Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
T he world’s gone on without me.
From the window of my kitchen, I watch the street below in silence.
Neighbors walking dogs. Cars inching past. Life is ticking on like it doesn’t notice I’ve been buried alive in this place for weeks.
I haven’t stepped outside since the shooting.
Since I almost died with her name on my tongue and her face in my mind.
Max is perched on a stool at the kitchen island beside Trigger, silent as usual. Between him and Trigger, they’ve been coming by daily, bringing updates, trying to drag me back to the world. But I haven’t moved. Haven’t breathed right since I let her walk away.
Trigger tosses his phone onto the counter with a sharp exhale. “Chester’s working with Santos.”
I drag a hand down my face. “Fuck.”
“Yeah. That’s about the size of it,” he retorts.
Santos. That explains the radio silence.
Chester’s not just hiding, he’s making moves.
Dangerous ones. The kind that’ll ripple through every corner of our businesses if we don’t shut it down soon.
We’re still pissed that he got away, but it’s only made me more determined to find him, to make him pay for his betrayal.
My phone buzzes.
Hunter: Just dropped Cassie at her place. Some guy was sniffing around her. Cooper too. She’s good. Just thought you’d want to know.
My stomach knots. That protective, searing thing I keep trying to kill inside me flares back to life; hot and insistent, like a blade dragged across an old wound that never really healed.
It’s instinct, deeper than thought. That need to keep her safe, to shield her from every goddamn threat in this world, even if I’m the biggest one.
I shoved it down when I let her walk. Thought I could bury it under logic and distance.
But all it takes is Hunter’s message—her name, the mention of another man near her—and it ignites again, fierce and blinding.
I grip the edge of the counter, knuckles white, jaw locked tight.
I have no right to her anymore. But that doesn’t change the way my body tenses, ready to move. Ready to fight.
“Everything alright?” Trigger asks, already reading my face.
“It’s Cassie,” I say flatly. “Hunter’s watching her.”
Max folds his arms. He doesn’t need to say much because it’s all there in his expression.
“What?” I snap at him.
“You’re just going to back away and let someone else protect the woman you—” He stops himself, jaw tightening. “You really think she’s safer without you?”
“I don’t think. I know.” I stand, pacing toward the kitchen before turning back.
“As long as I’m in this, she’s a target.
Cooper’s nothing. But Daniels, I don’t know what he’s got planned.
And compared to what’s coming if Chester’s playing with Santos…
” I take a deep breath, exhaling my frustration.
“That gang doesn’t touch people, they destroy them.
And I won’t let her get caught in that crossfire. ”
“She wouldn’t be caught in it if she were standing behind you,” Trigger bites out. “But instead she’s out there alone, fending off exes and god knows who else.”
“She has Hunter.”
“She wants you,” Max interjects bluntly.
I look away, jaw clenched, throat tight.
Calling me out on my shit is something Trigger does.
Max usually stays out of it. Even as kids, he didn’t touch on my personal life unless I wanted to talk about it.
We had a straight-forward, easy friendship.
It’s why I trust him implicitly. It’s also why I hate that he’s speaking up, because he’s right.
But I can’t be near her. I can’t touch her. Not until I can look her in the eye without the weight of every choice I’ve made choking the words I want to say.
“We need to find Chester,” I say, voice cold again. “Before Santos makes a move.”
Max stares at me for a long beat, his eyes heavy with all the things he wants to say but knows better than to voice.
There’s a twitch in his jaw, the flicker of disappointment or maybe just worry—it's hard to tell with him sometimes. Finally, he exhales through his nose, the sound sharp in the thick silence, and shakes his head like he’s giving up on something he shouldn’t have hoped for in the first place.
Without another word, he pushes off the counter, the legs of the stool scraping faintly against the floor. He stands tall, rolls his shoulders like he's shaking off whatever weight I just dropped on him, then slides his phone into his back pocket with a decisive flick of his wrist.
“Suit yourself,” he mutters, and vacates the kitchen with slow, deliberate steps.
I don’t move.
Trigger is still here, his presence pressing into the edges of the room like smoke.
His breathing is harsh, audible—too damn loud—and it rattles down my spine like a warning.
He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t need to. He stands there like a storm held in check by sheer will.
Watching me. Waiting. And the worst part is, I don’t even know if he wants me to break.
.. or if he’s disappointed that I won’t.
The door clicks shut behind Max, and the silence he leaves behind feels like it might choke me.
I lean back, pressing a hand to my side, and let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
Another damn storm’s coming. I can feel it.
“So what’s next?” Trigger asks, his voice low and scratchy like gravel under boots.
I don’t answer right away. I’m staring at the half-empty glass of whiskey in my hand, watching the amber swirl like it holds the solution I haven’t found yet. Finally, I lift my eyes to meet his.
“I need you to check in on the shipment tomorrow for me.”
He shifts, the stool creaking under his weight as he lets out a heavy huff. “You know, sooner or later, you’re going to have to set foot out there.”
His words cut deeper than they should. Not because he’s wrong—he’s not—but because they drag across the raw parts of me I’ve been trying to ignore.
I know I’ve been hiding, nursing this wound like it’s a damn excuse.
But it’s not just the pain that’s kept me inside.
It’s everything else. Everything I can't control.
I say nothing.
Instead, I shift gears, gesturing toward his busted-up face. “And you know I’m going to ask about that.” I nod at the purple bruise blooming across his cheekbone, the split lip, the dried smear of blood near his hairline. “Don’t think you’re getting out of it that easily.”
He grumbles something I don’t catch—probably intentional—but the tension in his jaw tells me it wasn’t anything complimentary.
“Santos?” I press .
He shakes his head slowly. “Worse.”
My brow furrows. What the fuck’s worse than Santos right now? We’re skating thin ice with the Colombians, and Trigger getting jumped by one of them would’ve made sense. But this? This vague bullshit? It grinds in my gut like gravel.
“Lopez,” he mutters.
I blink. “The detective?”
He nods once, grim. “I got into it with her. Earlier tonight,” he confirms, rubbing his temple like the memory gives him a migraine.
I stand up straighter, ignoring the white-hot pain that shoots through my side. “What the fuck were you thinking, confronting a detective?” My voice sharpens like broken glass. “You think that won’t come back to bite us?”
“She was sniffing too close to the docks,” he snaps back. “I had to redirect her.”
“Redirect her?” I echo, incredulous. “With your fists?”
“She swung first,” he says, almost proudly, like that excuses it.
Jesus Christ.
Trigger’s reckless when it counts, but this? This is a whole new level of stupid. We can’t afford heat right now. Not with Daniels still lurking and Chester aligning with Santos. Not with me half-broken and buried behind these walls.
“You sure she’s going to keep her mouth shut?” I ask.
He shrugs. “She’s got her own shit to deal with. I didn’t give her anything.”
That’s not a yes, and it sure as hell isn’t a no.
I exhale through my nose, pressure building behind my eyes. “You’re playing with fire, bro. That woman’s got something to prove. If she digs too deep?—”
“I know,” he cuts me off. “But she’s already too close. I just bought us time.”
I study him for a long time. He's fraying around the edges, more than he lets on. And now he's dragging another problem to our doorstep when we already have too many.
But the truth is, I get it.
He’s trying to hold this together the way I used to.
And it’s killing both of us in different ways.