his chin toward the service door at the end of the bar. “Two minutes.”
He says something to the other bartender, tosses down the towel, and leads us through the side door into a narrow back hallway that smells like bleach, old beer, and damp concrete.
The music is still there, but muffled now, more vibration than sound.
Storage shelves line one wall. Boxes of liquor.
Paper towels. Cleaning supplies. A flickering fluorescent light makes everything look harsher than it already is.
The Shepherd turns to face us. “Well?”
Havoc doesn’t waste time. “There’s a girl mentioned in the Archive files—Lena. We need to find more info on her.”
His eyes move between us once. Measuring. Calculating. Then he says, “You should stay away from anyone on that file unless the Brotherhood is asking for them.” His voice is calm, but there’s something in it that makes the hairs on my arms rise.
I say, “But there’s a reason she’s there. The most reasonable explanation is that she was under our protection at one point.”
The Shepherd looks at me, and for a second I can’t tell if he’s impressed or irritated.
“She’s an orphan,” Havoc says.
“We want to know why the Brotherhood was interested in an orphan,” I say. “And why most of the page is redacted.”
The Shepherd gives me a look like I’ve asked why knives are sharp. “Top secret.”
Flat. Dismissive. Like we’re idiots.
I look at Havoc. He looks at me. And I can tell instantly he’s running out of patience. It’s in the way his smile disappears. In the way he rolls his jaw once and lets the silence sit too long. In the way his shoulders go still instead of relaxed.
The Shepherd notices too. Of course he does.
“You two don’t know even one percent of what the Brotherhood is,” he says.
Havoc lets out a quiet laugh with no humor in it. “I’ve been doing this for years.”
The Shepherd doesn’t blink. “The point stands.”
That hits harder than it should because he means it. Not as an insult. As fact.
Havoc takes one slow step forward. Not aggressive yet. Close enough to be. “Then enlighten us.”
The Shepherd doesn’t move. “No.”
“Why?” Havoc asks.
“Because people who know too much about the wrong parts of the Brotherhood don’t live long enough to regret it.”
The hallway goes very quiet around that.
I cross my arms. “Then why keep a file at all? Why document her?”
“Because that’s what the Brotherhood does,” the Shepherd says. “It keeps records. It monitors risk. It tracks what matters.”
“What made her matter?” I ask.
His eyes come to me again. Cooler now. He says nothing.
That’s answer enough.
Havoc’s voice drops. “She was flagged for a reason.”
“Yes.” The Shepherd’s mouth tightens, just a fraction. There. Something.
I catch it. “So it’s about blood.”
He looks at me for a long second. “You’re asking the wrong questions.”
“Then give us the right ones.”
He ignores that. “The girl’s alive. Keep it that way. That should be enough.”
“It isn’t,” Havoc says.
The Shepherd turns to him. “Then that’s your problem.”
Havoc exhales once through his nose and smiles again, but this time there’s nothing warm in it. “You know, for a bartender, you’re very bad at hospitality.”
“For a man with your reputation,” the Shepherd replies, “you’re even worse at hearing warnings.”
Havoc takes another step in. “Careful.”
The Shepherd doesn’t give an inch. “Or what?”
For one second, I think this is about to get stupid.
I cut in. “Enough.”
Neither of them looks away.
“I’m done here,” the Shepherd says. He leaves us with that, already walking back toward the club floor like the conversation is over because he decided it is. “I don’t have the information you want,” he says without turning around.
Then he’s gone, swallowed by bass and flashing light and the blur of bodies moving around the bar.
I watch after him for a second longer than I should.