Chapter 16 #3
Jersey’s room felt different when we stepped into it this time. Same walls. Same crappy dresser. An air mattress now shoved near the foot of the bed. Just the knowledge that someone who’d stood in this yard that morning breathing was now room temperature on a nightclub floor.
The mirror over his sink caught me as I moved past. I stopped.
The woman looking back at me was one I both knew and didn’t.
Blood smeared on my hands, drying dark under my nails, in the lines of my knuckles. Spatter on my cheek. A streak across my throat where Raptor’s pulse had sprayed past my fingers. My eyes looked older. Like every death I’d seen had decided to stand up and crowd behind them all at once.
I’d lost people before. Sisters. Men who’d tried to hurt us and failed. Men who’d succeeded in hurting us and paid for it. I’d seen bodies broken by wrecks, bullets, and bad luck.
But for some reason, this hit different.
Maybe because Raptor had been looking at me when he went. Maybe because I’d told him he did good and it felt like something too small to hand him as he bled out. Maybe because we’d walked him into that room and brought him back out only as a story.
My chest tightened.
I swallowed hard. Blinked once. Twice. The image in the mirror blurred.
I didn’t hear Jersey come in. I just felt his presence at my back, big and solid and too warm.
His arms slid around me from behind. Not tight. Just enough to be there.
For a heartbeat, I almost pulled away on reflex. Armor wanting to snap back on. Jokes. Shrugs. Something sharp to keep the soft parts safe.
I didn’t.
I let my weight tip back into him instead.
He rested his chin lightly on my shoulder. We looked at our reflection together—two tired animals with blood on them, standing in a room that had seen too much and not enough.
I went to speak but only a sound came out. I hated it. “He wanted so bad to prove himself. I could see it in his eyes. I told him to take his time. Breathe. Sight. Squeeze. And he did. He hit one. Maybe others too. And it still… it still wasn’t enough.”
“It was enough,” Jersey said. “That bullet he landed was one less gun pointed at you. Or me. Or Turnpike. Or Dante. That matters.”
“He died choking on his own blood,” I whispered. The images kept replaying. His hands on his throat. The way his eyes had widened when Jersey told him he’d done good. The way they’d gone empty after. “In a club that didn’t even know his name.”
“We knew it,” he said. “And we’ll make sure the wall knows it. Roman will know it. Liberty will know it. That’s more than most people get.”
My vision blurred entirely.
I realized then, distantly, that I was shaking.
Jersey moved then—not away, but closer. He shifted his grip, turned me gently, and guided me backward until my shoulders hit the cool tile of his bathroom wall.
Then he reached past me and turned the shower on.
Water roared to life, beating against the glass.
“What are you—” I started.
“Getting you clean before this shit starts growing roots,” he said quietly. “Come on.”
He stepped into the shower fully clothed, boots and jeans and shirt and all. Then he reached out a hand.
I stared at it for a heartbeat.
Then I took it.
The water was warm when it hit us. It soaked through denim and leather and cotton and washed over dried blood and sweat and the invisible film of the night. My hair clung to my face in wet ropes. His shirt went dark and heavy against his skin.
I sank down first, dragging him with me, until we were both sitting on the floor of the shower, his back against the tile, mine against him, water pouring over us in a steady sheet. His arms wrapped around me again, firmer this time, like he was bracing us both against something only he could see.
I shifted, half-turned, and let my head drop forward until my forehead rested against his collarbone.
The first sob ripped out before I could swallow it.
I hated crying. It felt like failure. Like letting someone see the wires under the armor. But there, with water drowning the sound out and his chest under my cheek, it came anyway. Ugly. Harsh. Years of held-tight grief and fear and anger hitching loose.
He didn’t say anything stupid like it’s okay. It wasn’t. He didn’t tell me to stop. He just held me. One big hand moved slowly up and down my spine, not in a soothing pattern, just something repetitive enough to remind me he was real. He was there. With me.
When the worst of it burned out, I was left hollowed. Tired down to the bone. My fingers had fisted in his shirt without me noticing, knuckles white.
He tilted his head, pressed his mouth lightly against my wet hair.
“We’re still here,” he murmured. “That’s all we can give them. That the ones who keep dying didn’t drag us down with them.”
I huffed a broken laugh.
“Dark pep talk,” I rasped.
“The only kind I know,” he said.
At some point, the water went from washing blood away to just soaking us for no reason. I pulled back finally, wiped at my face, and blinked water out of my eyes to look at him.
His hair was plastered to his skull. Drops ran down his jaw, caught in the curve of his throat. His eyes were softer than I’d ever seen them and more tired than I wanted to admit I recognized.
“Take this off,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow. “You giving orders again?”
“Your shirt,” I clarified, voice hoarse but steadier. “Can’t sleep in a soaked rag. You’ll catch some old wives’ tale sickness and I’ll have to tell Blackjack his Enforcer died of being an idiot.”
He snorted.
We stripped in the steam, movements slower now, more deliberate. Not frantic. Not desperate. Just two people peeling off layers that had gotten too heavy. I didn’t bother with modesty. There didn’t feel like much point after the way my heart had just tried to climb out of my chest in front of him.
We toweled off enough not to drown his sheets, then stumbled out to the bed.
He hesitated at the edge of the mattress, like he didn’t want to assume anything.
I answered for him.
I climbed onto the bed, laid down, and reached a hand back.
“Come here, Evan,” I said.
His eyes flicked to mine when I used his real name. Then he climbed in beside me.
We lay facing each other, inches apart. No armor. No clothes. Just bruises and scars and heat.
His hand found my waist. Mine found his chest, fingers resting over the steady thud of his heart. It grounded me more than any pep talk ever could have.
He leaned in first this time.
The kiss was different than the one in the doorway. More ache. Slow. Careful, like he was afraid I might shatter if he pressed too hard.
I kissed him back.
We didn’t talk about what it meant. About whether this was a mistake. About how stupid it was to let someone this close when the world was actively trying to kill us.
We just breathed each other’s air until the edges of the night blurred and sleep dragged at our bones.
When I finally closed my eyes, it wasn’t Raptor’s last breath I saw. It was Jersey’s face—Evan’s face—bare inches from mine, watching me like I was the only thing in the room that made sense.
At some point before dawn, still half-lost to exhaustion, we reached for each other again.
Touch turned to heat. Grief turned to something else for a little while. We fit together not like an escape, but like an answer. No fireworks. No slow-motion cinematic bullshit. Just two people clinging to the one soft thing the war hadn’t managed to burn out of them yet.
When morning came, the light was pale and unforgiving through the slats of the blinds.
I woke with my head on his shoulder and his arm around my waist, bodies tangled, sheets twisted. For a second, there was no sound but his breathing and the distant rumble of someone starting a bike too early.
Then the weight of everything crashed back in.
Raptor. Black Velvet. The smell of blood and spilled liquor.
I shifted. He stirred, blinked at the ceiling, then looked down at me.
“Morning,” he rasped.
“That what this is?” I muttered. “Feels more like we never actually left the night.”
He huffed a humorless laugh. His thumb dragged a small, slow line along my hip where his hand rested. It sent a shiver up my spine.
“You okay?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “You?”
“Same,” he replied. “But I’m… better than I would’ve been if I was alone.”
That landed somewhere deep. I tried to look away. His hand came up, fingers tipping my chin back gently.
“You’re allowed to have that,” he said. “A space that doesn’t hurt when you sit in it for five minutes.”
“You volunteering?” I asked, trying for flippant and landing somewhere closer to raw.
“Already did,” he said. “Last night. Probably before that if we’re being honest.”
I swallowed.
“Safe space,” I echoed. “In a Devil’s bed?”
“In our bed,” he corrected, soft. “At least until this is over.”
“Bold assumption,” I said. “Thinking we make it alive to ‘over.’”
“Then we use what we’ve got while we got it,” he replied.
I kissed him again because talking felt too complicated right now.
We didn’t get long.
A knock hit the door. Not frantic. Firm. Businesslike.
“Church in twenty,” 8-Ball’s voice came through the wood. “Blackjack wants everyone fresh and sitting upright. We’re hitting the Vincino’s back today.”
“Copy,” Jersey called back.
We untangled reluctantly and got dressed in the armor the world recognized—jeans, shirts, cuts. The only visible evidence left of the night was the rawness in our eyes. Clothes were damp. He leant me a shirt.
In the main room, the Devil’s Aces moved with a different kind of quiet. Not the uneasy one from yesterday. Something heavier. More focused. The kind you got when a name had been added to the wall in their heads even before it was put up physically.
Church filled in fast.
Same table. Same seats. Different weight.
Blackjack sat at the head, gavel in hand. 8-Ball on his right. The Enforcer chair—Evan’s chair—was next. The remaining Prospects, Turnpike, Jackal and Badger, lined the wall.
One spot at the table was still empty. Miami’s.