Chapter 6
Six
Dagger
She’s still in my fucking head.
Not just her mouth or that tight little moan when I kissed her.
Not just the way she looked up at me like maybe—just maybe—she didn’t hate the idea of letting me wreck her.
It’s everything. Her voice. Her fire. Her scent still clinging to my jacket like perfume soaked in sin.
That whole moment on the beach is burned into me.
She leaned into me like the world was crumbling and I was the only steady thing left.
She didn’t say it, but I felt it. The desperation beneath the sarcasm. The kind of need that seeps into bone.
And now she’s gone.
I’m still standing in the sand, jacket in one hand and the taste of her on my tongue, when I hear it—the slam of boots over gravel and the ragged breath of someone hauling ass down the bluff.
Link comes tearing toward me, high as fuck and panicking, his hoodie half off one shoulder and a fresh sweat stain spreading down his back.
“D! Yo—Dagger!” He skids to a stop, breathing hard. “Shit’s going down, man. Cops are pulling in—two cruisers, maybe more. Word is some kid OD’d in the bathroom. It ain’t good man. They said he’s not breathing. Dead.”
My jaw tightens. “What’d he take?”
“No clue. Could’ve been yours. Could’ve been cut. But people are pointing fingers already. Saying Cyanide’s involved.”
I drag a hand down my face, jaw clenched, nerves buzzing like exposed wire under my skin. This kind of shit? Happens all the time. People don’t OD on my product because it’s cut wrong, they OD because they don’t know how the fuck to pace themselves.
They want the high but can’t handle the comedown.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not a goddamn problem. Doesn’t mean it won’t bring the wrong kind of eyes sniffing around—cops, rats, people asking questions I don’t have time for. I’ve already got too many fires burning, and now some junkie decides to die and drag all his smoke with him.
I’m not shaken.
I’m fucking livid.
Because this isn’t just noise—it’s bad for business. And worse? It threatens the silence I’ve been working my ass off to protect.
I shove the jacket into Link’s chest, already turning back toward the warehouse.
“Grab the stash. Tell the crew to clear the fuck out. We meet at the clubhouse in the morning once this heat dies down. And if you see Molly, tell her to grease the pigs on our payroll. Everyone eats tonight, or we’re the ones getting burned. ”
Link’s eyes go wide. “What about you?”
“There’s something I gotta take care of first.”
He stares like I’ve lost it. “D, the fuck? You can’t be serious?—”
I snap my head toward him, eyes sharp. “Did I ask for your fucking opinion? No? Then get the fuck out of here before I make you part of the goddamn cleanup.”
He doesn’t argue again.
Didn’t fucking think so.
The music’s still thumping through the walls like a dying heartbeat.
I take the stairs two at a time, shoving through dazed bodies and half-drunk kids who have no idea how close they are to ending up in the same dirt as the kid in the bathroom.
People are already scattering—some laughing, some screaming.
One girl’s slumped near the vending machine, glitter smeared across her chest like war paint as she pukes into her designer bag.
Typical.
I move faster, eyes scanning every face, every flash of pink and purple hair, but nothing hits right. She’s not here. I hit the corridor near the bar, yelling her name, voice cutting through the static. No response. Only echoes. Only chaos.
Then I round a corner and find him.
Fucking Noir.
Leaning against the wall like he’s waiting for applause, hoodie tossed over his shoulder, black sleeveless shirt clinging to his torso, tattoos inked and gleaming in the low light.
A cigarette dangles from his lips, smoke curling around him like a halo of sin.
That smug, bored look on his face like this is all some private joke and he’s the only one laughing.
My fists curl before I even register moving.
“Where is she?” I snap, already closing the distance.
Noir shrugs, slow and exaggerated, like I’m not even a threat. “Haven’t seen her since I left her near the bathrooms.”
I take a step in, slow and deliberate. “Funny. You’ve been playing the white knight all night, and yet you just left her?”
He smirks. The kind that scrapes against your nerves and settles deep, like rot. “Relax. She was fine. Flushed. Glowing. Messy.” He lifts his fingers to his nose and inhales, slow and cruel. “Still smells like her.”
My jaw ticks. My fists curl tighter.
“She tastes exactly like I figured she would,” he says, voice low and dripping mock reverence.
“Spicy as hell—mouth like a razor—but underneath? Fucking sweet. Like sugar laced with every fucking unholy thought I’ve ever had.
.” He grins, dragging the smoke from his lips.
“And those sounds she makes, man... shit.
I should sample ‘em. Lay her moans over a slow-drop beat. Real filthy. Let the whole world hear what she sounds like when she breaks for me. ”
His eyes narrow, crueler now. A slow, deliberate cut.
“She rode my fingers like she was chasing her next fix,” he adds, tone darker, lower. “Didn’t even care who I was. Just needed it. And when I gave her the real thing?” He lets the smoke trail out with a laugh. “She took my cock like it was the hit she’d been waiting for all fucking night.”
My vision goes fucking red.
“She didn’t stop me,” he murmurs, almost like a secret. “Nah, she fucking wanted it. She couldn’t wait to open up for me. Tight little cunt clenched down like she couldn’t fucking get enough.”
That’s it.
I slam him into the wall before the last word’s out of his mouth, my forearm crushing into his throat, hard enough to crack drywall behind his skull. His head hits with a thud, but the bastard’s still grinning like he wants this.
“You wanna say that again?” I snarl, eyes locked on his, every muscle in my body screaming for blood. “Go ahead. Open your fucking mouth. I fucking dare you.”
The cigarette falls from his lips, drops between us like a lit fuse. Ash smears across his chest, but he doesn’t flinch. Just stares back with that dead-eyed amusement, like nothing I do can touch him.
“Touched a nerve, did I?” he rasps, breath choked against my arm. “What, because you want her just as bad as I do? That’s the real bitch of it, isn’t it? You’re not pissed I touched her. You’re pissed I beat you to it.”
This isn’t just about fucking.
It’s about her .
And he thinks she’s something he can use to win.
My vision’s gone red. All I can see is her—Blair—wrecked, glowing and messy, just like he said. I can smell her on him. Like he marked her. Like he thinks she’s his.
“You fucked her,” I bite out, venom thick in my throat. “In this fucking shithole of a place and then you just left her? Walked away like she meant nothing ? Like she was trash?”
My voice drops, but the rage doesn’t. It just sharpens. Cuts deeper.
“None of it mattered to you, did it? Not her. Not how she felt. All that fucking mattered was getting to her before me. That’s what this was.”
I press harder, just to hear him gasp.
“This was never about Blair to you. This was about her. ”
There it is. The truth between us. Bleeding. Rotting.
He touched her because he wanted to win. Not because he felt anything, and I can’t fucking stand it.
I swing.
Hard.
And just like that, it’s on.
I pull him back and slam him into the wall again, so hard the drywall buckles.
His head jerks back, but he’s already moving, throwing an elbow toward my ribs.
I duck, swing low, and we hit the ground hard.
We’re rolling. Trading punches. No technique, just rage.
Just fucking blood. My knuckles split on his cheekbone and he grunts, shoving me off with a knee to the side.
I come back swinging. He catches my jaw.
The thud of bone on bone echoes in the narrow hall.
“I told you not to fucking touch her,” I growl, kneeing him into the concrete. “Told you to stay the fuck away from her. Didn’t you learn the first time?”
“Oh, fuck off,” he spits, blood trailing down his lip, but that smug glint in his eyes doesn’t fade for a second. “Yeah, she kissed you. Real sweet. But then what? She walked off.”
He laughs—low, bitter, victorious.
“And not ten minutes later? She let me fuck her. Up against a door, moaning my name like it was the only thing she remembered. So don’t act surprised, man. You got the warm-up. I got the finish.”
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, then grins through the blood. That sharp, crooked grin he knows I hate.
“Guess she figured out who really knows how to handle her.”
That’s when I lose it.
I lunge, get on top of him, fists flying, until?—
“DAGGER!”
Cass.
Her hands grab my shoulders, yanking hard. “Get the fuck off him!”
I let her pull me back, chest heaving, jaw clenched. Noir wipes his face with the back of his hand, still smiling like the bastard he is. He doesn’t say anything else. Just gets up and melts into the shadows like the cockroach he’s always been.
Cass plants herself in front of me, glaring. “What the fuck, D? You’re gonna get caught brawling in a goddamn hallway while the cops are breathing down our necks?”
I don’t answer. Just shove past her. “I need to find Blair.”
“She’s not here.”
I freeze.
“What?”
Cass folds her arms, expression tight. “I saw her leave when shit started popping off. She slipped out the side, got into an Uber. Alone.”
“You’re sure.”
“I watched the car pull away.”
Something snaps in my chest—clean, brutal. She left. Slipped out without a word while I was out here breaking bones for her. And now I don’t know what I feel more—relieved she’s not in the wreckage, or pissed she disappeared on me like I wouldn’t come looking.
I exhale hard, dragging a hand down my face.
“Thanks, Cass.” My voice is low, rough around the edges. “You did good.”