Chapter Twenty-Six
Nano
Three days.
Three days of fucking Alex into complete submission, of breaking down every wall she built, of making her understand that her body, her pleasure, her very existence now belonged to me.
Three days of hearing her scream my name, of watching her come apart beneath me, of feeling her surrender so completely that the words “I’m yours” had become a mantra she couldn’t stop repeating.
I was still buzzing with it as I descended the stairs. The intoxicating high that came from total domination, from owning someone so thoroughly they couldn’t imagine existing without you.
She is mine.
The thought was a drumbeat in my skull, primal and possessive. I marked her, claimed her, broke her down and rebuilt her into something that existed solely for me. And fuck, it felt good. Better than anything I had felt in years.
The gathering room was relatively quiet for mid-afternoon. A few brothers lounged around the pool table. Xzibit was behind the bar restocking bottles, and Morpheus was standing at the bottom of the stairs, his expression dark and thunderous.
Fuck.
I barely had time to register the warning before he moved.
His hand shot out, grabbed the front of my shirt, and slammed me back against the wall with enough force to knock the air from my lungs.
The impact rattled my teeth, and suddenly his face was inches from mine, his eyes blazing with barely controlled fury as he seethed, his voice low and dangerous.
“That cunt you’ve been fucking emailed her brother. He knows she’s here.”
His words hit me like a bucket of ice water.
What? “When?” I demanded, my hands coming up to grip his wrists. Not to fight him off—I knew better than that—but to ground myself, to process what he was saying.
“Three days ago,” Morpheus said, his jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping. “While you’ve been playing with your dick, you forgot to check your own goddamn security protocols. She used your computer, Nano. Your computer.”
Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.
The realization crashed over me like a wave.
Three days ago. Right after I left her alone in my room.
Right after I started the psychological warfare that had led to her complete breakdown.
She reached out to Poseidon. To her brother.
The brother in the Gods of Mayhem, and I had been too fucking distracted by the taste of her submission to notice.
“How do you know?” I asked, my voice rough.
“Because I have protocols in place for exactly this kind of shit,” Morpheus snapped.
“Every outgoing email from this clubhouse gets flagged and copied to a secure server. I saw it the second it went out. I’ve been waiting to see if you would figure it out on your own, but clearly you’ve been too busy thinking with your dick. ”
Shame and fury warred in my chest. He was right. I fucked up. I let my obsession with Alex cloud my judgment, let my need to break her override every security measure I put in place.
“What did the email say?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Morpheus said flatly.
“You fucked up. For your sake”—his voice dropped to a deadly whisper—“you better have that fucking thief locked down. Because when her brother shows up, and he will show up, you two better put on a damn good show for him. You better make it crystal fucking clear that she is here by choice, that she is yours, and that she is not going anywhere. Do you fucking get me?”
I met his eyes and saw the warning there. This wasn’t just about Alex anymore. This was about the club. About the fragile truce between the Brotherhood and the Gods of Mayhem. About preventing a war that could destroy everything we’d built.
“I get you,” I said, my voice steady despite the chaos in my head.
“Good,” Morpheus said. “Because if this goes sideways, if Poseidon decides his sister needs rescuing and brings the full weight of the Gods of Mayhem down on us, I will put a bullet in her head myself and deal with you later. Understood?”
“Understood.”
He held my gaze for another long moment, then released me with a shove that sent me stumbling back a step. “Fix this, Nano. Or I’ll fix it for you.”
I opened my mouth to respond, to tell him that Alex was completely broken, that she submitted so thoroughly there was no way she would try to leave now, that I had this under control, but before I could get a word out, the clubhouse doors burst open.
The sound was loud enough to make everyone in the room turn.
Conversations died mid-sentence as all eyes focused on the entrance.
Helen Michael walked in first, and even in the midst of crisis, I couldn’t help but notice why Firestride’s mother had a reputation.
She was stunningly beautiful. She was in her late forties with sharp cheekbones and eyes that missed nothing.
But it wasn’t Helen who held my attention.
It was the man she was supporting, along with a blonde woman on his other side and a teenage girl hovering anxiously behind them.
Firestride.
Fuck.
He looked like death warmed over. His face was pale, almost gray, with dark circles under his eyes that spoke of pain and blood loss.
His left arm was in a sling, and the way he was leaning heavily on both women made it clear he could barely stand on his own.
He should have been in the hospital. Should have been in a bed with IVs and monitors and doctors making sure he didn’t fucking die from the injuries the Death Dogs had inflicted.
Instead, he was here.
“Carver!” Morpheus’ voice boomed through the gathering room, sharp and commanding, echoing off the high ceilings and wood-paneled walls.
Brothers materialized from every corner of the clubhouse like shadows coming to life.
Cerberus emerged from the hallway, his heavy boots thudding against the hardwood floor.
Garrote burst through the kitchen doorway, wiping his hands on a dishrag he quickly tossed aside.
Scythe came bounding down the stairs, taking them two at a time.
They converged on Firestride with the kind of coordinated precision that came from years of brotherhood, hands reaching out to support him, to take his weight from the women who had been desperately holding him up.
“Easy, brother,” Cerberus said, his voice surprisingly gentle for a man of his size as he and Garrote carefully guided Firestride toward one of the worn leather couches that lined the far wall. “We got you. Just breathe.”
Carver appeared from the back hallway, his medical bag already clutched in hand, moving with the urgent purpose of a man who’d been through this too many times before. The second he saw Firestride, pale, sweating, barely conscious, he groaned and shook his head in disbelief.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Carver muttered under his breath, dropping to his knees beside the couch where they laid Firestride out as gently as possible.
His hands moved with practiced efficiency, checking pulse points along Firestride’s neck and wrist, examining the blood-soaked bandages visible beneath his torn shirt.
“You should be in a hospital bed hooked up to an IV, you stubborn bastard.”
“Why the fuck isn’t he in the hospital?” Morpheus demanded, his voice cutting through the chaos like a blade through flesh, silencing the murmurs and concerned whispers that had filled the room.
Kyllian Ward, Firestride’s old lady, turned to glare at the man on the couch with an expression that could have melted steel.
“The idiot checked himself out,” she said, her voice dripping with fury and frustration.
“Against medical advice. Against his mother’s advice.
Against my advice. Because apparently, he thought coming back to the clubhouse was more important than, oh, I don’t know, not dying. ”
Firestride tried to say something, but Carver cut him off with a sharp gesture.
“Don’t talk,” Carver ordered. “Don’t move. Don’t even fucking breathe too hard until I figure out how much damage you’ve done to yourself.”
Kyllian turned away from the couch, her jaw clenched, her hands balled into fists at her sides. She stalked toward the bar where Xzibit was already pulling a cold beer from the cooler, anticipating her need.
Smart kid.
But Kyllian didn’t make it to the bar. She stopped dead in her tracks, her entire body going rigid. Her eyes, those captivating green eyes that had probably made Firestride fall in love with her, narrowed as they locked onto me.
Fuck.
“YOU!” The word came out like an accusation, sharp and furious.
Every head in the room turned to watch as Kyllian changed direction, marching straight toward me with the kind of purposeful stride that promised violence.
She didn’t stop until she was right in front of me, close enough that I could see the fury blazing in her eyes.
Then her finger jabbed into my chest, hard enough to hurt, hard enough to make her point.
“What’s this I hear you kidnapped a woman?
” she demanded, her voice loud enough to carry through the entire gathering room.
Shit.
I could feel every eye on us. Could feel Morpheus’ warning gaze boring into the back of my skull. Could feel the weight of the moment pressing down on me.
“It’s Brotherhood business,” I said, keeping my voice level and controlled. “It’s how we operate. She stole from us. We brought her in to get our money back. Standard procedure.”
“Standard procedure?” Kyllian’s laugh was sharp and humorless. “You kidnapped a woman, Nano. You dragged her here against her will, and you’re holding her prisoner. That’s not ‘standard procedure.’ That’s fucking criminal.”
“She’s not—” I started, but Kyllian cut me off with a sharp gesture.
“I don’t want to hear it,” she said, her voice cold. “I don’t want to hear your justifications or your excuses, or your Brotherhood bullshit. You kidnapped a woman. End of story.”
She turned away from me, dismissing me with the kind of contempt that made my jaw clench. But instead of heading back to the bar, instead of going to check on Firestride, she turned toward the stairs, muttering mainly to herself about stubborn idiotic men, collateral and dicks the size of Tic Tacs.
“Kyllian,” I started, taking a step forward, but Morpheus’ hand landed on my shoulder, holding me in place. When I looked at him, his expression was unreadable.
“Let her go,” he said quietly, his tone deceptively calm but laced with an undercurrent of steel. “She’s the first old lady of this club. She has the right to check on another woman in this clubhouse.” His eyes never left my face, watching for any sign of defiance.
“She’s going—”
“She’s going to see exactly what you’ve done,” Morpheus interrupted, his voice hard and uncompromising.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees as he took a deliberate step forward, closing the distance between us.
His jaw clenched, muscles tensing beneath his leather cut.
“And you better fucking pray what she finds is a willing, submissive woman. Because if she’s not, if there’s even a hint that she’s still defiant, you’re going to answer to me, and to every single brother in this club. ”
I watched Kyllian climb the stairs, her spine straight, her shoulders set with determination.
Behind her, Anna Joy, Firestride’s sixteen-year-old sister, watched with wide, worried eyes, clearly torn between staying with her injured brother and following Kyllian.
Helen Michael stood near the couch, her hand on Firestride’s shoulder, her expression unreadable as she watched the scene unfold.
And I stood there, frozen, as the woman who had become the moral compass of the Brotherhood marched toward my room.
Toward Alex.
Toward the evidence of everything I had done to break her, to claim her, to make her mine.
Fuck.
The high from the last three days evaporated, replaced by a cold dread that settled in my gut like a stone because Kyllian Ward wasn’t just Firestride’s old lady.
She was smart, observant, and she didn’t take shit from anyone.
Not even Morpheus. She would see through any lie I tried to tell.
She would see the truth written all over Alex’s face, in the marks on her body, in the way she had been systematically broken down.
And then what? Would she demand that Alex be released? Would she tell Morpheus what she saw? Would Morpheus kill Alex, consequences be damned?
No. No, that is not going to happen.
Because Alex was mine. She said the words.
She submitted completely. She belonged to me now, and I wasn’t going to let anyone, not Kyllian, not Poseidon, not even Morpheus, take her away from me.
But as I watched Kyllian disappear down the second-floor hallway, as I felt the weight of every brother’s eyes on me, as I heard Carver cursing under his breath while he worked on Firestride, I couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was about to come crashing down.
The email to Poseidon. Kyllian’s arrival. The confrontation that was about to happen upstairs.
It was all spiraling out of control, and for the first time since I dragged Alex into my world, I wasn’t sure I could keep her.