Chapter 27 Supply Closet Sins
Chapter twenty-seven
Supply Closet Sins
Lena
Miguel doesn't knock. He has a key—of course he has a key—and he uses it like a weapon, the door slamming open hard enough to make my neighbors update their emergency contacts.
I'm sitting on my couch, wearing Zane's t-shirt and my own underwear, looking like the world's most obvious bad decision.
The apartment still smells like sex and mistakes.
There's a hickey on my neck that's basically a signed confession.
My thighs are still sticky with evidence that would hold up in court, and I can feel Zane everywhere—phantom touches that make me clench around nothing while my medical brain calculates sperm survival rates in the vaginal environment (up to 5 days, fuck my life).
"You lied to me," Miguel says, and his voice is quiet. Miguel quiet is Miguel lethal. "Right to my face, hermana. You lied."
"I did," I admit, because what's the point in denying it?
I'm wearing another man's shirt, my lips are still swollen from activities that definitely violate family loyalty clauses, and there's probably DNA evidence on every surface including some that would glow under blacklight.
"Multiple times. With conviction. With the dedication of someone pursuing a terminal degree in deception. "
He moves into my apartment like a storm system, all contained violence and disappointed brother energy.
His eyes catalog everything—the two coffee cups on the counter, Zane's belt on my floor (fuck, missed that in the ten-minute panic clean), the general aura of 'someone definitely got railed here repeatedly and enthusiastically. '
"He's Iron Talon," Miguel says, like I might have missed this crucial detail while Zane was rearranging my internal architecture.
"I'm aware. Extensively aware. My cervix could provide detailed testimony."
"He's killed people."
"So have you."
"For the club. For family." He turns to face me, and the pain in his eyes makes my chest tight enough to require differential diagnosis. "He's the enemy, Lena. The actual, literal enemy."
"He's a man," I counter, pulling my knees to my chest like that might protect me from the weight of his disappointment. "A complicated, dangerous, disaster of a man who makes me feel—"
"Feel what?" Miguel interrupts. "Special? Desired? Like you matter? That's what they do, hermana. That's how they operate."
"No," I say quietly. "He makes me feel like my disasters are features, not bugs. Like being broken isn't something that needs fixing. Like my chaos has a complementary chaos that makes sense of the universe."
Miguel sits down across from me, and suddenly he's not the lethal MC enforcer.
He's just my brother, the one who raised me after our parents died, who taught me to be strong, who's trying so hard to protect me from something I'm running toward with the enthusiasm of someone who's never met a bad decision they didn't want to fuck.
"He'll destroy you," he says softly.
"Probably," I agree. "But maybe I want to be destroyed. Maybe I'm tired of holding all my pieces together with medical tape and denial. Maybe—"
"Maybe you're in love with him."
The words hang between us like a diagnosis nobody wants to hear. Terminal. Incurable. Probably requiring experimental treatment.
"It's been weeks, Miguel. I can't be—"
"Can't you?" He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Look at yourself, Lena. You're wearing his shirt. You smell like him—and before you ask, yes, it's obvious. Like sex and leather and terrible decisions. You lied to your family for him. You're risking everything for him."
My phone buzzes.
Zane: You okay?
I don't answer, but Miguel sees my face when I read it.
"Jesus Christ," he mutters. "You're really doing this."
"I don't know what I'm doing," I admit. "I just know that when I'm with him, everything makes sense in a way it never has before. Even when it's chaos. Especially when it's chaos. It's like finding someone whose disaster frequency matches mine."
Miguel stands, paces, his hands clenching and unclenching like he's fighting the urge to punch something. Or someone. Probably Zane. Possibly me.
"If you continue this," he says finally, "there will be consequences. The club won't tolerate it. I can't protect you from everyone."
"I'm not asking you to."
"You're my sister!"
"And I'm also a grown woman making terrible choices with full awareness and extensive medical knowledge of exactly how terrible they are!
" I stand too, facing him. "I'm not some innocent he corrupted.
I texted him first. I pursued this. I'm the one who keeps saying yes with the enthusiasm of someone who's never met a poor decision they didn't want to marry. "
"Why?" The question cracks out of him, genuinely bewildered. "Why him? Why someone who could cost you everything?"
"Because he already has," I tell him. "And somehow, that makes him worth it."
Miguel stares at me for a long moment, then heads for the door. He pauses, hand on the knob.
"This doesn't end well," he says without looking back. "For any of us."
"I know. I can calculate the exact statistical probability of disaster. It's 100%, plus or minus nothing."
"But you're going to do it anyway."
"Yes. With enthusiasm and probably without protection if today's evidence suggests anything."
"Then you're on your own, hermana. I can't watch you burn."
The door closes with a finality that feels like losing family. Like an amputation without anesthesia. I sit on my couch, in another man's shirt, with another man's cum still inside me, and text the disaster who's worth the destruction.
He's gone. We're not okay. But I'm okay. Medically speaking, emotionally I'm having multiple system failures
Zane: I'm sorry
No you're not
Zane: You're right. I'm not. I'd burn down the whole world to keep you
Good thing I'm already pre-burned then. Like a vaccination against destruction
Zane: Tomorrow?
Tomorrow. Bring terrible decisions and that dick that makes me forget I have a medical degree
Monday arrives like a hangover—inevitable, unpleasant, and tinged with regret that tastes suspiciously like terrible decisions and cum I can still feel dried on my thighs despite two showers.
I'm at work, trying to be a functional medical professional while my personal life is having a multi-system organ failure.
Miguel hasn't responded to any texts—the silence feels like a flatline on the EKG of our relationship.
My coworkers keep giving me looks that suggest the hickey I tried to cover with concealer is about as subtle as a code blue.
I spend the morning hyperaware that I'm probably ovulating.
My cervical mucus has the consistency of egg whites (peak fertility, my medical brain supplies helpfully while my vagina plans a coup), my basal body temperature is elevated, and I can literally feel my ovary releasing an egg like a biological time bomb.
And then Zane texts.
Third floor supply closet. Five minutes
I'm working. Also probably ovulating. This is epidemiologically stupid
I need you
Three words. That's all it takes for my professional resolve to flatline. My ovaries are practically doing the wave.
This is the kind of stupid that ends up in medical journals as a cautionary tale
The stupidest. Five minutes
I make an excuse about inventory, check that Catherine Walsh is nowhere near the third floor, and take the stairs like I'm responding to a medical emergency.
Which, given the way my body is already responding—increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure, vaginal lubrication that's definitely not professional—might be accurate.
He's already there when I slip inside, and the look on his face—desperate, hungry, slightly feral—makes my knees weak and my medical brain calculate pregnancy probabilities (20% per cycle with optimal timing, we're so fucked).
"This is about Miguel," I say, but I'm already moving toward him like an ion to its opposite charge.
"This is about needing you so badly I can't think," he corrects, pulling me against him.
His hands are already under my scrub top, finding skin that's hypersensitive—probably from the progesterone surge, my medical brain notes, while my nipples stand at attention like eager students.
"About not being able to focus on anything except how you felt yesterday.
How you tasted. The sounds you made when—"
I kiss him to shut him up, because if he keeps talking, I'm going to do something really stupid like fall in love with him in a supply closet that smells like industrial disinfectant and broken dreams.
"We have to be quick," I gasp when he starts kissing down my neck, finding that spot that makes my brain emit static and my vagina compose symphonies. "And quiet. And we need to use—"
"Fuck," he groans against my throat. "I didn't bring anything."
"Me neither." We stare at each other—me, a medical professional who knows exactly how pregnancy happens, who can recite conception statistics in my sleep; him, a dangerous man who probably doesn't care about luteal phases and implantation windows—both disasters who are definitely going to do it anyway. "We could just—"
"Touch each other?" he suggests, but his hands are already pushing my scrubs down with the efficiency of someone who's been thinking about this. "Be responsible adults who make good choices?"
"When have we ever been that?" I counter, and then his fingers are between my legs, finding me already embarrassingly wet—cervical mucus production increases during ovulation, my brain supplies helpfully while my vagina celebrates.
"Oh fuck, I'm definitely ovulating. I can feel it. This is so stupid."
"Turn around," he growls, and the command in his voice makes me clench around nothing while my ovaries release a celebratory egg like a reproductive confetti cannon.