Chapter 3 Isaiah
ISAIAH
My girl. My beautiful, feral Valentina.
My bloody little goddess with her sharp tongue and sharper hands.
They told me to watch her. To keep an eye on the cartel princess assassin Ricardo handed over as collateral, make sure she didn’t slip away or make trouble.
Just another job, another long patrol. But I didn’t just watch her.
I studied her. For a year I learned every detail, every twitch of her mouth, every sharp glance from those green eyes.
And somewhere in that year, she stopped being collateral. She became mine.
Do you know what I see when I close my eyes?
Her—moving through the city like she belonged to no one, like she was too bright for this dark place.
Crawling out of bars, crawling out of fights, crawling out of every hell she kept finding herself in—and each time, I wanted to scoop her up, keep her close, tell her she didn’t need to claw anymore because I’d do it for her.
And then there was the night I watched her get her revenge.
The night she carved out blood for that piece of shit father of hers—the man who used her like currency, collateral, nothing more than a pawn on his board.
She fought for him anyway, teeth bared, knives flashing, drenched in violence that should have never been hers to carry.
I was so close to stepping out of the shadows, so close to scooping her up and telling her never again.
Never fight for a man like that. Never bleed for him. Fight only for yourself. Or for me.
Because she’s mine.
And if she hadn’t run that morning—slipping away from me like smoke when I went out to grab food—I would have kept her.
Kept my little goddess locked tight to me, where no one could touch her.
But she ran. Like any angel who catches a glimpse of the demons waiting in the pit, she bolted. And I can’t even blame her for that.
Even when she’s delirious, even painted in blood, she’s perfect. A fighter. And God, I love a fight. I love the way I know she’ll fight me when I finally get her beneath me. I can already feel it—scratching, biting, spitting no with her lips while those green eyes scream yes.
There’s hell in her. I’ve seen it. A little Lucifer, always pushing at her skin, begging to be let out.
And from the moment I laid eyes on her, that demon in her looked straight at me—and winked.
And all I wanted was to whisper back: come play.
Come meet your favorite monster. Let me in. All the way in.
But she makes me work for it. Always has. That demon in her plays hard to get. Maybe that’s fair. After a year in the dark, the light is blinding. But I’ll drag her through it. I want her to burn for me.
You want to know my secret? I didn’t just watch over some cartel daughter like I was told. Aphrodite herself came down from heaven, and I fucking stole her. I took her, and if anyone wants her back, they’ll have to kill me first. Because look at her.
Every inch of her is carved into my memory like scripture.
Petite, soft curves wrapped tight around steel bones, her body looking breakable until you see the coil of muscle beneath.
Golden skin that glows even in the filth of this city.
Wavy hair spilling down her back, sunlit blonde streaks poured over dark earth—and I want to bury my hands in it until she claws me bloody.
A gold ring glinting at her nose. A tattoo on the back of her throat like vines, winding and choking, and every time I see it I imagine replacing it with my collar, my mark, something that drags her back to me.
And those eyes. Those green, holy, feral eyes. They aren’t just eyes—they’re scripture. They make me believe in things I shouldn’t.
Tonight at the club, I almost painted the floor red because men stopped breathing when she glanced their way.
They stumbled over themselves, desperate for her orbit, and the worst part?
She didn’t even see it. She doesn’t know she’s a miracle.
She doesn’t see that she walked out of hell, blood on her hands, and somehow made it look divine.
None of them offered her anything real. No gold.
No loyalty. Not a drop of blood or a single soul.
They just stared, clueless. But me? I know exactly what to do with a goddess.
I’ll worship her like she deserves to be worshipped.
I’ll bare my chest at her altar, sacrifice whatever she asks, and I’ll protect her from my brothers’ wrath because she’s already pissed off men who think they’re kings.
Let them rage. Let them whisper. They should kneel for the privilege of sharing her air.
None of them know her like I do. None of them have seen her at her worst—green eyes glassy with tears, wide and wild with rage, empty and feral as she stands dripping in blood.
I’ve seen Valentina fresh off of an assignment, and that’s when she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
That’s when she’s not just Valentina. That’s when she’s a goddess.
A little hellion carved out of sun and chaos, every perfect curve of her made to be worshiped, feared, fought over, bled for. My goddess. My chaos. My pretty girl.
And now she’s back in my arms, limp, breathing warm against my neck, and I swear on everything I will never let her go again.
I climb the stairs with her pressed to me and all I can think about is how long I went without this weight, without this warmth, and I swear my chest splits open with every step.
She doesn’t even know what she does to me. Doesn’t know that she could make me crazy—crazier than I already am.
And yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Isaiah, you’ve always been fucked in the head, but you don’t know what it feels like to not be able to worship at the altar of your god.
To wake up every day and know your faith is out there somewhere, but you can’t reach her.
I would have done anything to get her back. I would’ve killed for her.
I almost did.
Cast doesn’t know how close I came to putting a bullet in his skull.
He doesn’t know the list I made. Every single name of every man who touched you, every man who stood guard at that cartel door, every man who kept you locked away from me.
You have no idea how long that list is. You have no idea how much blood I was ready to spill.
Valentina… she’s chaos wrapped in silk, a wildfire that pretends to be a candle until you get too close.
She doesn’t just walk into a room—she owns it, bends it, makes every eye lock on her whether they want to or not.
And she fights like she was born for it, like blood and bruises are just another language she speaks better than anyone.
But it’s not just the fury that wrecks me.
It’s the way she laughs, like the world hasn’t already broken her bones a hundred times.
It’s the way she shields people who don’t deserve her protection, like she’s made of armor and mercy at the same time.
She’s a little goddess, carved out of stubborn will and sharp edges, and the rest of us—me, Xavier, Asher—we orbit her whether we admit it or not.
Valentina doesn’t need saving. She is the saving, even when it damn near kills her.
I push my door open and lay her down on my bed—my bed, where no one else has ever been—and her hair spills across my pillow.
She looks like sin like this. She looks like salvation. And my hands won’t move. I stay there, hunched over her, staring, memorizing every inch.
My breath peppers over her skin as I whisper.
“You can fight me in the morning. You can spit and scratch and curse and I’ll love you for it.
But you’re not running again. I don’t care if Xavier threatens me.
I don’t care if Asher warns me. I don’t care if Cast sends the whole cartel.
A year without you nearly killed me once.
I won’t let it happen again. Mine. You are mine. ”
She rolls over to her side, a little snore filling the room, when I hear the soft steps of Asher behind me.
“Xavier will not be happy that she’s not in the basement,” a voice flat and steady rings from the doorway of the bedroom.
I glance back at him over my shoulder.
Asher is different from me. Where I’m the type to fly off the handle at any given time, he’s water on stone—cool, calm, unshakable.
The kind of calm that makes people nervous because they know if Asher ever does decide to move, it’s already too late for them.
I only know he even likes me because he hasn’t tried to kill me since we were teenagers.
And yeah, I know I’m a psychopath, but he’s a sociopath, which, trust me, is worse.
And to make matters worse, he’s stupidly attractive on top of it.
Looks like some sculptor made a six-foot-tall statue out of marble and then slapped long blond hair on him just to be an asshole.
Add in those gray eyes that never blink and a diet and workout plan that makes him look like he walked out of a rich girl’s locker door poster, and it’s honestly unfair.
If he wasn’t my best friend, I’d hate him on principle.
“I don’t want her in the basement,” I say, turning back to the bed. I adjust the blanket around her shoulders, tucking her in like that’ll somehow make her stay put.
Asher leans a shoulder against the doorframe, arms hanging loose at his sides. “How exactly are we supposed to keep her locked up if she’s not in the basement?”
“I’ll handcuff her to my bed,” I tell him, glancing over my shoulder with a grin. “Or me. Or both. Whatever works.”
His head tilts slightly, slow, like a damn owl studying prey. “You think the girl you like is going to like you more if you keep her handcuffed to your bed?”
I shrug and run my hand down the curve of her thighs, careful not to jostle her. “It’s her fault she’s a runner.”
Asher steps into the room, stops a few feet from me, and folds his arms. “She’s not going to like it,” he says, flat as a board.