Chapter 9
VALENTINA
I wake up alone.
The bed is cold where Xavier should be. Empty.
Just rumpled sheets and the faint scent of him—leather and smoke and skin.
My body aches in all the right places, a pleasant soreness between my thighs that reminds me of last night.
Of the way he made me forget, made me stay present, made me feel something other than the crushing weight of guilt.
For a few hours, I wasn't the girl who might have killed his brother. I was just Valentina. His. Completely his.
I press my face into his pillow and breathe deep, trying to hold onto that feeling for one more moment. But reality is already creeping back in. The memories. The fear. The nightmare that woke me screaming.
The clock on the nightstand reads 10:47 AM. Late for me. I usually can't sleep past dawn anymore—the nightmares won't let me.
I sit up, wincing at the pull of muscles. My tank top is on the floor where I threw it. I pull it on, find my sleep shorts tangled in the sheets. The room is bright with morning sun streaming through the window, cheerful in a way that feels wrong given everything.
Xavier must have gotten himself back to his room somehow. Or maybe Zay helped him. The thought makes me flush—the idea that Zay might have found us tangled together, might have seen the evidence of what we did.
I pad to the bathroom, splash cold water on my face. Look at myself in the mirror. I look like I got fucked thoroughly—swollen lips, dark circles from too little sleep, a hickey blooming purple on my collarbone that Xavier definitely left on purpose. My hair is a disaster, tangled and wild.
I look alive. That's something.
I brush my teeth, run a brush through my hair, try to make myself presentable. Pull on Xavier's oversized Raiders hoodie because I need the armor, the reminder that I belong somewhere, to someone.
My stomach growls. I can't remember the last time I ate a full meal. Yesterday? The day before? Time has gotten slippery lately, hours bleeding into each other.
I head to the front of the house, following the smell of coffee. Maybe I'll find Xavier in the kitchen, maybe I can steal a few more minutes of normalcy before—
Voices from the living room stop me mid-step.
"Johnson's getting bolder." Asher's voice, flat and factual. No emotion. Just data. "Yesterday he told three prospects they should think about where their loyalties really lie. Not asking. Telling."
I freeze against the hallways wall.
"And George?" Xavier. His voice is stronger than it was a week ago, clearer. More present. The physical therapy is working even if progress is slow.
"George is smarter," Asher replies. "He's not saying anything directly. But he's been in the garage with Marcus's old crew for hours every night. They're planning something."
Marcus. The name sends ice through my veins. I close my eyes, force myself to breathe. Not now. Can't think about that now.
"How long do we have?" Zay asks.
"Days. Maybe a week." Asher's tone doesn't change—still that flat, analytical delivery. "The protection rackets are completely dead. Three more businesses told our collectors to fuck off yesterday. The auto shop is hemorrhaging money because nobody trusts us to do the work. And the bar—"
"I know about the bar," Xavier interrupts. "Lost the license. Bobby's trying to get it reinstated but it's going to take months."
"We don't have months," Zay says. "We barely have days."
Everything's falling apart. The club, the businesses, the structure we've built. And they're down here strategizing while I’m in the back of the house pretending last night changed anything.
It didn't. Can't. Not when I'm still carrying this secret.
I take the last few steps deliberately loud, letting my footsteps announce me on the hardwood. All three of them turn to look.
Xavier is in his wheelchair at the head of the coffee table. But he's out here in the common area—that's significant progress. Three weeks ago he couldn't transfer from bed to chair without help.
He's mobile now, wheeling himself through the house independently. The physical therapy is working. His core strength is coming back. The movement in his legs is improving incrementally.
He looks better too. Less gray, less like he's fighting constant pain. His eyes are clearer, more focused. The medication dosage must be down.
But right now those eyes are guarded. Calculating. Reading me the way he always does, seeing too much.
"How long have you been listening?" he asks.
"Long enough." I cross the room, trying to ignore the way Zay's eyes track my movement, the way they linger on the hickey barely hidden by the hoodie collar. I perch on the arm of the couch, maintaining distance. "Let me go back to the compound. Let me handle Johnson and George."
"No," Asher says immediately. Not loud. Not aggressive. Just flat refusal with the certainty of someone who's already made up his mind.
I turn to look at him, feeling last night's conversation echo in the space between us. The way he looked at me in the hallway. The way he saw through every deflection. "Why not?"
He holds my gaze. Says nothing. Just stares at me with those cold, assessing eyes that catalog every micro-expression, every tell, every lie I've told in the past month.
It pisses me off. The way he looks at me like I'm a problem to solve. A variable in an equation. A potential liability that needs to be managed or eliminated.
"I'm serious," I press, letting edge creep into my voice. "Give me one good reason why I can't go back."
"Because I said no," Asher replies, still not breaking eye contact. Still reading me like a book I don't want opened.
"That's not a reason."
"It's the only reason you're getting."
The tension in the room ratchets up several notches. Zay shifts in his seat, sensing the brewing confrontation. Xavier watches us both with that calculating expression I know too well—the one that means he's weighing options, running scenarios, deciding who to back.
"I ran that club for three weeks," I throw at Asher, anger bleeding hot and immediate into my voice. "Kept everything together while Xavier was in a coma. Johnson and George didn't try any of this shit when I was there. They respected me. They followed orders."
"Things have changed," Asher says, voice still flat. Infuriatingly calm.
"Then let me go change them back."
"No."
"Stop saying no without explaining why!" My voice rises despite my attempt to control it, echoes off the walls. "What aren't you telling me? What's the real reason you don't want me there?"
Asher's jaw tightens fractionally—the only sign I've gotten to him. But he still doesn't look away. Doesn't blink. Just holds that infuriating eye contact that makes me feel exposed, analyzed, dissected under a microscope.
Xavier clears his throat. "Asher's concerned about your safety."
"That's not—" Asher starts.
"It is," Xavier interrupts, voice firm with the authority he's been rebuilding. "And I get it. But Val has a point. Johnson respected her. So did most of the membership. They followed her leadership."
"That was before," Asher argues, finally breaking eye contact with me to look at Xavier. Relief and frustration war in my chest—relief that he's not staring through me anymore, frustration that he still won't explain what 'before' means.
"Before what?" I demand. "Before what, Asher?"
Nobody answers. The silence stretches, heavy and loaded with things nobody wants to say. Secrets stacking on top of secrets until the whole structure threatens to collapse.
"Let's vote," Xavier says finally, cutting through the tension. "That's how we do things. Democratic process."
"This isn't a democracy," Asher counters immediately. "This is a dictatorship with you at the top. You make the call."
"Then I'm making the call to vote." Xavier looks at each of us in turn—me, Zay, then Asher. His expression is unreadable but I can see the decision forming behind his eyes. "Zay?"
Zay has been quiet this whole time, watching me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle with awareness and something else I don't want to name.
Things have been weird between us since that night in the kitchen.
Since I tried to use sex to deflect. Since he pushed me away and called me out for weaponizing attraction.
He still looks at me like he's obsessed. Like I'm the only thing in the room that matters, the only thing he can see. But there's wariness layered over the obsession now. Distance. The knowledge that I'm hiding something, that I'm not the person he thought I was.
"She should go," he says finally, voice steady. "We need someone there who can actually control the situation without putting a gun in people's faces. Asher and I—we're holding things together with threats and violence. That's not sustainable long-term."
"Thank you," I say, meaning it.
"I'm not done," Zay continues, eyes locked on mine with that unnerving intensity. "You go, but you don't go alone. One of us goes with you. Non-negotiable."
I want to argue—want to prove I can handle this myself, that I don't need protection or supervision. But I can see the sense in it. See the compromise he's offering. "Fine."
"Xavier?" Asher asks, clearly hoping for backup. Hoping Xavier will side with him against me.
Xavier's quiet for a long moment, studying me with those dark eyes that see too much. I can feel him weighing options, calculating risks and benefits. His fingers drum against the armrest of the wheelchair—that nervous tic he only does when he's deeply conflicted about a decision.
I hold his gaze. Let him see that I need this. Need to feel useful again, need to do something other than spiral in my own head.
"She goes," he says finally, and relief floods through me. "With Zay. They make an appearance, remind everyone who's in charge, and come back. Quick trip. In and out. No extended stay."
"This is a mistake," Asher states flatly, no inflection. Just fact delivered with absolute certainty.