Chapter 7 Isaiah #2
“Thank you, your majesty,” I say. “You look very coronated.”
The corner of her mouth tries to turn up, but the worry in her eyes shuts it down. She moves closer to the desk, fingers brushing the edge where she sat earlier today, if the faint scuff in the varnish is any clue.
“Asher said you heard something,” she says. “About the Vipers.”
“Eli heard it,” I correct. “I just extracted it.”
“Semantics,” she mutters. “Tell me.”
So I do. The bar. Eli’s stammering. The routes. The Vipers pushing into spaces they avoided before. The talk about us being “distracted.”
By the time I’m done, she’s gripping the desk, knuckles pale.
“How sure are we?” she asks.
“Sure enough that I don’t think we can ignore it,” I say. “It could be guys talking shit, but it fits.”
“Fits what?” she presses.
Asher steps back around the desk and leans against it, folding his arms. “Fits what we already suspected. That someone’s feeding them our state. They’re moving too fast not to have some assurance Xavier’s not about to ride back through their front door.”
Her gaze flicks between us. “So we have moles,” she says. “Active. And ambitious.”
“Yes,” Asher says.
“I thought you two were working on that.” There’s no accusation in her voice, just a tired edge. “You had a list. A plan.”
“We’re working on it,” I say. “Quietly. Pulling people in, asking questions. Checking alibis.”
“And?” she pushes.
“And nobody’s cracked yet,” Asher answers. “The ones we’ve tested are either loyal or good liars.”
She exhales slowly, jaw flexing. “Of course they’re good liars. They’re betraying Xavier, not stealing candy.”
She paces a short line in front of the desk, boots thudding softly on the floor. I watch her brain spin, cutting through things, rearranging them. That’s one of the things about her that gets me—how fast she moves from fear to anger to strategy, like emotions are a fuel, not an obstacle.
“If the Vipers are moving,” she says, “and someone in here is feeding them confidence, they’re not just trying to hurt Xavier. They’re trying to take the Raiders.”
“Probably,” Asher agrees.
“Why ‘probably’?” she shoots back.
“Because some people don’t think past the first explosion,” he says. “They just want to watch something burn.”
“But you don’t put moles in place for two months just to watch a pretty fire,” she counters. “You do that to weaken the structure. To soften it. To make it easy to walk into once the front door collapses.”
Her gaze sharpens. “They want to take the house while the king’s gone.”
My chest tightens, the word house hitting heavier than maybe she meant it. This place is more than bricks and bikes. It’s blood and history and debt.
“Okay,” she says, more to herself than us. “So. They want the house. How do you take a house like this?”
“With guns,” I say.
“With numbers,” Asher adds.
“With support,” she finishes. “No one here survives long trying to rule alone. They need backing. From officers. Captains. Older members. People the rest of the Raiders respect enough to follow when lines get blurry.”
She stops pacing, turns back to us. “Which means they need one thing more than guns or timing.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“An audience,” she says.
The word hangs in the air.
Asher’s eyebrow lifts the smallest bit. “Explain.”
“You don’t stage a takeover in a vacuum,” she says. “You need people talking. Watching. Choosing. You need a moment where everyone’s in the same place, pretending they’re there for one reason while something else is happening underneath.”
A slow, dangerous smile starts to curl at her mouth.
My stomach does something stupid in response.
Asher sees it. His eyes narrow. “Valentina.”
“What’s a better way,” she continues, ignoring him, “to expose who’s plotting to take over than at a party?”
Silence.
I stare.
Asher stares.
“A party,” I repeat.
She nods, eyes bright and sharp. “Yes. We give them what they want. A gathering. A reason for everyone to dress up, drink, relax. A reason for loyalties to show themselves. The ones who want power will gravitate toward each other. The ones who want something from me will crowd closer. The ones betting on Xavier staying down will make their plays in whispers when they think nobody’s looking. ”
“V,” I say carefully, “you understand what happens when you put alcohol, egos, and a power vacuum in one room together, right?”
“Yes,” she says. “Fun.”
Asher blows out a slow breath. “It’s chaos.”
“Exactly,” she says calmly. “And chaos makes people sloppy. This quiet approach?” She gestures between us.
“It’s not working fast enough. You said so yourselves.
We don’t have months. We might not have weeks.
The Vipers are sniffing around, and our traitors are getting bold. So we give them a stage.”
Asher watches her. “And you stand in the center of it.”
“Yes,” she says. Not stubborn. Not proud. Just… decided.
My heart stutters. “You’d be painting a target on yourself.”
She tilts her head. “How is that different from now?”
I don’t have an answer to that.
“They already hate me.” Her eyes flick between us. “So we make them come to me. We make them show me who they stand next to. Who they whisper to. Who they follow when they think I’m not listening.”
“That’s a lot of variables,” Asher says slowly.
“That’s a lot of data,” she counters.
He goes quiet, considering.
I lean back in the chair, mind racing ahead. “We could seed different rumors in different circles before the party,” I say. “Feed slightly different versions of the same lie to each suspect. See which version comes back to bite us.”
“Yes,” she says immediately, snapping her fingers once. “Exactly. Use the night as a net. Not just to watch body language, but to trace information flows.”
“And if the Vipers hit while we’re busy playing host?” Asher asks.
“Then we deal with them too,” she says. “But they’re not going to storm the house blind.
They’ll want to know who’s on their side first. If anything, a party buys us time.
We move the date up, call it a raid celebration, a fundraiser, a ‘Xavier’s going to pull through’ toast—whatever.
Make it sound like we’re reassuring everyone, and then at the party we show we have no loyalty to Xavier.
We make it clear that we are disrespecting him, and hope that makes people feel more comfortable to be themselves. ”
I can’t help it. Admiration cuts through my fear. She sounds like Xavier when she talks like this. Strategic. A little cruel. Unafraid to make people uncomfortable to get what she needs.
Only she does it with that extra edge of not having been raised in this. Of having chosen it anyway.
Asher’s gaze slides over to me. “What do you think?”
I snort. “I think their are already rumors that she’s not loyal to Xavier. If she openly acts like she doesn’t care about Xavier then people will think they can trust her.”
“And they’ll show their true colors.”
“Exactly!” She beams.
Asher looks between us for a second before he pushes off the desk, coming to stand beside her.
“We do this,” he says, “we do it with every safeguard possible. Guns cached in every room. Exit routes locked down. Only invite people we want eyes on. No outsider, understand.”
“I like it when you’re all stern,” she says.
“Val,” he deadpans.
“Okay. Okay. Let’s throw a party!”