Chapter 25 Carver
I wake slowly. The hint of lavender confuses me until I feel Raven shift next to me.
She’s tucked into my side with one hand curled against my chest beneath the blankets.
Her slow breathing tells me she’s still asleep.
My chest tightens as I stay perfectly still and just stare at the beauty in front of me. I don’t want this moment to disappear.
Morning light spills through the crack in the curtains, painting pale gold across her face. Her dark hair is spread across my pillow, soft tendrils have escaped her braid, and her lips are parted on a soft breath. She looks peaceful. More importantly, she’s safe. Here. With me. Because she’s mine.
The thought hits hard enough to steal my breath.
I lie there quietly, staring at her while the clubhouse slowly wakes around us. I can hear muffled movement downstairs. Pipes rattling. Distant voices. Someone laughing. Church will start soon. I should already be up.
Instead, I tighten my arm around Raven and keep watching her sleep.
She nuzzles closer unconsciously, pressing her face against my chest, and something dangerously close to happiness settles heavily in my gut.
I’ve known this woman for what? A week?
Yet lying here with her in my bed feels so damn natural that it’s almost terrifying, like this is exactly where she belongs, where she was always supposed to be.
I brush a strand of hair away from her face carefully. Her skin is soft beneath my knuckles. There’s still faint bruising under her eye from Tony’s attack, and rage burns hot and immediate through my veins.
The urge to protect her feels damn near primal.
I’m not a hearts-and-flowers kind of man. Never been the guy dreaming about forever or white-picket-fence bullshit. My life revolves around the club. Violence. Loyalty. Survival.
But this?
This woman curled against me? I could get used to this way too fucking easily. The realization should send me running. Instead, it feels right.
That’s the part that really messes with my head.
Raven sighs softly in her sleep, and I force myself to move before I talk myself into staying here all damn morning. Church waits for no one—not even me.
Carefully, I slide my arm out from beneath her and ease toward the edge of the bed. She stirs immediately, brows pulling together as she shifts on the mattress.
I freeze.
Her eyes blink open sleepily, green and unfocused at first before landing on me.
“Carver?” Her voice is rough from sleep. “Where are you going?”
Jesus Christ.
Even half asleep, she sounds sexy as sin.
I lean down, brushing my fingers lightly along her cheek. “Church, baby.”
Her face tightens instantly, anxiety flickering across her features.
I hate that look.
“It’s okay,” I murmur. “Go back to sleep. I’ll come get you when we’re done.”
She blinks up at me, still tangled in blankets and sleep. “You’re leaving?”
“Only downstairs.” I give her a small grin. “I promise that I’m not disappearing on you.”
That earns me the tiniest relaxed breath.
“If you wake up before I get back,” I continue, “head downstairs. You’ll probably find the other Old Ladies in the common room.”
A faint blush creeps across her cheeks at the term Old Ladies, and fuck if that doesn’t do something to me.
She pulls the blanket higher around herself. “Okay.”
I lean down before I can stop myself and press a kiss against her forehead. Her eyes drift shut instantly, trusting me enough to relax again.
That feeling settles me.
I straighten reluctantly and dress before heading for the bedroom door, already knowing I’m going to spend the next hour or so thinking about the woman waiting in my bed upstairs.
I sit at the long table in Church, leaning back in my chair with my arms crossed over my chest while brothers filter into the room.
The air smells like coffee, cigarettes, leather, and engine grease.
All the familiar sights and sounds, but today it feels different.
And the reason for that difference lies upstairs in my bed.
Dante walks into the room, and the conversations die immediately.
The Demon Dawgs President takes his seat at the head of the table, his expression hard and unreadable. Chaos and Grimm take their places on either side of him. The rest of us are already in our usual spots.
Dante glances around the room. “Church is in session. Shield asked for this meeting to discuss a situation. We’re here to figure out how to solve it. Shield. Tell them what’s happening.”
Shield nods once and folds his hands on the table.
“As most of you know, Raven, Athena’s receptionist, was attacked in the parking lot behind the dojo.
Maestro found the video that showed the owner of the gym next door to the dojo, Tony Martin, leaving the parking lot around the time of the attack.
Tony claims he wasn’t at the gym and that someone stole his car.
He has a friend who backed him up and gave him an alibi. ”
Byte flashes the image of a yellow Mustang pulling out of a parking lot. We can almost see the person driving. The driver looks like Tony, but would that stand up in court? Probably not.
“As you can see, we can’t prove the driver was Tony, but the Mustang showed up the next day parked in a parking lot. It still had gas, and there was no damage.”
“Bullshit,” Feral calls out.
“Yeah, that was my thought, too,” Shield says.
“Last night, Raven confirmed Tony Martin attacked her. She also said that he’s been following her.
He attacked her again last night outside her apartment.
Carver brought her here to stay until we can eliminate Tony as a threat to her, but he isn’t our only problem.
There’s more going on than just Tony being an asshole. ”
Shield goes on to describe how Tony has been following Raven and threatening her as Byte flashes his image on the screen. I have to fight the urge to rush out of the room and find her to make sure she’s still safe. I know she is, but the fear is overwhelming.
“Raven wasn’t certain she could trust the cops, so she didn’t come forward,” Shield says. “Instead, she researched Tony and followed him.”
The men grumble, and I know they’re thinking the same thoughts as me. Fucking dangerous of her to do what she did. Just wait until they hear the rest of it.
“Raven discovered that Tony has five close friends. These same friends have given Tony, and each other, convenient alibis whenever they needed one. Raven followed Tony to the house of one Andrew Rollings.” Byte adds Rollings's image next to Tony’s.
“Their other four friends also showed up.” Byte adds the images of the other men as Shield names them.
“Three of the men left the house, including Tony. Raven followed him to a bar, the Check Mate, and stopped him from leaving with a girl who had been drugged. Raven tasered the asshole.”
Chaos snorts. “Sounds like an Old Lady in the making,” he says, smirking at me.
I manage a grimace in return. She’s definitely Old Lady material, even though she’s just as likely to give me a heart attack.
“We think the other two men who left at the same time as Tony kidnapped two other women. We had reports of two women going missing from two other bars around the same time. Maestro found traffic-cam footage of the two guys near the bars in question, but we don’t have confirmation that they were inside.
I have Axel and Simon watching Rollings’ house. ”
“You think these guys kidnapped two girls and took them back to the house so the six of them could play with them?” Grimm growls.
Shield nods. “Yeah, that’s what we think.
Raven found several photos of these assholes.
They are always together. If there are women, there are only two or three women, never more.
The women in some of the photos look drugged.
Maestro is running their images through his software to see if he can identify them. ”
“You think they might be victims?” Reaper asks.
“I do.”
I lean forward slowly, staring at Tony’s image while rage coils tightly in my chest.
“They rely on each other,” I say finally.
Dante’s eyes shift toward me. “Explain.”
I nod at a picture with all six grinning at the camera. “Every time one of these assholes gets accused of something, the others step in with an alibi. Same pattern over and over.”
“Because they trust each other,” Shield says.
“Exactly.” I nod. “And that trust is their weakness.”
Torch leans back in his chair. “What’re you thinkin’, brother?”
I look around the table. “We set them up. We already know their pattern. If we follow them, we can catch all six of them together. Their alibis won’t work. They may turn on each other.”
Dante’s expression hardens thoughtfully.
“They’ve probably gotten comfortable,” I say. “Too comfortable. Men like that start believing they’re untouchable.”
“Especially after getting away with shit for years,” Ranch mutters.
“Exactly.” I glance toward Shield. “Once we prove they’re all guilty of working together to commit a crime, the cops can reopen old cases. Every dropped charge, and every assault can come back to bite them in the ass.”
“Maybe we should just end them,” Flame suggests. “Why get the cops involved?”
“There are women out there who need justice,” Shield says. “But I think if we play this right, we can get them justice and eliminate the trash.”
“Let’s put together a plan,” Dante says.