Chapter 3 Asher
ASHER
The water runs cold against my skin, and I don’t move to adjust it.
It’s been hours since the meeting ended—hours since I watched Valentina crumble and rebuild herself in the span of a single conversation, hours since I scrubbed Xavier’s blood off my hands only to find it still staining the creases of my knuckles, trapped in the whorls of my fingerprints like some kind of permanent mark.
The shower’s doing fuck-all to help.
The cold bites into my shoulders, my chest, my face, each droplet hitting like tiny needles, but it doesn’t wash away the image of Xavier on the ground, eyes glassy and unfocused, blood pooling beneath him like some kind of sick offering to whatever god watches over men like us.
I press my palms flat against the tile, the surface slick and frigid under my touch, head bowed, letting the water hammer down on the back of my neck.
The pressure builds and builds, a relentless assault that should hurt more than it does.
My muscles ache—a deep, bone-tired exhaustion that’s settled into every fiber of my being—but the physical pain is nothing compared to the shit storm in my head.
It’s the crack of dawn—maybe four, maybe five.
I stopped checking the clock after the second hour of staring at the ceiling, watching shadows crawl across the plaster as my mind runs in circles like a dog chasing its own tail.
Sleep is a joke.
Every time I close my eyes, I see it: the muzzle flash, the way Xavier’s body jerked backward, the spreading crimson stain that looked too bright, too wrong against his white shirt.
This is my fault.
The thought loops, vicious and unrelenting, a mantra I can’t escape.
My fault.
My fucking fault.
If I hadn’t been arguing with him about a fucking girl I have no business liking.
If I’d been standing behind him, like normal, instead of blocking the doors, forcing him to listen to me beg for him to be selfless, for once to share something. Anything, especially her.
I should blame him for being so selfish, but I am too.
I saw her.
I know Zay wants her.
I know Xavier is obsessed with her.
I know there is no space for me.
But I want there to be.
I want her.
I don’t remember the last time I wanted something so bad, that I would sentence my best friend, my brother, to death.
I slam my fist against the tile, the impact sending a dull throb up my arm that radiates through my elbow, my shoulder.
The grout cracks under my knuckles, a spiderweb fracture that mirrors the ones running through my chest, and I watch a thin line of blood mix with the water, swirling pink before disappearing down the drain.
Xavier’s in surgery because I wasn’t good enough.
Because for one moment I hesitated, softened, let myself be something other than what I was raised to be.
Because I failed at the only thing that has ever mattered: family. Us.
Zay, Jackie, Xavier, Talia, and me.
That’s the whole world.
That’s all there has ever been.
Nothing outside that circle has meaning.
No one outside it has ever mattered.
I should have learned that six years ago, on the night Talia’s twin—my little brother—died.
I was to blame then too. No hesitation about it.
If I had been stronger, faster, sharper, he would still be here.
Talia won’t let me believe that, but she’s a good kid in ways I’m not.
She’s loyal in ways I’m not.
She’s strong in the places I’m weakest.
And sometimes I hate how easily she forgives the things I can’t.
The cold water turns my skin numb, goosebumps rising across my arms and chest, but it’s not enough.
Nothing’s enough.
I could stand here until I freeze solid, until my lips turn blue and my fingers won’t work anymore, and it still wouldn’t erase the fact that Xavier might not wake up.
That I might lose him.
And it is my fault.
I shut off the water with more force than necessary, the pipes groaning in protest, and step out onto the bath mat.
My feet leave wet prints on the tile as I grab a towel and drag it over my face, feeling the rough cotton scrape against my stubble.
I dry my hair roughly, not caring that it’s sticking up in every direction, then move to my chest, my arms, watching water droplets race down my skin.
The mirror is fogged, condensation thick and impenetrable, which is a mercy—I don’t want to see my own reflection right now.
Don’t want to see the hollow-eyed bastard staring back at me, the one who let his best friend get shot.
I wrap the towel around my waist, the fabric damp and uncomfortable against my skin, and push open the bathroom door.
Steam billows out around me, dissipating into the cooler air of my bedroom.
The contrast is immediate—the air here is less suffocating, easier to breathe, but it doesn’t help the tightness in my chest, the invisible band that keeps constricting tighter and tighter.
And then I see her.
Valentina.
She’s sitting in the middle of my bed like some kind of ghost, cross-legged on top of the charcoal comforter I never bother to make properly.
She’s wearing one of Xavier’s oversized shirts—I recognize it immediately, black with faded white lettering from some band he saw in high school.
It hangs off her shoulder, exposing the curve of her collarbone and the pale skin of her neck, stopping mid-thigh and making her look smaller than she actually is.
Her hair is a mess, blonde waves tangled around her face like she’s been running her hands through it obsessively, and her eyes—Christ, her eyes—are red-rimmed and exhausted, the skin beneath them bruised purple with fatigue.
She looks like she’s been crying and fighting sleep in equal measure, her body hunched in on itself like she’s trying to make herself disappear.
She looks up when I walk in, and for a second, neither of us says anything.
The silence stretches, heavy and loaded, broken only by the distant hum of the air conditioning.
“Val,” I say finally, my voice rougher than I intended, scraped raw from disuse and emotion. “What are you doing here?”
She wraps her arms around herself, hugging Xavier’s shirt tighter, and I can see the tremble in her hands, the way her fingers dig into the fabric like she’s holding on for dear life.
“I can’t sleep alone in his bed tonight,” she says quietly, her voice small and fractured, each word seeming to cost her something.
“I tried. I really did. But every time I close my eyes, I just—”
Her voice breaks, actually cracks in the middle like glass shattering, and she looks away, blinking hard against tears that are already threatening to spill.
“I can’t do it, Asher. I can’t be in that room without him. Everything smells like him. The sheets, the pillows. It’s like he’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time, and I feel like I’m suffocating.”
Fuck.
I run a hand through my damp hair, and try to think past the exhaustion clawing at my brain.
This is a bad idea. A terrible idea.
The optics alone—Valentina in my bed, Xavier in the hospital, the two of us alone in the early morning hours—it’s ammunition for anyone looking to undermine her, to twist the narrative into something ugly.
Johnson would have a field day. George would demand her fucking head. I should tell her to get out. But then I look at her again. Really look at her.
And I see the cracks running through her, visible fault lines that threaten to split her open completely.
She’s not asking for much. Just someone to be there.
Just a reprieve from the suffocating loneliness of Xavier’s empty bed, from the cold sheets that should be warm with his body heat.
And who am I to reject a girl just looking for some body heat.
I can give her that, right?
I can control myself for one night and hold my best friend’s girl for her comfort and nothing more, right?
I am not the animal I think I am. Or at least I can curb the beast within me for a night. Besides, I can’t say no to her.
Not when she looks at me like I’m the only thing keeping her from going under, like I’m the last piece of driftwood in an ocean determined to swallow her whole.
Not when I know that if she asked for anything more—one word, one touch—I’d break apart in her tiny, lethal hands without a fight.
And God help me, not when I’m already carrying the weight of letting my best friend take a bullet just so I could have one chance to taste her.
To touch the girl we both wanted.
If Xavier never wakes up, the sickest part of me whispers that at least I’d make his sacrifice mean something.
At least I’d worship her the way he always wanted to. At least one of us would.
It’s what Xavier would have wanted for her—devotion, surrender, worship.
He should be grateful I’m willing to take up his duties while he’s on the table bleeding for the choices I made.
The thought makes something twist in my throat.
It makes me think of Zay, of how far I’ve already fallen, how deep the hook is set.
I am so fucking gone that I can feel myself nodding before the words even leave my mouth, already manipulating myself into agreeing, into obeying, into giving her whatever she asks.
“Alright,” I say, and her shoulders sag with relief so profound it’s almost painful to watch. “But you’re staying on your side of the bed.”
She nods quickly, a ghost of a smile flickering across her face before it disappears like smoke.
“Deal.”
I grab a pair of sweatpants from the dresser and pull them on, leaving the towel on the floor in a damp heap.
When I turn back, Valentina’s already crawled under the covers, the comforter pulled up to her chin.
She curls onto her side, making herself small, and hugs one of my pillows to her chest like it’s the only thing anchoring her to reality.
I slide in beside her, the mattress dipping under my weight, and keep a respectable distance.
The sheets are cool against my skin, not quite cold but not warm either, and I can feel the space between us like a tangible thing.
But the second I settle, propping my head on my arm and staring at the ceiling, she shifts closer.