Chapter 28 #2
Dom keeps typing. “It is, if you’re literate.”
Blaze flips him off.
Dom doesn’t even glance up.
I almost smile.
Logan points at Shadow and Blaze next.
“You two.”
Shadow pushes off the wall first.
“Town watch,” he says. “We rotate eyes on likely approaches, gas stations, motels, county roads, and anything near the property that gives someone a clean line of sight.”
Blaze nods. “And we start listening harder. Bar chatter. Auto shops. Convenience stores. The kind of places where somebody asking one too many questions doesn’t realize they’re already being remembered.”
Exactly. That’s why I wanted them in here. Men like Cal might know how to work systems. But systems still run through people. And people always talk.
Cain speaks next. “I’ll tighten gate protocol. Nobody comes in without being seen and cleared. Women and kids stay accounted for, especially if they’re off property.”
That lands in my chest for a second because women and kids isn’t abstract anymore.
It’s her. It’s Lexi. It’s personal enough now that every operational sentence hits a little harder than it used to.
Logan turns to me last. “You?”
That one’s easy. “I’m the wall.”
Nobody laughs. Nobody should. Because I mean it.
I’m the one between Raven and whatever gets through all of this. That’s not ego. That’s math.
Logan holds my gaze for a second longer, then nods once. “Alright.”
And just like that, it starts.
Not the war. Not yet. The preparation for it.
The part where smart men decide what kind of monsters they’re willing to become in advance so they don’t have to improvise when it counts.
The rest of the day turns into motion. Useful motion. The kind that keeps my hands busy enough not to put them around a dead man’s throat in imagination every five minutes.
I walk the property twice. Then again. I check the gate camera angles and hate two of them immediately.
I adjust sightlines around the back tree line and make a mental note to clear more brush where somebody could sit too long without being noticed.
I clock every vehicle on the property, every bike, every truck, every car, every guest vehicle that shouldn’t be there and isn’t but still gets mentally cataloged anyway.
I map routes. Not casually. Obsessively.
How would I get in if I were him?
How would I sit and watch without being seen?
How would I make first contact?
Would I come alone or with legal backup?
Would I try to snatch?
Would I try to scare?
Would I weaponize the badge first or hide behind it later?
Every answer creates three more questions. Every question creates another plan.
I don’t realize how deep I’m in it until Shadow comes up beside me near the side lot sometime after lunch, cigarette hanging from his mouth while he watches me stare at the road like I’m trying to set it on fire with my mind.
“You’re spiraling operationally,” he says.
I don’t look at him. “I’m planning.”
“You’re one dry erase board away from becoming a serial killer with color-coded arrows.”
That almost gets a laugh out of me. Instead, I say, “If he comes here, I want him dead before he realizes he made a mistake.”
Shadow takes a drag and blows smoke out slowly. “Yeah,” he says after a second. “I figured.”
He doesn’t tell me to calm down. Doesn’t tell me I’m overreacting. Doesn’t tell me Logan’s got it handled.
That’s one of the reasons he’s blood in every way that matters.
He just stands there with me and watches the road for another minute before saying, quieter, “You good?”
That question should be stupid. It isn’t. Because no. I’m not good. I’m functioning.
That’s not the same thing.
I scrub a hand over my jaw and finally answer honestly. “She told me everything.”
Shadow nods once. “Yeah.”
“I knew it was bad.”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t know it was that bad.” That one hangs there.
He lets it. Then says, “You’re not mad she didn’t say it sooner.”
It’s not a question.
I shake my head immediately. “No.” That part’s easy. Too easy. “I’m mad she ever had to say it at all.”
Shadow glances at me sideways then, something unreadable moving behind his eyes before he looks back toward the road. “Yeah,” he says again, but this time it sounds different. Heavier.
He doesn’t ask me to unpack that.
Thank Christ.
Because I don’t want to. Not right now. Maybe not ever.
Because if I really sit still long enough to examine what it means that Raven trusted me with the ugliest parts of herself and I didn’t flinch, didn’t pity her, didn’t want less of her afterward but somehow more, I’m going to end up in feelings territory.
And feelings territory is where men like me get stupid.
So instead, I focus on the road.
On the plan.
On the hunt.
***
It’s late afternoon by the time I finally slow down enough to go back inside.
The clubhouse is louder now. Lived in.
The women are in and out of the kitchen. Music’s low in the background. Somebody’s laughing in the common room. A couple brothers are headed out on bikes, cuts on, boots heavy on the floorboards.
Normal life. It should feel ordinary.
Instead, it hits me sideways. Because while all of this has been happening, while I’ve been turning myself into a walking tactical map, Raven’s been here.
Living. Breathing. Letting Lexi laugh and color and be a little girl in a place that finally feels safe. And somehow, in the middle of all this shit, she trusted me enough to hand me the worst parts of her.
That thought lands hard enough to stop me halfway down the hall. It shouldn’t matter this much.
It does.
I stand there for a second, listening to the sound of Lexi’s laugh drifting faintly from the common room, and realize something ugly and honest all at once: I don’t think I’ll ever get over the fact that she chose me with that.
Not the sex. Not the flirting. Not even the way she crawled into my lap after talking to her father like some part of her body had already decided where safety lived.
No.
It’s this.
Trust.
Raw and bleeding and given anyway. That means more to me than I know what to do with. Which, unfortunately, means I owe her something in return.
Not because she asked.
Because she shouldn’t have to. Because she bared her scars. And if I’m going to ask her to keep building anything with me after this, then I don’t get to stand here and keep all my own locked behind my teeth like they don’t exist.
That realization sits mean and heavy in my gut for all of five seconds before I hate it.
Then I go looking for her anyway.
I find Raven outside on the back porch just before sunset.
Lexi’s inside with Amy, Casey, and Jason, apparently deep in some kind of sticker-based war that has turned the common room table into a glittering crime scene.
Raven’s got a mug in her hands and my sweatshirt on again, dark hair loose down her back, amber eyes fixed on the fading tree line like she’s thinking too hard.
She looks up when I step out. The second she sees me, something in her face shifts.
Softens. That look. That one. The one that keeps getting under my skin and setting up permanent residence.
“You okay?” she asks.
The question almost makes me laugh. Because no. But not in a way I can explain without sounding like I need to be tranquilized.
So I cross the porch, lean against the railing beside her, and say, “You got a minute?”
Her gaze sharpens immediately. That old tension flickers through her body before she catches it.
I hate that. Hate how quickly her nervous system still prepares for impact.
But she nods. “Yeah.”
I stare out at the trees for a second, hands braced on the railing, trying to figure out how the hell to start. There’s no clean version of this.
No easy segue into hey, now that you told me about the man who ruined your life, wanna hear about the dead people in mine?
So I go with blunt. “My family died in a car wreck.”
The silence beside me changes immediately. Not startled. Not awkward.
Just attentive.
I keep my eyes on the horizon because if I look at her while I say this, I might decide I hate vulnerability enough to stop halfway through. “My parents and my little sister,” I say. “I was the only one who lived.”
The words still feel weird in my mouth. Not because they aren’t true. Because they are. Because they’ve been true so long they’ve calcified into part of the architecture. Still, saying them out loud always feels like stepping on old broken glass barefoot.
Raven doesn’t interrupt.
So I keep going. “I was old enough to remember all of it. Young enough nobody knew what the hell to do with me after.” I let out a short breath through my nose.
“No close family that wanted me. No backup plan. Just a bunch of people with clipboards deciding where to put the kid who didn’t fit anywhere anymore. ”
That part still stings in a way I don’t usually let myself examine. Not the foster system itself. The feeling underneath it.
Disposable.
Temporary.
Easy to move around.
I glance down at the weathered porch boards and shake my head once. “I bounced around some before I landed in the group home. That’s where I met Shadow and Blaze.”
That gets her attention enough that I finally look at her. She’s watching me with that same stillness I gave her last night.
No pity. No softness that would make me feel like I’m being handled.
Just there.
I can work with there. “We were all fucked up in our own special ways,” I mutter. “Different reasons. Same damage.”
That almost gets the smallest smile out of her. Good, because this part’s ugly enough without drowning in it.
“Shadow was all sharp edges and bad instincts back then. Blaze ran his mouth like he’d die if he didn’t. I mostly just…” I shrug. “Hit things.”
Raven’s mouth twitches now. “Shocking.”
“Yeah, I know. Hard to picture.”
That gets me a real smile this time. Tiny. Still real. And Christ, I needed that more than I realized.
I look back out at the darkening yard and let the next part come on its own. “I didn’t really do grief,” I say. “Not the healthy version, anyway. I just got meaner. Harder. Learned pretty fast that if the world was gonna keep swinging, I’d better start hitting back.”