Chapter 13 Valentina #2
She shrugs without meeting my eyes. Her shoulders twitch. “Enough.”
Lies. I can see it in the way her fingers dig into her own arms, in the twitch of her jaw, in the faint tremble of her foot where it taps restlessly against the blanket.
She’s not present. Not really. There’s a distance there I haven’t seen from her before—not just anxiety, not just fear. Something more… detached.
The mole is a girl.
I hate that the thought surfaces when I look at her. I hate myself for letting it.
Jackie catches my glance. Her eyes narrow, tracking the silent math I’m doing.
“Talia’s fine,” she says, more for me than for Talia. “It’s that boy she’s all tangled up over.”
Talia’s head snaps up. “Oh my god, would you stop?”
Jackie’s mouth curls. “You think he’s subtle? You think you’re subtle? You sigh when he texts you. You glare at your phone when he doesn’t. You slip off to the bathroom like I’m not going to notice you staying gone longer than any human needs to pee.”
“You time my bathroom breaks?” Talia demands.
Jackie shrugs. “I count. Keeps me sharp.”
I snort despite myself.
Talia’s cheeks flush, the faintest pink rising under her skin. She ducks her head, curls falling further around her face. “It’s not… like that.”
“Sure,” Jackie drawls. “You only talk about him in your sleep.”
“I do not,” Talia says too fast.
Jackie’s grin widens. “You literally said his name three times last night. Like Beetlejuice.”
Talia tosses a pillow at her half-heartedly. Jackie catches it with her free hand and tucks it behind her lower back, unbothered.
We’re almost relaxed. Almost.
Then the door opens without a knock.
Asher steps inside and the temperature of the room shifts in an instant.
He doesn’t storm in; that’s never been his style.
He simply appears, a controlled presence in a black T-shirt and worn jeans, shoulders filling the doorway, gaze moving immediately to Talia.
His eyes sweep over her—position, posture, phone beside her thigh—then lift to Jackie and the baby, then to me.
They linger on me half a second longer than they should, something unreadable passing through them before he shutters it away.
“No boys,” he says, voice even.
Talia groans, tipping her head back against the wall. “You don’t even know what we’re talking about.”
“I know enough,” he says. “No boys.”
Jackie rolls her eyes so hard I’m surprised they don’t fall out. “Can you not?”
“She has enough to deal with without some teenage idiot dragging her into his drama,” Asher says, gaze still on Talia. “No boys.”
Talia’s jaw tightens, eyes flashing. “You didn’t say that when Xavier brought half the city home to our doorstep.”
Asher’s expression flickers—wounded, then blank. He opens his mouth, shuts it again. For a fraction of a second, I see something raw in him, something that looks like regret and the ghosts of fights he already lost.
“Out,” Jackie says abruptly.
His attention shifts to her, brow furrowing. “I’m not—”
“This is my room,” she cuts in. “My safe space. My tatas. My baby. My rules. Get out before I change the Wi-Fi password and never give it to you again.”
“You don’t even know the password,” he says.
“I’ll change my own password,” she counters. “And I’ll name it ‘Asher_Is_A_Control_Freak.’ Now get out.”
He stares at her.
She stares back.
He sighs.
“Fine,” he mutters, backing toward the door. His gaze lands on Talia one more time, glitching there like it doesn’t want to move. “Just remember what I said.”
“No boys,” she recites flatly. “Yes, Dad.”
His jaw ticks, but he leaves. The door clicks shut behind him, and the air exhales.
Jackie shifts the baby to her shoulder and pats her back gently. Her eyes move from the door to me.
“You’re thinking hard,” she says. “I can hear it.”
I pick at a loose thread in the rug. “I’m always thinking hard.”
“Yeah,” she says. “But this is the paranoid kind.”
I meet her gaze.
She holds it, no flinching, no softening. “You’re looking at all of us. You should be. That’s what Xavier would do. That’s what a smart leader does. Turns over every rock, checks under every bed, makes sure nobody within arm’s reach is holding the knife.”
Her voice isn’t unkind. Just brutally matter-of-fact.
“The mole is a girl,” I say quietly.
“I see,” Jackie says. “Talia, sweetie, do me a favor and give the boss lady and me some privacy.”
My stomach twists, as Talia scrambles to her feet and rushes out of the door without a second glance.
Her baby lets out a sleepy sigh, tiny fingers curling against her shoulder. Jackie’s face softens for a heartbeat, then steels again as she looks back at me.
“I get why you’re doing it,” she says. “You’re not wrong to look at everyone.
” Her eyes sharpen. “But hear me, Valentina Torres. If you ever—ever—look at me like you think I’m the one selling us out?
If you ever stand in a room and say my name in the same sentence as mole or traitor?
I will gut you like a fish. Slowly. While you’re awake.
And I’ll make sure someone explains to Xavier why his girl bled on my carpet. ”
The threat lands like a physical blow. Not because I think she’ll actually do it—though Jackie never makes empty promises—but because of the way she says it. Not rage, not hysteria. Just cold, clear certainty. This is the line. Do not cross it.
I push myself to my feet slowly, heart beating too fast. For a second I consider defending myself, telling her I would never accuse her without proof, that I trust her more than half the men downstairs.
But the thing is, she’s already said she understands why I’m suspicious of everyone. And she’s right to draw boundaries.
So instead I step forward and hold out my hand.
“Fair enough,” I say.
Her gaze drops to my hand. She lets it hang there for a beat, testing me, then grips it. Hard. Her fingers dig into my knuckles hard enough to sting.
“Good,” she says, voice low. “Because I like you. I liked you even before Xavier did. And I’d rather not have to kill you.”
“Same,” I manage, half-laughing, half-serious.
She releases my hand. The baby shifts, squirming, and Jackie turns her attention back to the crib.
“Get some rest,” I tell her instead.
She gives me an almost-smile. “You too, boss.”
The word feels wrong coming from her mouth. Too formal. Too careful. I leave before I start reading into it.
The hallway outside is dimmer than the room, the light from the narrow window at the end slanting across the floor. A draft curls under the baseboards, carrying with it the faint sounds of life from downstairs—voices, a radio, the clatter of dishes.
I walk slowly past the doors.
Cassandra’s room: closed, the faint murmur of a phone conversation leaking through.
A spare room: empty, bed made.
Xavier’s room: door half open, bed unmade, a tangled mess I’m not ready to look at.
Asher’s: closed, silence heavy behind it.
Then Talia’s room.
The door is almost shut, just enough of a gap for light to spill into the hall in a pale stripe. I wouldn’t have stopped if I hadn’t heard it.
Her voice.
Low, urgent. Frustrated.
I pause, breath catching, and lean in just enough that I can hear the words, careful not to let the floorboard beneath me creak.
“Kill, come on,” she whispers.
Kill.
Not Killian, not fully. But I’ve heard enough men shorten his name that my heart misses a beat.
There’s a reply, muffled by the phone speaker, too soft for me to catch. Talia’s breath stutters.
“This is… this is a lot,” she says, voice cracking just slightly. “I told you I’d help but I didn’t think you meant—”
Another murmur.
Her laugh is brittle. “Fine. For you. Fine.”
Every muscle in my body locks.
For you.
She’s not arguing with some boy from school about homework. This isn’t someone begging her to sneak out past Asher’s rules. This is Talia negotiating with a voice on the other end of the line about something that sounds like duty. Obligation. A task she doesn’t want to do but will anyway.
“Just—” she says softly, “just tell me you’ll keep your side of the deal.”
I feel suddenly, acutely, horribly exposed standing there in the hall. Like if I stay a second longer, she’ll hear my heart pounding through the door.
A floorboard inside her room creaks.
She’s moving.
Coming closer.
I jerk backward, panic sparking through my limbs. My pulse roars in my ears as I turn and move, trying to keep my pace slow enough not to sound like I’m running while every instinct screams at me to bolt.
Her doorknob rattles behind me.
I take the stairs faster than I should, hand sliding along the banister to keep myself from tumbling. The air feels thin, the house suddenly too big and too small at once.
I don’t look back.
I don’t want to see her face in that doorway. I don’t want to know if she’s still holding the phone. I don’t want to watch her eyes widen if she realizes I heard anything.
Because if Talia is talking to one of the Viper boys, if she is even remotely tied to him, if she is the reason information keeps slipping from our walls to his ears…
Then the mole isn’t just close.
She’s family.
And I am not ready to believe that yet.