Chapter Nineteen
Nano
It was late when we rolled back into the clubhouse.
It was past midnight, the hour when the world felt suspended between one day and the next.
Scythe killed the engine on his bike, and Wanderer followed suit.
The silence that followed was thick, broken only by the distant hum of the highway and the creak of cooling metal.
I swung off my bike, my body still thrumming with the adrenaline of the ride. We had been out handling club business. Nothing major, just a reminder to a debtor who had gotten too comfortable with his excuses. Standard shit. The kind of work that usually left me feeling centered and focused.
But tonight, nothing felt centered.
Tonight, I felt like I was coming apart at the seams as we walked into the clubhouse together, boots heavy on the wooden floor.
The gathering room was mostly empty, with just a few club whores passed out on the couches, and a prospect asleep in a chair with his head tilted back at an uncomfortable angle.
And at the bar, nursing beers like they had been waiting for us, sat Morpheus and Cerberus.
Prez looked up as I approached, his expression unreadable behind those dark, calculating eyes.
There was a weight to his gaze that made my skin prickle.
Cerberus didn’t even glance my way. He just kept his eyes fixed on his beer, as if it held the answers to questions he hadn’t asked yet.
His knuckles were white around the glass, tension radiating from his hunched shoulders.
I took a seat next to them. The stool creaked under my weight.
The bar felt smaller now, the air thick with unspoken threats.
Scythe and Wanderer flanked me on either side, silent and watchful as stone guardians.
I could feel their presence like a shield at my back, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough if this went sideways.
Morpheus took a long pull from his beer, savoring it like a man who had all the time in the world. Then he set it down with deliberate care, the glass meeting the wooden bar with a soft thunk that somehow felt louder than it should have. His jaw worked for a moment, grinding his teeth.
“I’m giving you one chance, Nano,” he said, his voice low and flat, each word measured and precise.
“Only one. What you do with it is up to you. But make no mistake.” He leaned in closer, and I could smell the whiskey on his breath mixing with the beer.
“If I don’t get my money soon, I will kill the bitch and cut your brand from your body myself. ”
I stared at him as my mind struggled to process his words.
One chance. What the fuck does that mean?
I looked to Scythe, then Wanderer, searching for some kind of clarification, some hint that they understood what was happening here.
They both shrugged, their expressions as confused and bewildered as I felt.
Nobody seemed to know what Morpheus was getting at as he leaned against the bar, his posture relaxed but his gaze intense, his eyes locked on mine with an unwavering focus that made my skin prickle.
“Her room is unlocked,” he said, his voice muted but deliberate.
“You have seventy-two hours. Make them count.”
His words hit me like a freight train, stealing the breath from my lungs.
Her room is unlocked.
Four simple words. Four words that changed everything.
I understood immediately. His implication was crystal clear, and the weight of it settled over me like a heavy blanket.
This was my chance, maybe my only chance, to find the answers I had been searching for.
He was giving me permission. Permission to do whatever the fuck I wanted to her.
No restrictions. No oversight. No brothers watching to make sure I didn’t cross a line.
No consequences. No judgment. No accountability. Just me. And her.
And seventy-two hours that stretched out ahead of me like an eternity.
The monster inside me uncoiled. It had been sleeping, dormant, restrained, held back by Morpheus’ warnings and my own fragile attempts at control.
Chained down by necessity and fear of what would happen if I let it loose.
But now it woke, stretching and yawning and filling every corner of my body with its presence.
It pushed against the bars of its cage, testing them, finding them gone.
I felt it in my chest, in my gut, in the way my hands shook. In the sudden rush of heat that flooded through my veins. In the pounding of my pulse that echoed in my ears like a war drum. My breathing changed. It was deeper, slower, more deliberate. Every nerve ending came alive with anticipation.
Happy. Scared. Elated. Terrified.
All of it at once, a chaotic swirl of emotion that threatened to drown me.
I stood without a word, my legs moving before my brain could catch up.
My body felt distant, like it belonged to someone else entirely.
To someone who knew what they were doing, someone who had made peace with whatever came next.
Scythe and Wanderer didn’t try to stop me.
They didn’t even exchange glances. Maybe they understood this was something I had to do alone, or maybe they had simply given up on trying to save me from myself.
Morpheus just watched, his expression cold and calculating, like he was conducting an experiment and I was the test subject.
There was no warmth in his eyes, no concern, no humanity.
Just that clinical detachment of a scientist observing a lab rat navigating a maze.
I could feel his gaze boring into my back, measuring every movement, every hesitation, cataloging my responses for whatever twisted purpose he had in mind as I walked toward the stairs, my boots heavy on the wood.
Each step echoed through the silence, a rhythmic countdown to something inevitable.
The sound seemed to reverberate through my chest, matching the dull thud of my heartbeat.
Each step felt like a descent into something I couldn’t come back from.
A threshold I was about to cross that would change me fundamentally, irrevocably.
Each breath felt like the last one before I lost myself completely, before whatever remained of who I used to be dissolved into the darkness waiting below.
Seventy-two hours. I could do a lot of damage in seventy-two hours.
The hallway upstairs was dimly lit. The overhead bulbs cast long shadows that stretched across the walls like grasping fingers.
The floorboards creaked beneath my feet with each hesitant step I took.
I passed my own room with its familiar door slightly scuffed at the bottom, passed the other officers’ rooms where I could hear muffled snoring and the occasional rustle of sheets, passed the bathroom where someone had left the door ajar and the faint smell of soap and steam still lingered in the air, and then I was standing in front of her door.
The door that was supposed to be locked.
The door that Morpheus had just told me was open.
I stood there for what felt like an eternity, staring at the worn brass doorknob that seemed to glint mockingly in the half-light.
My hand trembled as I reached for it, my fingers hovering just inches away.
I could feel my pulse hammering in my throat, could feel the blood rushing in my ears like a distant ocean.
I could feel the monster inside me pressing against my ribs, demanding to be let out, clawing at the walls of my chest with desperate, hungry fury.
You can’t do this. You know what will happen if you go in there.
But I was already turning the knob. Already pushing the door open. Already stepping inside.
The room was small, barely big enough for the bed, a dresser, and a chair shoved into the corner. The air smelled faintly of her, something clean and floral, mixed with the underlying scent of fear that seemed to cling to her like a second skin.
And there she was.
Sleeping restlessly on the small bed, her body curled tightly on its side, one arm tucked awkwardly under a thin pillow, the other draped protectively across her stomach. Every few minutes, she shifted slightly, her breathing uneven and shallow, like she couldn’t quite settle into true rest.
She was wearing a faded tank top and cotton shorts.
Thin, flimsy things that looked like they had been worn too many times, leaving most of her skin exposed to the cool air of the room.
Her legs were bare and pale in the dim light, her feet tucked up defensively toward her body—a subconscious act to make herself smaller, more invisible.
There was something vulnerable about the way she lay there, curled into herself, as if even in sleep she was guarding against something unseen.
I stepped closer, my boots silent on the worn floor.
She whimpered in her sleep, a soft, broken sound that made something twist in my chest.
“Many faces,” she mumbled, her voice slurred with sleep. “Snake... pretending to be a lion...”
I froze, my breath catching. What the fuck is she dreaming about?
But I didn’t have time to wonder. Didn’t have the capacity to care, because my need to touch her overrode every sane thought in my head.
I moved closer until I was standing right beside the bed, looking down at her.
Her skin was a creamy light caramel, like it had been kissed by the sun just enough to leave it glowing warmly in the dim light that filtered through the room.
Smooth. Flawless. Luminous. Not a single blemish or imperfection marred its surface.
The kind of skin that begged to be touched, to be traced with fingertips, to be marked, to be claimed.
It seemed to radiate a subtle warmth, an invitation that was impossible to ignore.
Every curve, every contour was highlighted by that soft, golden undertone, making her appear almost ethereal in the shadows.