Chapter 15 Valentina
VALENTINA
Asher has a gun in each hand when I find him.
He’s in the armory—what used to be a storage room before Xavier turned it into racks and drawers and lockboxes.
Now it looks like a catalog of all the bad decisions we’ve ever made: assault rifles lined up in precise rows, shotguns gleaming under the fluorescent light, pistols laid out on a workbench in neat, lethal lines.
Asher stands in the middle of it, shirt half buttoned, hair still damp from a shower he obviously didn’t finish.
His movements are efficient, almost mechanical.
A pistol disappears into the back of his waistband.
Another into the holster strapped to his thigh.
A knife slides into his boot like it lives there.
Zay is standing at the end of the workbench, loading magazines with quick, practiced motions. Brass flashes between his fingers. His jaw is clenched so hard a muscle ticks near his temple; his usual lazy posture is gone, replaced by something coiled and ready.
The air in the room is dense—gun oil, adrenaline, purpose.
“Absolutely not,” I say.
Both of their heads snap up.
For a second, something almost like relief flickers through Asher’s eyes at the sight of me. It’s gone as quickly as it appears, buried beneath the steel.
“She’s with the Vipers,” he says. “We’re going.”
He says we but he means me. The way his body is vibrating with barely contained violence tells me that if he doesn’t move soon, he’s going to break something just to release the pressure.
Zay shoves a full magazine into the well with more force than necessary. “They touch Talia, we level the block.”
“No,” I say.
They both look at me like I’ve malfunctioned.
“Asher,” I say, stepping fully into the room, “marching a small army into Viper headquarters is the fastest way to get Talia killed and start a war we can’t control.”
“She’s already in their hands,” he bites out. “The war started the second she disappeared.”
“We don’t know that they took her,” I counter. “We don’t know how willing she was. We don’t know what deal was made. We know nothing.”
“I know she’s gone.” His knuckles whiten around the pistol. “I know Killian wants you dead. I know the Vipers would use her as leverage.”
“Exactly,” I say. “As leverage. They won’t kill their leverage on minute one. If you show up with guns blazing, they have no reason not to put a bullet in her head and send you what’s left.”
The words hang there.
Asher swallows hard. His eyes are dark, wild around the edges. “You expect me to sit here and do nothing?”
“I expect you to let me do my job,” I say quietly. “I’m president. This is my call.”
That lands.
Zay’s gaze flicks between us, unreadable.
Asher takes one step toward me. Then another. He stops an arm’s length away.
“Valentina,” he says, voice low, “do not throw rank at me right now.”
“I wouldn’t if you weren’t about to start World War Three,” I answer, steady.
My heart is pounding, but my voice doesn’t shake.
“We are not ready for a full-scale war with the Vipers. Not with the possibility of Xavier waking up, not with half the club still deciding if they even trust me. You drag them into this today, we lose people. We might lose all of it.”
His gaze burns into mine. “So what do you suggest we do instead?”
I breathe once, deeply. The answer has been forming since the moment he said Talia’s name downstairs.
“I go on Zay’s bike,” I say. “Alone. No backup. No guns visible. I walk into their den and talk to them before you turn this into a bloodbath we can’t undo.”
Zay makes a sharp sound. “Absolutely not. They’ll gut you before you hit the second step.”
“Killian’s not stupid,” I say. “He wants leverage, not a corpse he can’t negotiate with. I’m worth more to him breathing.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Asher demands.
“It’s supposed to make this survivable,” I say. “For Talia. For us. For the whole damn club.”
Silence settles. Heavy. Tight.
I meet Asher’s eyes and hold them. “You know I’m right.”
He hates that.
I see it in the way his shoulders draw back, in the flare of his nostrils, in the way his fingers flex around the grip of the gun like he’s imagining other futures, ones where he ignores me, ones where he drags me along, ones where he never lets me near a Viper again.
Then he exhales, long and harsh.
“You don’t walk into Viper headquarters by yourself,” he says. “Not while I’m breathing.”
“Then stop breathing,” I snap, and the shock of my own words hits me a second after it hits them.
Zay goes very still.
I take a step forward, closing the distance until I’m directly in Asher’s space, until I have to tip my chin up to meet his eyes.
“You put that gun away,” I say quietly. “You stand down. You let me go. That’s the only way this doesn’t end with Talia’s body on a slab and you in a grave next to her.”
We stare each other down.
His chest rises and falls, hard and fast. His eyes search mine, like he’s looking for a way to argue that doesn’t end with both of us destroyed.
“This is not a suggestion,” I add. “As president of the Raiders, I’m giving you a direct order. Stand. Down.”
The words taste strange in my mouth. Heavy. Real.
He flinches like I hit him.
Something shifts in his expression—not defeat, but a reluctant acknowledgment that we’re not just allies in this mess anymore, not just people who want things together and are being pulled apart. We’re roles. Positions. Responsibilities.
His hand slowly, very slowly, moves from the gun at his back.
He sets it on the table. Then the other one. The sound of metal on wood is loud in the small room.
Zay watches him with a careful stillness.
“This goes against every instinct I have,” Asher says. “Every single one.”
“I know,” I say. “That’s why you let me do it.”
“Not alone,” Zay cuts in. “No way.”
I look at him.
He meets my gaze without flinching. “I’m not letting you walk into that building and disappear. If you want to go in without making it a raid, fine. But I’m not staying here listening to the clock tick while you play diplomacy with people who’d skin you for fun.”
He’s not wrong. And he knows there’s a line I won’t cross with him. I need him alive. I need his brain outside, waiting.
“Asher will ride on his bike with me there,” I say. “He will stay hidden. If I’m not out in…” I calculate, fighting the urge to keep shaving the time down until it’s ridiculous. “Forty-five minutes, Ash will call you. We pull everyone.”
He doesn’t like that number. It’s obvious in the twist of his mouth, in the way his fingers drum against his thigh.
“Thirty,” he counters.
“Forty,” I say.
“Thirty-five or I hotwire a bike and bring the entire clubhouse on my back.”
“Thirty-five,” I agree.
Asher’s jaw ticks. “If anything feels wrong, you leave. You understand me?”
His intensity flares through me like another weapon in the room.
I nod.
“Keys,” I say to Zay.
He digs into his pocket and pulls out the ring, calloused fingers brushing my palm as he presses them into my hand. His eyes catch mine for a heartbeat—dark, steady, complicated.
“No heroics,” he murmurs.
“Too late,” I say.
I turn to leave.
Asher’s hand catches my wrist.
I stop.
He steps close, close enough that the air thickens, close enough that I can see the tiny scar on his cheekbone.
“Come back,” he says quietly. No edge. No command. Just a request that feels heavier than anything else that’s been said in this room. “No matter what you see. No matter what she says. Come. Back.”
“I will,” I say, and mean it in a way I haven’t meant many things.
He hesitates, like he wants to say more, to touch more, to drag me back and lock me in the basement. Then he lets go.
I leave before I can change my own mind.
—
The ride across the city feels like a wound held open.
Zay’s bike growls under me, the engine a steady vibration through my thighs, the wind pressing against my chest like a hand. Buildings whip past—graffiti and glass, old brick and new concrete, the familiar routes of a city that’s built on secrets.
Traffic parts around me. I don’t think about the red lights I run or the horns that flare in my wake. All I see is the road ahead and the image of Talia climbing out of a second-story window into the dark.
The Vipers’ headquarters sits where the old industrial district sours into the river—a converted factory, hulking and squared, its windows barred, its concrete walls tagged with layered graffiti.
The Viper insignia is spray-painted across the loading bay door in a riot of greens and blacks—snake coiled around a crown.
Appropriate.
I park the bike across the street and swing my leg off slowly, taking a second to catalog the scene, to breathe.
Two guards at the front entrance. Both armed. One leaning casually against the brick, cigarette between his fingers; the other standing straighter, eyes behind mirrored sunglasses tracking everything that moves.
There’s a camera above the door, its little red light blinking. Another at the corner of the building, sweeping the perimeter. A third near the loading bay.
Fine.
I walk toward the entrance with my hands at my sides, visible, empty.
The guards straighten as I cross the street.
“Turn around,” Sunglasses says. “We’re closed to visitors.”
“I’m not a visitor,” I say.
His gaze sweeps me. “You’re a Raider.”
“You’re observant,” I say. “I’m here for Talia.”
The other one, Cigarette, snorts. “We don’t do daycare.”
“She walked out of my house,” I say, “and into yours. We both know that’s not nothing.”
“Not your business,” Cigarette says.
“She’s sixteen,” I reply. “She’s my business.”
“That’s debatable,” Sunglasses says. “Either way, it’s not your call where she stands.”
“Maybe not,” I say. “But it is my call what happens if your boss uses her to start a war he’s not ready to finish.”
That makes them both pause.
“Let me talk to him,” I say. “You know who I am. You know he’ll want to hear what I have to say before you turn me away.”