Chapter 8 Valentina
VALENTINA
“Oh my God, no,” Jackie scoffs, voice dropping into a register of pure panic. “Valentina. Honey. Sweetheart. What are we doing?”
I blink, looking over my oversized t-shirt, leather skinny jeans and knee-high boots. “We’re… getting ready for a party?”
“Oh, so you normally look like a hobo and a dominitrix had a baby?.” She takes three steps into the room, each more dramatic than the last, until she’s close enough to grab the hem of my shirt between two fingers like it offends her. “This is not a party outfit.”
“It’s a normal outfit,” I defend, tugging it back. “They’re new leather jeans.”
“They’re bad new jeans,” she counters, waving her hand as if fanning away the mediocrity. “You are the leader of the Raiders.”
“Yeah,” I shrug, adjusting my shirt. “And so was Xavier, and all he wore was tank tops and jeans.”
“Because his muscles are fashionable in itself,” she hums to herself, before shaking her head. “But don’t tell him I said that. I will deny.”
I snort, tying a knot in my T-shirt and reaching to tuck it into my bra.
“Okay, now you’re just making it worse,” she says, looping her arm through mine with a firm tug. “Follow me.”
I stumble as she drags me into the hall. “Jackie—wait—what are you—”
The last couple of days have turned Jackie into the default person Asher and Zay trust to watch my back when they’re not around. She’s the kindest, most terrifying girl I’ve ever met, loyal to a fault, and right now, I need someone exactly like that.
She pushes her door open. Baby toys scatter across the floor, but the rest of the room is untouched, neat in a way that doesn’t match her energy at all.
“Excuse the mess,” she sighs, slipping her arm free and sweeping her kinky hair into a ponytail. “Being a new mom is amazing, messy, and exhausting.”
“Where is my baby girl?” I ask, looking around the room.
“On a run with her daddy,” Jackie says, smiling as she shuts the door behind us. “Which means we’ve got about an hour to make you look good.”
“Jackie, I am telling you, I look fine.”
She twists her lips to the side and clicks her tongue twice. “Nah. Absolutely not. Get out of those clothes. We’re starting from scratch.”
I open my mouth to argue, but she’s already pacing, talking with her hands like she’s delivering a sermon.
“Because if my body still looked like that,” she gestures to my curves. “Then I would not be hiding it.”
“Jackie, what are you talking about?” I scoff, looking at her. Jackie has the smallest waist to mankind, wide hips, a perfect ass and the perkiest tits I have ever seen in my life. She looks like a video vixen. “Your body is amazing.”
“Yeah, I know, but I can’t fit in all my slutty shit anymore without a tit escaping, or a cheek falling out,” she murmurs.
I giggle as I take off my shoes. She walks to the other side of the room and opens her closet.
“I used to be fun,” she says, tapping her chest. “Crazy fun. Before the baby, before Henderson... I was the girl who could walk into a room and make a man forget his own last name.”
“Sounds powerful,” I say.
“It was,” she sighs. Then she points at me. “And you, Valentina—you have that same thing. The three of them completely lost their shit over you. I have never seen anything like it.”
“The three of who?” I question, sliding off my jeans.
She gives me a look like I’ve personally offended her intelligence. “Asher. Xavier. Isaiah. You really don’t see it?”
Heat crawls up my neck. “I… no. That’s not—”
“Oh, please,” she interrupts, swinging her closet open with theatrical flair. “Asher looks at you like he wants to drag you into a dark hallway and reorganize your internal organs with his cock. Isaiah practically vibrates when you walk into a room. And Xavier—”
She pauses, glancing over her shoulder.
“Xavier claimed you in front of the whole damn club and didn’t even pretend to be subtle about it. That man would burn a city down for you, and he barely knows how to say hello without it sounding like a threat.”
A strange mixture of warmth and guilt curls tight in my chest. “Jackie, it’s not—”
“Nope,” she cuts in, holding up a finger. “We are not doing modest. It is objectively true, and it is extremely useful tonight.”
Then she dives into the closet, rummaging, and emerges with something held aloft like a sacred artifact.
A micro leather skirt. Jet black with threads along the sides. The type of mini skirt that requires no underwear, not even a thong.
“Jackie,” I breathe.
“Yes,” she says simply.
“I can’t wear that.”
“Yes you can.”
“That’s not a skirt. That’s a… that’s like a sleeve.” I scoff, pulling at one of the strings. “It is barely cloth.”
She laughs, shakes it once like it might come to life. “It’s perfect. You’ll stun them into silence. And if not, you can blind them with how short it is.”
“No,” I shake my head as she shakes the skirt.
“Try it,” Jackie insists gently. “Just try it.”
I take the skirt out of her head, and roll my eyes as I slide the leather up my legs. It fits like it was shaped around me—warm, tight, hugging the curve of my hips, skimming my thighs in a way that makes my breath catch.
Jackie inhales sharply. “Oh, honey.”
“What?”
“You look like sin,” she whispers reverently. “Like the kind Isaiah would praise, the kind Asher would analyze, and the kind Xavier would absolutely start a war over.”
My stomach twists, hot and electric.
“Top,” she says, recovering her composure. “We need the perfect top.”
She rummages through a drawer and pulls out a black Raiders shirt she’s cut and re-tailored. The neckline dips off one shoulder, the fabric fitted but soft, stitched tight at the waist to show the shape of my body. It’s casual but intimate, sweet but dangerous.
When I pull it on, Jackie grabs my shoulders and swivels me toward the mirror. The girl staring back is trouble. A temptation. A dare.
Jackie beams. “You look so good. Asher and Zay are going to loose their shit.”
I swallow. “I don’t know what to do with that.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” she says softly. “They’re going to go feral when they see you. Now… hair up or down?”
Something warm flickers low in my chest. “Up.”
“Perfect,” she giggles, grabbing her brush and gel.
In a blur of quick fingers, she gathers my long, curly blonde hair and draws it up into a high ponytail that tightens everything about my face, lifting my features and baring my neck like an invitation I’m not sure I ever meant to give. The curls spill down my back in a wild, glossy cascade.
Then she moves to my face, leaning in with the confidence of someone who’s done this a thousand times.
She smokes out my eyes until they look darker, sharper, almost dangerous.
She brushes a soft glow across my cheekbones, catching the light just right.
And when she’s finished, my lips glisten with a glossy pink shine—full, soft, kiss-tempting in a way that makes even me blink at my reflection.
By the time she steps back to admire her work, the floor is already vibrating faintly beneath us. The party has started downstairs—bass pulsing up through the wood, rattling the baby toys, humming under my boots.
My thigh-highs are on. My hair is tight and high. My makeup is flawless.
“Damn I am good,” she whistles lowly.
“Yeah, you are.” I smirk, and then realize that she is still dressed in her sweats. “Are you not coming?”
“No, Henderson took the baby to my moms so we're going to have a family night there.” She sighs, tilting her head to the side with a sad smile. “I can’t stay up past ten o’clock even if I tried.”
I turn around, pulling her into a firm hug. “The minute you can stay up until midnight. I am getting you plastered.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” she whispers, hugging me harder for a second before stepping back. “Now go rock those boys’ worlds.”
I laugh as I turn toward the hallway, only for her to smack my ass. I yelp, she cackles, and then I’m alone.
The music thumps beneath me. Voices rise into a restless, drunken roar. The closer I get to the stairs, the more the air thickens with smoke, tension, and something like electricity.
And I shouldn’t be nervous. I’ve handled worse than a room full of Raiders.
I once had an entire cartel hunting me before I even knew Cast was my brother.
But my stomach still twists. Because Asher is going to see me like this.
And Isaiah. Both of them wired into my nerves in completely different ways.
Both of them too easy to read and too impossible to look away from.
And the truth sits heavy and bright in my chest: I want to see them break for me. I want them to openly want me. The way Xavier did without hesitation. The way Isaiah does every time I breathe in his direction. I want Asher to crack—just once—because of me.
Is that so bad?
I reach the top of the staircase.
Asher and Isaiah stand at the bottom, heads bowed close, mid-argument—until they look up.
Asher’s gaze sweeps over me slowly, starting at the boots, tracing the line of my thighs, lingering at the leather hugging my hips, drifting up the sliver of exposed waist, the neckline of my shirt sliding off one shoulder, and finally landing on my face with a shock of heat behind his eyes.
His breath leaves him in a quiet, involuntary exhale I shouldn’t hear but do.
Isaiah, on the other hand, doesn’t bother with subtlety. His jaw goes slack, then clamps shut in a way that screams control, the kind that fails after half a second. His eyes rake my body with reverence and hunger tangled so tightly I feel it like hands on my skin.
Isaiah leans in, voice near my ear as he says, “Fuck, Angel. Are you trying to kill us?”
His hand slides from my wrist to the small of my back, fingers splaying over exposed skin with a reverence that feels sinful.