Chapter 3 Isaiah #2
I stretch out my legs and lean back on my hands, grinning up at him. “I know ways to apologize.”
That earns me the slightest narrowing of his eyes. “Gross,” he says, like only Asher can—dead-eyed, monotone.
I just grin, eyes sliding back to the bed. She’s curled on her side, breathing slow, a little frown between her brows even in sleep. That sound she makes—tiny little snore, soft as a kitten—kills me.
Asher shifts closer, crosses his arms over his chest, and stares down at her too, but where I’m smiling like an idiot, he’s all cold calculation, silent and still as a damn statue.
Asher doesn’t take his eyes off her when he speaks. “Xavier wants to talk to us.”
Of course he does. I drag a hand down my face and sigh like it’s the biggest inconvenience in the world. “He can wait two minutes.”
“He’s not going to wait,” Asher says, and that’s the thing with him—no edge, no threat, just plain fact. Like gravity.
I lean down anyway, ignoring him, and press my lips to her forehead.
She’s warm, soft, and smells like gunpowder and chaos, and for a second I think about staying right here and letting Xavier set the whole house on fire looking for us.
Then I pull back, slow, brushing a strand of hair away from her face so I can see her better one last time.
“Don’t go anywhere,” I murmur into her vanilla scented hair, like she can hear me in her sleep.
Asher steps aside to let me pass, and I follow him out of the room, already missing the weight of her in my line of sight.
Walking down the hall behind him, I can already feel the tension tightening in my chest because I know exactly what’s waiting for us. Xavier. And Xavier pissed is a different breed.
People see the three of us together and think we’re cut from the same cloth, but the truth is it’s a messier knot than that.
Xavier is the spine of this whole operation, the one everyone looks at like he was born to lead because, in a way, he was.
Full-blooded King. Raiders royalty. And me?
I’m the bastard half-brother who showed up at thirteen with nothing but a dead father, a name no one wanted to claim, and a mom who told everyone I’d been born in a grave.
That first day was a nightmare. A bloodbath in miniature.
Let’s just say Mom’s not around anymore, and I’ve got the scars to remind me why.
Marcus—the perfect son, the big brother, the recently deceased leader of the Raiders—he would’ve put a bullet in me back then and slept like a baby.
The only reason I’m even breathing is because Xavier put his body in front of mine and never moved.
I owe him everything for that. Doesn’t mean I make it easy on him.
Then there’s Asher, walking three steps ahead of me like an executioner heading to work.
Asher doesn’t give a shit about my blood or lack of it.
He only cares about two people on this earth—Xavier and me—and everyone else could catch fire for all he cares.
He doesn’t talk unless it matters, doesn’t move unless it’s to put someone down, and the only reason he’s here right now is because Xavier told him to fetch me.
So yeah, it’s a mess. Xavier saves my life. Asher keeps me alive. And I? I make sure this whole place doesn’t go stale with all their rules and restraint. We make a perfect bloody team.
I step into Xavier’s room, and it’s like walking straight into a black hole—walls swallowed up in shadow, the furniture all sharp edges in shades of gray and white. He’s at the far side, leaning against his desk, popping the cap off a beer with a slow, practiced twist just as I come in.
“You got her?” He questions, taking a swig of the beer without offering us one, because this man is a selfish bastard.
“Got her,” I sing, jumping into the bed and leaning back into the plush mess that is his bed. “She put up a fight, didn’t she Ash?”
“She fought you?” Xavier snarls, the moonlight hits the curve of his sharp jawline covered in a five o’clock shadow.
“Yeah, it was fun. A good left hook,” I smile, thinking about my perfect little goddess. Did I call her Aphrodite? I meant Athena. She is my little warrior goddess.
“You had to knock her out. She would have broken our noses if not.” Asher responds, leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed over his chest.“She’ll be out for the next day max, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she was up in the next ten hours.”
My little fighter fights in her sleep.
“We should have just killed her,” Xavier grumbles and I shoot up. “She’s a liability.”
“You want me to kill you?” I snarl, all teeth and no patience.
“I heard you the first three times, Isaiah,” Xavier grumbles, his voice rough around the edges, calm enough to make me itch. “What are we going to do with a trained killer as a prisoner?”
“Love her. Nurture her. Fuck her,” I drone, because despite the contract this is divine intervention.
“She is the sister of the leader of the cartel. He is going to come for her, which makes her a liability,” Xavier continues, with a snarl. “I am only not killing her because you like her.”
“First, I love her. L-O-V-E. I know that word is foreign to you, but I love her.” I call out, correcting them for even thinking like was enough, I don’t even think love is enough for what I feel for my little goddess.
“You don’t even know her,” Asher reminds me of a fatal flaw of my existence and I flip him off with a blank stare. I know he can’t see in this dim lighting. “Xavier has a point. They’re not going to like this.”
“And two, who is they?” I shoot back, rolling into the middle of the mattress. It sinks just right, snug and unfair, and I hate him for having the most comfortable bed in the entire house and refusing to share. I stretch out, lean back on my elbows, and grin at him. “And why do they matter?”
“The fucking club,” Xavier bites out. “They’ve been looking for Marcus’s killer for months, and now we’re going to prance around a random girl and pick a fight with the Cartel.”
He drags a hand over his face, like it’ll scrub off all the weight sitting on him, then steps out of the shadows.
You’d hardly know he’d moved. With that black wavy hair falling into his eyes and the heavy ink that crawls up his arms—solid black work, no color anywhere—he might as well still belong to the dark.
That’s the thing about Xavier: where I throw color on my skin just to see how far I can push it, he keeps everything stripped back to bone.
Black ink, black shirt, black mood. Real sunny guy, I swear.
“So let's tell them this is a positive union,” I drone, sprawled on his bed like this is a casual chat about the weather.
“Positive union? Like a marriage between us and the cartel?” Xavier’s voice is tight now, that thin thread of patience fraying fast. “Cast is not going to go for that. She’s not going to go for it. I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”
“Look, all we have to do is explain to her the parameters of the contract. Ricardo promised to kill Cast and bring the Raiders into the fold. As collateral for using our guys he put his daughter up. His gorgeous, goddess of a daughter. That is not our fault for us to the reap the benefits ,” I say, grinning to myself because, honestly, how many guys get to say their pet is a goddess?
“It’s supposed to be a punishment,” Asher cuts in from his corner, tone so flat it somehow sounds like he’s rolling his eyes without moving a single muscle in his face.
“I’ll punish her,” I shrug, smirk tugging wider. “I mean, I love my little goddess, but even deities can be naughty. Have you read Greek mythology? Zeus was out there punishing people left and right.”
“You’re not punishing her now,” Asher points out, monotone, and that’s when I hear the sharp thunk of Xavier’s beer bottle hitting the table. My head jerks up because that sound means I’m about two seconds from dying.
“Where. Is. She?” Xavier says it slow. Each syllable is carved, clean, and lethal, like he’s cutting them out of his own throat.
“In my bed,” I answer.
“She’s in your bed.” Xavier repeats, but his voice raises as he turns in the direction of the door.
“Yup?” I sit up.
“And how do you know she’s still in the bed?” Xavier seethes through his teeth, already walking towards his bedroom door.
“We knocked her out—” I say moving to the edge of the bed.
“And Valentina used to be a fucking assassin for the Cartel,” he snaps, stepping forward, that gold streak in his hazel eyes flashing like lightning, “so how much do you want to bet her body has burned off that drug by now?”
Xavier moves, an explosive burst of energy as he makes his way across the room.
His desk chair topples over, and I’m already swearing as I stumble after him, tripping over the goddamn rug, banging my shoulder on the doorframe as Asher moves slightly out of the way, trying to keep up as he storms down the hall like a freight train.
Before I even make it to the doorway of my room, I hear it: wood splintering.
Then an earth-shattering growl, raw and furious, that rolls down the hall like thunder as Xavier whirls on me, eyes burning.
“She’s gone.”