Chapter 6 Valentina #2
“Out of the inner circle. Onto shit duties.” His eyes cut up to mine. “Or out of the club entirely.”
“Permanently?” I ask, voice barely above a breath.
He doesn’t flinch. “Yes.”
A cold spike of understanding settles behind my ribs. “Why didn’t he do it?”
Asher’s expression hardens, something conflicted flickering deep beneath it. “Because he was still figuring out who was working against him.”
My pulse trips. “The moles,” I whisper.
“Yes.” He says it without hesitation.
“You knew he suspected people?”
“Yes.” Again, no hesitation.
“You knew who?”
His nostrils flare. “No.”
I flip through the pages, watching the marks shift column to column, like a pattern I haven’t cracked yet. My fingertips brush the sharp corner of the paper; the edge bites back. “So Xavier thought someone—some people—were betraying him, and he did… nothing?”
“I didn’t say nothing.” Asher’s voice cuts sharper now, controlled. “I said he was waiting.”
“For what?” I demand.
“For confirmation,” he says. “For the right moment. For things to line up.”
I squeeze the list until the paper wrinkles, nails biting into the page. “Two days ago,” I say slowly, my voice trembling with something hot and rising, “someone shot him in the middle of the Raider compound, and he was waiting for a right moment?”
“Yes.” His reply is low, steady, unwavering.
I meet his eyes, anger swelling hot in my chest. “Feels like waiting cost enough.”
Asher watches me closely, his jaw working as if grinding through a thousand calculations. “What are you suggesting?” he asks, but he already knows the answer. I can see it in the way his shoulders square.
“I’m not suggesting,” I say. “I’m deciding.”
His gaze sharpens, a warning flickering behind the calm. “Careful.”
“No.” I shake my head, breath quickening. “You’re the one telling me this desk means power. That this is where orders get written. That I’m the one with the crown now.” I tap the list hard enough to make the paper jump. “Then I want to use it.”
His voice drops. “How?”
“We round them up,” I say.
His shoulders go rigid. “Them who?”
“The ones he didn’t trust.” I flip back to the first page and drag my nail under the underlined names, deliberate and slow. “The ones whispering in corners. Watching. Waiting to see if Xavier dies. The ones planning to tear apart what he built.”
I look up, meeting his stare head-on. “We drag them in. Put them in a room. See who sweats.”
“This isn’t a cartel parlor game,” Asher snaps, stepping closer, voice low and cutting. “You don’t line up Raiders and hope someone cracks.”
“Isn’t that what Xavier did with Landon?” I shoot back, pulse hammering. “Dragged him out and made an example?”
His jaw tightens. “That was different.”
“How?”
“It was public,” he says. “And we had proof. He ran. He tried to leave. Xavier reacted.”
“And here?” I ask, voice rising. “We have a king in a hospital bed because he waited too long to act. I’m not repeating that.”
His mouth hardens into a flat line. “You think rounding people up won’t create enemies?”
I slide off the desk entirely, boots hitting the floor with a sharp thud. I step close enough that our chests almost brush, the list bent sharply in my hand.
“They’re already enemies,” I say, voice low but shaking with conviction. “They’re already plotting. Already deciding what happens if he doesn’t wake up.”
“You don’t know that,” he says, but the flicker in his eyes betrays him.
“No?” I lift my chin defiantly. “Then why is there a list? Why the marks? Why did he have you watching them?”
That hits.
He doesn’t answer—his silence is answer enough.
“Asher,” I say softer, but no less intense, “if we wait for more information, the information we get might be a body.” My throat tightens. “Jackie. You. Me.”
His jaw works again—harder this time.
“And if Xavier wakes up,” I continue, chest tight, “what do you think he’ll be more angry about? That we scared a few disloyal riders?” I step closer. “Or that we did nothing while the people who wanted him dead kept moving pieces around the board?”
A beat of silence stretches between us, thick as a held breath.
Finally he says, “You want to round up the moles.”
“Yes.”
“And then what?” His voice is quieter now, dangerously calm.
“We pressure them,” I say. “Split them from their allies. Ask questions. See who flips. See who names a name.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then they’ve chosen a side,” I say. “And we deal with that.”
His eyes search mine — methodical, assessing, almost surgical — like he’s trying to see how far I’m willing to go.
“Xavier didn’t tell me his plan,” Asher murmurs at last, a confession tucked between his teeth. “He trusted me to follow orders, not make them.”
“I know,” I say. “And that’s where we differ.”
His eyes narrow. “How?”
“You think you’re here to carry out his will,” I say. “I think I’m here to protect what he built—even if that means doing something he didn’t spell out yet.”
A flicker of something like respect — or warning — crosses his face.
“And if you’re wrong?” he asks.
“Then you can tell him it was my call when he wakes up.” My voice trembles but doesn’t break. “And he can punish me himself.”