Trixie
A man had died because of her. A man she barely knew. He was a kid, really. Cory was young, stupid, and reckless, but he was still human. And until twenty minutes ago, he was still breathing, but thanks to her, he was dead now.
She’d seen men die before. They were victims of her father, disposable bodies locked in freezers, or tossed in rivers, and silenced forever. But this was different. This one, she had been part of it. This one had a place, a brotherhood, and a purpose. It had loyalty—even if he betrayed it.
She exhaled shakily, pressing her forehead against Cyclops’s shirt. It smelled like sweat and leather and the faint, metallic tang of gun oil. A smell she shouldn’t find comforting. A smell she shouldn’t want near her skin. But every inhale steadied her more than the one before.
Cyclops rubbed a slow hand down her back, comforting without smothering. “Talk to me,” he murmured.
“I can’t.” Her voice cracked.
“Then breathe,” he said softly. “Just breathe.” She did, and it helped a little, but the tremor in her chest wouldn’t go away. Cyclops tipped her chin up until she met his gaze. His eye held hers with a fierce steadiness she didn’t deserve.
“He betrayed this club,” Cyclops said. “Not you.”
“Because of me,” she whispered.
“Because he was weak,” he corrected. “A weak link breaks under pressure. Your father found his crack and pried it open. That’s on Cory. Not on you.”
She shook her head. “You can’t know that.”
“I do,” Cyclops said. “We choose our actions. Even fear doesn’t change that.”
“Fear changes everything,” she said quietly.
He brushed his thumb across her cheek. “I’m not afraid to be with you, honey, no matter what your past was, or who your father is.” Emotion punched through her chest like a fist. She pushed away from him, too raw and exposed. She wrapped her arms around herself.
“How do you do that?” she asked. “Say things like they’re simple, when they are anything but simple.”
Cyclops leaned against the wall, arms crossed—controlled power in every line of his body. “I can’t control what life throws at me,” he said. “But the men I’m responsible for listen to me. And right now, you’re a member of my club.”
She froze. “I’m not—”
He cut her off. “You’re under my protection. My responsibility. That makes you family to this club.”
Her breath stilled. “Family?”
He nodded, “Family,” he repeated. She didn’t know what to do with that.
Not when her father’s version of family was a leash and a cage.
He demanded complete control and pretended to love her.
It was a weapon disguised as love. Family was the thing that had broken her.
But hearing Cyclops say it with no threat, no demand, just a declaration—it felt different.
It felt dangerous, like stepping on thin ice and not caring if it cracked under her feet.
Trixie opened her mouth to say something; she didn’t even know what to say, but the door behind Cyclops swung open. Ink stepped out, wiping his hands on a rag. He looked grim, but steady. “It’s done,” he said.
Cyclops nodded. “Good. Send his body back to Trixie’s father to let him know that he’s lost his nark.”
Ink glanced at Trixie and softened—just slightly. “Prospect made his choices, and the club handled it.”
She swallowed. “What now?”
“Now?” Ink said. “Now we clean out the rat tunnels and see if he squeaked anything else. And then we drink.”
Venom appeared behind him. “And then, we go hunting.”
Trixie’s stomach knotted. “Hunting for what, or who?”
Venom cracked his knuckles. “Your old man’s men. They’re too close. We need to push them back.”
She shook her head. “That’s too dangerous. They won’t stop. He won’t stop.”
“Good,” Venom said. “Neither will we.”
Cyclops put a hand on her back—light, but grounding. “Trixie. Come with me.”
She followed him, steps unsteady, until they were halfway down the hall. He stopped, turned, and cupped her face gently, carefully. “You’re not responsible for Cory,” he said again. “Don’t take that weight. It doesn’t belong to you.”
Trixie closed her eyes. “I wish it were that simple.”
“It can be,” he murmured.
“Not for me,” she whispered. “I—Cyclops, I’ve never had people put their lives on the line for me—never. Because if they did, they’d have to pay a price.”
“There is no price to be paid,” he said. “Not here.” A beat of silence passed between them.
She opened her eyes. “What if one of your brothers blames me? What if they already do?”
“Then they answer to me,” Cyclops said, voice like gravel. “Nobody touches you. Nobody looks at you sideways. And nobody blames you for Cory’s mistake.”
Her throat tightened. “Why?”
He stepped closer, his hand brushing hers. “Because I said so.”
She exhaled shakily. “Cyclops,”
“And because,” he added softly, “I can’t lose you.”
Her heart stuttered. She wasn’t sure how this man had become so important to her in such a short amount of time, but she was finished questioning it. “I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered.
His eye flickered with fear, relief, something deeper.
Something she shouldn’t name, because if she did, she’d have to admit that she felt the same way about him, too.
“Let me take you back to my room, Trixie,” he breathed.
If she had her way, she’d stay there with him, in his bed, but that was going to be up to him.
She nodded, and he leaned in to gently kiss her lips when Ink yelled from the hall, “Cyclops, we got movement on the west cameras!”
Cyclops swore under his breath. “Fucking cameras. Stay behind me.”
“I always do,” she whispered. He grabbed her hand and pulled her along with him as he moved toward the surveillance room with lethal purpose.
Her fingers tightened around his. Not out of fear, but out of something else entirely.
It was something that made her heart race as much as the danger outside the walls.
Something she didn’t dare call love—not yet.
Not with war coming. But she knew one thing with absolute certainty—she wasn’t letting Cyclops fight this war alone.