Chapter Thirty-Three
Alex
Time had stopped.
Or maybe it was just moving so slowly that I couldn’t tell the difference anymore.
I didn’t know how long I had been locked in Nano’s room.
Minutes? Hours? The light coming through the window hadn’t changed, but that didn’t mean anything.
The sky outside was the same dull gray it had been when Nano dragged me upstairs and locked the door behind him.
When he left me here. Alone.
I paced the length of the room for what felt like the hundredth time, my bare feet silent against the carpeted floor. The walls felt closer than they had before. The air thicker. Like the room itself was shrinking around me, pressing in from all sides until I couldn’t breathe.
He’s not coming back. The thought whispered through my mind, insidious and cruel. And maybe it was true. Maybe he had finally had enough. Maybe downstairs, in that church meeting with all the officers, he had decided I wasn’t worth the trouble anymore.
Maybe he chose the Brotherhood over me.
You knew this would happen. You knew the second you refused to answer Morpheus’ questions that you were signing your own death warrant.
I stopped pacing and pressed my palms against the wall, feeling the cool surface beneath my skin. My reflection stared back at me from the window glass, pale, hollow-eyed, wearing nothing but Nano’s oversized sweatpants and a tank top that hung off one shoulder.
I looked like a ghost.
You are a ghost. You’ve been dead since the moment you stole that money.
“Why didn’t you just answer their questions?” I whispered to my reflection, my voice hoarse and broken. The girl in the glass didn’t answer. She just stared back at me with those empty eyes, accusing and pitying all at once.
Because you had no choice.
Logically, I knew that. I knew that the second I gave them Michael’s real name and told them where to find him, I would become expendable. A tool that had served its purpose. They would use the information, hunt him down, and then what? What reason would they have to keep me alive?
None.
I played the only card I had. The only thing that kept me breathing was the fact that I held information they needed.
Information only I could provide. But logic didn’t make it hurt less.
Because somewhere between the interrogation in church and Nano dragging me upstairs, something had shifted.
Something I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge.
Something that made my chest ache and my throat tighten every time I thought about the look on his face when I refused to answer.
You broke something.
Something that could never be replaced.
I had seen it in his eyes. The moment I defied Morpheus in front of the entire club, I crossed a line. Not just with the Brotherhood, but with him. With Nano. The man who had spent days breaking me down, building me back up, making me his, and I threw it back in his face.
He told you to tell them. He was standing right there, and he told you to cooperate. And you refused.
A small, traitorous part of me, the part that had learned to crave his approval, his touch, his attention, felt like I had betrayed him. Like I had taken everything he had given me and shattered it on the floor of that church room.
And that hurt. God, it hurt more than anything else. More than the fear of dying. More than the terror of what the Brotherhood would do to me. More than the knowledge that I was trapped in this room with no way out.
It hurt because I wanted to please him. I wanted to be the girl he claimed in front of everyone. The girl who screamed his name and surrendered completely. The girl who belonged to him.
But I couldn’t. Because survival meant defiance. And defiance meant losing him.
You can’t have both.
I sank down onto the edge of the bed, my hands shaking as I buried my face in them. The scent of him was everywhere. On the sheets, on the pillow, on my own skin. A constant reminder of what I had just destroyed.
“Fuck,” I whispered into my palms. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
And then the guilt hit.
It started as a whisper in the back of my mind, but it grew louder with every passing second until it was a roar I couldn’t ignore.
Eros. Eros had been hurt. Shot. Maybe killed.
And it was because of information I refused to give.
I didn’t know all the details. Morpheus hadn’t spelled it out, and Nano had been too focused on dragging me upstairs to explain, but I heard enough.
Enough to know that the attack at Diamond Creek wasn’t random.
That Michael had orchestrated it. That he paid someone to make sure FIRE didn’t survive.
And Firestride wasn’t the only one who had been hurt.
Eros. Indigo. Ravage.
Brothers. Family.
My family, in a twisted, fucked-up way. Because even though I wasn’t God of Mayhem or Brotherhood, I knew these men. I had grown up around men like them. I understood the code. The loyalty. The blood bonds that ran deeper than anything else. And I had done nothing to help them.
I could have told Morpheus everything. Could have given him Michael’s name, his address, every detail I remembered about the man who abused me and orchestrated an attack that nearly killed people I respected.
But I hadn’t because I was too busy trying to save my own skin.
You’re worthless.
The thought settled into my bones like ice, cold and absolute.
You’re worthless, and you know it. You’ve always known it.
I thought about Eros. The way he always snuck me candy after Oscar yelled at me.
The way he helped me with my homework, when no one else would, or when he was there to bail me out of jail after I got into a fight at school.
Eros never judged me. Never tried to make me into something I wasn’t.
He was just there for me, when I thought the world was on my shoulders, and I let him get hurt.
I let all of them get hurt because I was too scared to give up the one piece of leverage I had left.
Selfish. Cowardly. Worthless.
The words circled in my head like vultures, picking apart what little remained of my self-respect.
Nothing I said or did now would fix this.
I knew that. I played my cards one too many times, and the game was over.
Eventually, someone would come and get me.
Morpheus would send Carver or Cerberus or one of the other officers, and they would drag me back downstairs.
And this time, they would kill me.
No more chances. No more negotiations. No more Nano standing between me and a bullet.
This is how it ends.
I didn’t know how long I sat there, staring at the floor, waiting for the inevitable. Time had lost all meaning. The light outside hadn’t changed. The clubhouse below was silent. Or maybe I just couldn’t hear it anymore over the roar of my own thoughts.
And then the door slammed open.
I jerked upright, my heart leaping into my throat as Carver filled the doorway. His expression was cold, clinical, the way it always was. Like he was looking at a specimen under a microscope instead of a person. “Let’s go,” he said, his voice flat and emotionless.
I slowly backed toward the wall, my spine hitting the cold surface as I shook my head. “Where?”
Carver’s lips curved into something that might have been a smile if it had reached his eyes. “Morpheus wants to talk to you.”
No. No, no, no!
“Where’s Nano?” My question came out desperate, broken, and I hated how weak I sounded.
Carver’s expression didn’t change. “What do you care?”
His words hit like a slap.
What do you care?
As if I hadn’t just spent days surrendering to Nano. As if I hadn’t screamed his name in front of the entire club. As if I hadn’t broken myself open and let him see every ugly, twisted part of me.
What do you care?
“I—” My voice caught in my throat.
But Carver didn’t wait for an answer. He crossed the room in three long strides and grabbed my arm, his grip iron-tight and unforgiving. “Let’s go, thief.”
I tried to pull back, tried to dig my heels into the floor, but he was too strong. He dragged me toward the door, and I stumbled after him, my bare feet sliding across the carpet.
“Wait!” I gasped, trying to twist out of his grip. “Wait, please.”
“No waiting,” Carver said, his voice still flat. Still emotionless. “Morpheus doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
He pulled me into the hallway, and I caught a glimpse of the gathering room below, the brothers drinking, laughing, the same chaos that had been there before.
Like nothing had changed. Like the world hadn’t just tilted on its axis.
But Carver didn’t lead me toward the stairs that would take us down to the gathering room.
He led me in the opposite direction. Toward the back hallway.
Toward a door I recognized with sudden, terrible clarity.
The basement.
“No,” I whispered, my voice barely audible. “No, please!”
“Move,” Carver ordered, yanking me forward.
I planted my feet, refusing to take another step. “I’m not going down there.”
Carver’s expression didn’t change. He just tightened his grip on my arm and pulled harder, dragging me toward the door like I weighed nothing.
“No!” I screamed as I twisted in his grip and clawed at his hand. “Nano!”
The name tore out of my throat, raw and desperate.
“NANO!”
But no one came.
Carver yanked the basement door open, and the smell hit me immediately. Damp concrete, rust, and something else. Something metallic and wrong.
Blood.
“Please!” I begged, my voice breaking as I kicked at him, trying to wrench myself free. “Please don’t!”
But he didn’t stop. He dragged me toward the stairs, and I grabbed the doorframe, my fingers digging into the wood as I fought him with everything I had. “NANO!” I screamed again, louder this time. Desperate. “NANO, PLEASE!”
Carver pried my fingers off the doorframe one by one, his expression never changing. And then he shoved me.
I stumbled forward, my feet hitting the top step, and gravity did the rest.
I fell. Down the stairs, my shoulder slamming into the concrete wall, my knees hitting the steps, my hands scrambling for purchase and finding nothing.
I landed hard at the bottom, the impact knocking the air from my lungs.
Pain exploded through my shoulder, my hip, my ribs.
For a moment, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
And then I heard footsteps behind me.
Carver descended the stairs slowly, deliberately, his boots heavy against the concrete.
“Get up,” he demanded.
I tried. God, I tried. But my body wouldn’t cooperate. My hands shook as I pushed myself up onto my knees, my vision swimming.
And then I saw them.
Two chairs in the center of the room.
Two figures tied to those chairs, ropes binding their wrists and ankles, gags shoved into their mouths.
Two men I recognized immediately.
No.
Nano.
And Oscar, my brother. Both of them were bound. Both of them gagged. Both of them were surrounded by Brotherhood members holding guns. Guns pointed directly at their heads.
No. No, no, no!
“No!” The word ripped out of me, raw and broken as I tried to stand, tried to run to them, but Carver grabbed the back of my neck and shoved me forward. I hit the concrete floor hard, my palms scraping against the rough surface.
“Stay down,” Carver ordered.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t stay down. Not when Nano was right there, his eyes locked on mine, his expression unreadable behind the gag. Not when Oscar was staring at me with a mixture of fury and fear that made my chest cave in.
“What did you do?” I screamed, my voice breaking as I looked up at Carver. “What the fuck did you do?”
But it wasn’t Carver who answered.
It was Morpheus as he stepped out of the shadows, his expression cold and calculating as he looked down at me. “You think you have all the leverage, Alexandra,” he said quietly. “But so do I.”
And then I understood. This wasn’t about Michael. This wasn’t about the information I refused to give. This was about control. This was Morpheus showing me exactly what happened when I defied him. This was him taking everything I cared about and holding it hostage.
Nano. Oscar. The two people in this world I couldn’t afford to lose, and Morpheus knew it.
“So here’s how this is going to go,” Morpheus continued, his voice calm and measured. “Life is all about choices, Alexandra, and choices have repercussions. What you choose leaves a mark, not only in your life but in the lives around you. Do you understand?”
I nodded as tears streamed down my face.
“Good. Now, you’re going to tell me everything you know about Michael.
Where he is. How to find him. Every detail you’ve been holding back.
” He paused, as his eyes bored into mine.
“Because if you don’t, I’m going to put a bullet into one of their heads.
So choose, Alexandra. Choose who gets to live and who dies? ”