Chapter 7 Valentina
VALENTINA
I blink a few times, dragging my tongue across cracked lips, tasting the sting of blood.
Xavier King—leader of the Raiders—the most feared biker gang in West Texas, rivaled only by the Vipers.
But neither of them move alone. The Raiders bend to the Cartel.
The Vipers answer to the Italian mafia. For years, the balance of power tilts in the Raiders’ favor—until recently.
Cast, my brother and head of the Cartel, pulls the Vipers under his wing, giving them teeth sharp enough to stand equal to the Raiders for the first time in their history.
My best bet right now is that Cast finds out that I am here and comes himself, or worse he sends the Vipers and starts a full out war.
“Why am I going to initiation night?” I question, just as Isaiah pulls out a small sliver key from his pocket.
“Because you’re one of us now, Angel,” he smiles, leaning down and lowering his voice as he continues to speak. “Now are you going to put up a fight if I unlock you?”
“What does initiation mean?”
“A little bit of pain, for a lifetime of family.” Isaiah whispers into my hair, pushing down on the cuffs a bit so they bite into my wrists.
My eyes are straight forward staring at the bob of his Adam’s apple. “And if I don’t want this family?”
“Fuck Angel,” he leans down, using the pad of his pointer finger to push my head up. My eyes lock with his dark abyss and I search for something, anything, but all I see is my demise in his sweet dark brown eyes. “Don’t say that—you’ll break my heart.”
“I can’t imagine you have anything to be broken,” I whisper back.
I don’t even realize my left wrist is free, but I feel it drop like a sack of rocks onto the pillows behind me.
He holds my right wrist and looks at me so seriously that I almost break eye contact in favor of the comfort of looking at the firm expanse of his chest, and the colorful tattoos peeking from underneath his skin-tight white t-shirt.
“By you?” he says with no humor in his voice. “You could break everything that I am.”
My throat runs dry, and before I can stop myself I jerk forward, the tip of our noses bumping into each other.
My eyes are stuck at the dilation of his pupils as I search for the lie, for the laugh, for the moment he says ‘I got you’, but for some crazy, nonsensical reason I believe him. He fucking means it.
“Y-you don’t even know me,” I say, hoping the firm confusion and the panic on my face forces him to come to his senses, because what he feels isn’t real. It can’t be.
“I know you,” he whispers, my other hand drops to the bed. The rush of blood forces me to drop back down with him holding himself above me, my hands next to my head in surrender, and he smiles. “Now come on, Xavier is probably pissed with how late we are already.”
Isaiah stands off the bed and makes his way across the room; I stare down at my bare legs, the damp fabric of my thong now cold, especially since he has taken all of his warmth with him since making me cum and leaving me in the bed.
I push myself up on my forearms and follow his movement across the room.
He digs into a drawer, and I can’t help but watch the way his muscles shift and flex with the simple movement.
When he pulls the shirt off over his head, his back comes into view—an intricate masterpiece inked across his skin, the kind of tattoo that feels less like decoration and more like a prophecy, different scenes unfolding and bleeding together along the line of his spine.
My eyes follow it without meaning to, caught between awe and unease.
Then he moves in front of the mirror, and the light exposes more than just ink.
Raised scars slash across his back, pale ridges breaking through the patterns.
I hold my breath, something sharp catching in my chest. They look like he was whipped, over and over, the kind of punishment meant to break someone.
I shouldn’t care. I know I have more than enough of my own scars to wrestle with.
But the sight of his pulls at me in ways I don’t want to admit.
My thoughts keep circling back—where did those marks come from?
Why hide them beneath ink instead of letting them breathe?
Were the tattoos chosen to mask the pain, or to turn it into something else, something he could claim as his own?
I don’t want to wonder, don’t want to care, but I can’t stop imagining each design stitched over some wound he doesn’t want the world to see.
Against my better judgment, I catch myself wanting to know where every scar lies, and if every tattoo is a story he refuses to give away.
He turns to me, tossing a pair of grey sweatpants that are at least three sizes too big. “We’ll get you some real clothes tomorrow.”
“How generous,” I mutter, scooting to the edge of the bed with the sweatpants in hand.
“If it were up to me, you’d walk around here naked.
” Isaiah chuckles as he pulls on a leather jacket—of course with no shirt beneath it.
The vivid colors inked across his chest and arms blaze against the black leather, bold and jarring.
“But then I’d have to kill everyone who so much as looked at you, and that’s not great for a third-in-command. ”
He steps closer as I slide my feet into the sweatpants and tug them up, knotting the drawstring four times before they cling to my hips. “Third to Xavier? Whose second?” I ask.
“Asher,” he smirks, holding out a pair of thick socks. “The floors are freezing.”
“Thanks,” I mumble, tugging them over my feet, all the while aware of his gaze burning into my flesh like a brand.
I don’t think I can get used to looking at this intensely all the time.
It’ll make me go insane. “What did a love sick pup like you have to do to be third in command to the Raiders? I thought you have to biologically be a King to be a part of Raider leadership?”
I shake my hair from the root, trying not to snag on any knots from not brushing it for four days now.
“I am Xavier’s half-brother, Angel,” Isaiah mumbles in my ear, his entire body sliding against mine as he moves around me with a wicked smile on his lips. “And Asher is a little more sane than me, so he gets to be second. Don’t worry about me though. I’m not complaining.”
I follow him to the door; the Raider sigil is bright and large on the back of his leather jacket. The medium tone blue jeans he’s wearing make his ass look amazing and those black boots do something entirely too sinful to my body.
He holds the door open, and I make the mistake of remembering Xavier.
Of course I do. God, he is hot. That’s the curse of the King boys: they’re poison wrapped in perfection, and every girl in Texas who so much as looks at them loses her damn mind.
To see a King is to fall into obsession, and I’d rip out anyone’s throat who dared to accuse me of being just another one of their victims.
But still—the image of him burns in my head.
The wild black curls, eyes like molten gold that seem to flicker with fire when he’s angry, a smile that looks like it was carved straight from sin.
Big, strong, cut from the same mold as the high school linebackers who brag about what’s in their pants but can’t use it.
Except Xavier. Something in me just knows he wouldn’t waste what he has—he’d use it like a weapon, the same way he uses everything else.
“What are you thinking about, Angel?” Isaiah’s voice slides into my thoughts, mocking, sharp.
He guides me down the narrow back staircase, one that hums faintly with the bass of music below.
Dishes clatter somewhere in the kitchen, a burst of laughter echoes, but up here it’s empty, hushed, meant for secrets.
“Nothing,” I mutter, tossing my hair over my shoulder. When I glance back, Isaiah’s smirk is waiting for me, smug as hell.
“Don’t lie to me, Angel. Relationships should be built on honesty.”
“And here I thought kidnapping was the new foundation for love.” My eyes roll as I jump off the last step.
But before I can move, his hand clamps around my arm. I slam back into his chest, his body a wall of heat behind me. Something hard jabs into my spine, sharp enough to steal my breath.
“Angel,” he growls, voice low and wicked, “don’t make me punish you.”
A shaky exhale slips out, my body betraying me as I squirm against him. His arm cinches me tighter, dragging me flush.
“You can’t punish goddesses,” I snap, though my voice comes out thinner than I want.
“You’re wrong,” Isaiah breathes against my ear, the smile curling every word. “I’m just a man, compelled to worship you. But even worshippers can’t hold back the devil.”
And then I see him.
The devil.
Xavier stands in the open space at the bottom of the hall, a beer gripped loosely in one hand.
He’s leaning back against the wall as though he owns it, one ankle crossed over the other.
A white tank clings like paint to the hard cut of his chest and abs, his jeans slung low on his hips and bronze brass knuckles that spell out Kill on his left hand.
His black curls—wet, unruly—are dragged from his face with a red-and-black Raider bandana.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Just watches me.
Isaiah shoves me forward, but Xavier’s eyes never leave mine. He lifts the beer, cracks the cap clean off against the battered doorframe—its wood marked from years of similar destruction—and takes a slow swallow. The whole time, those eyes burn into me like a brand.
“Took you long enough,” Xavier says at last, his voice calm, low, almost bored—but beneath it, there’s steel.
“I couldn’t help myself, Xav.” Isaiah’s tone lilts like a taunt, a boy whining for attention. “She moans so good.”