Chapter 25 #2
He turns, catching me staring, and his mouth curves instantly, those dimples appearing like they were waiting for the moment, like they belong to me as much as they do to him.
He runs a hand through his unruly hair, his tongue flicking against the metal of his lip ring before he reaches for a cap, flipping it backwards and settling it low over his head, taming the dark chaos just enough.
His green eyes flash as they lock onto mine.
“See something you like, baby?” he murmurs, his voice dipping, turning warm, teasing, like he’s deliberately shifting the air between us, pulling me out of my head and back into him.
He takes a slow step toward me, then another, closing the distance with unhurried confidence, his presence filling the space until it’s all I can feel.
“Because I have to tell you…” he continues, lowering his voice further, “you can have it whenever, however you like.”
The words settle into me, and for a moment, just a moment, the noise in my head quiets, the fear dulling at the edges as something warmer takes its place.
I smile at him as I slip my hands into the waistband at the back of his sweatpants, tugging him closer, rising onto my tiptoes as I seal my lips to his, grounding myself in the familiarity of him, in the quiet reassurance he always seems to offer without needing words.
“Thank you,” I whisper against his mouth, the words soft, almost fragile, but carrying everything I can’t quite say out loud.
Something in his eyes tells me he understands exactly what I’m thanking him for, and that understanding settles deep, wrapping around the cracks inside me.
He steps back, a wicked grin tugging at his lips before his palm comes down in a sharp slap against my backside, the sudden sting pulling a startled breath from me.
“Put some clothes on, Mrs. Baker,” he says lightly, amusement threading through his tone. “I’ll put the coffee on.”
He winks, then turns and strolls out of the room, completely unapologetic in his half-dressed state, leaving behind a trail of confidence that lingers long after he’s gone.
I shake my head, a small, disbelieving smile pulling at my lips as I cross the closet, reaching for a long black maxi dress and slipping it on, letting the soft fabric fall over my skin like armor I’m not entirely sure will hold.
A few minutes later, teeth brushed and the basics taken care of, I pause for a moment, drawing in a steadying breath before stepping out, lifting my chin as I force my shoulders back.
Every gaze in the room shifts to me the moment I step into the living area, the attention so immediate and unified that it feels almost tangible, as though I’ve crossed an invisible threshold into something already unfolding, something heavy with intent.
I hadn’t expected this many people.
The suite is expansive, all clean lines and quiet luxury, but it’s the table at its center that dominates the space—a long slab of dark, polished wood that could seat twelve comfortably, its surface gleaming beneath the soft wash of morning light spilling in through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
It isn’t a table meant for casual conversation; it’s built for decisions, for control, for power.
“Good morning.”
My attention shifts to Niko, who stands near the glass as though the city beyond it belongs to him rather than the other way around.
He is impeccably dressed in a tailored charcoal suit that fits him with precise intention, a crisp white shirt beneath with the top button undone just enough to suggest ease without ever compromising control.
His blonde hair is slicked neatly back, sharp blue eyes observant and calculating, while heavy gold rings catch the light as he lifts his coffee.
When he speaks, his Russian accent wraps around the words in a way that feels both smooth and dangerous, lending even a simple greeting an edge of authority.
“Good morning, Niko,” I reply, my voice steady as I move further into the room, instinctively drawn to Trey.
He is leaning back against the edge of the table, his posture deceptively relaxed, because I know him well enough to see the tension threaded through the lines of his body, the awareness in the way his gaze finds me the second I enter.
He straightens slightly as I approach, handing me a coffee without a word before sliding his arm around my waist.
I offer a small smile to Mac, Logan, and Sam, who are spread across the large sectional sofa, each of them nursing coffees.
Near the door, Chace stands with two of Niko’s men, speaking in rapid Russian, the language flowing from him with a fluency I have never heard before, and it catches me off guard enough that I find myself watching him, studying the ease of it, the way something in him shifts—sharpens.
I know who he is. Or who he was… Chace. But he’s something more now. His face set too serious, too still.
I watched him in that basement… the one where my nightmare lives. There’s something in him… a force, something dangerous, coiled tight beneath the surface.
I don’t know how to feel around him. Not scared… not exactly. But on edge. Like my body knows to be careful when he is like this.
His real name is Valentino.
I know what he comes from.
But hearing it like this makes something settle into place with a clarity that is impossible to ignore, because there is no hesitation in him, no searching for words, only instinct.
Suddenly, the unspoken understanding between him and Trey—the way they communicate with nothing more than a glance—feels deeper than I ever realized. Has Trey always known this side of him? Or does he trust him so deeply it doesn’t change anything at all? Maybe it’s the same for all of them.
I glance around. No one looks surprised. No one looks afraid.
Chace glances over his shoulder mid-sentence, his gaze landing on me where I stand beside Trey, and without breaking stride, he lifts a hand, cutting off the conversation with a quiet authority that does not need to be enforced.
He crosses the room in measured, purposeful steps, stopping in front of me as he leans down to press a respectful kiss to my cheek.
“Good morning, Seraphina.” Stunned for a moment, I shake my head and smile softly.
“Good morning.”
Then, just as quickly, he shifts.
The room shifts with him.
“Everyone,” Chace says, already moving toward the large TV mounted along the wall, his tone clean and commanding as it cuts through the space, “we have a problem.”
The screen flickers to life.
My breath catches so sharply it burns.
Gideon fills the screen, dressed in ceremonial robes of deep, oppressive black, the fabric heavy and ornate with subtle gold embroidery that glints under the controlled lighting around him.
His hair is slicked back to perfection, his expression calm in a way that feels deliberate, constructed, his composure so precise it borders on unnatural.
Controlled.
Always controlled.
To anyone else, he might look composed, authoritative, even holy.
To me, he looks insidious.
Like something rotting beneath something sacred.
“My beloved,” he begins, his voice smooth and measured, carrying that familiar cadence that once wrapped itself around my thoughts like scripture, “it is with a heavy heart that I come before you today, burdened by a truth I can no longer shield you from.”
My fingers tighten around the cup in my hands.
I feel Trey’s arm tense around my waist.
“Seraphina,” Gideon continues, my name spoken like something both revered and condemned, “a vessel once chosen, once pure, has fallen.”
The words slice through me with surgical precision.
The screen shifts.
Images flood in—me and Trey, moments stolen and stripped of context, of truth—his hands on me, my head tipped back in something that is unmistakable.
“A corruption,” Gideon says softly, almost sorrowfully, “does not always arrive as something monstrous. It comes as temptation, as desire, as something that feels like salvation when in truth it is ruin.”
Another image.
Trey’s hand at my throat.
My body arching into his.
My stomach twists.
“Trey Baker,” Gideon continues, his voice never rising, never breaking, “is not a savior. He is not a protector. He is a destroyer—a man who takes what is sacred and reshapes it into something unrecognizable, something unclean.”
The air in the room tightens.
I feel Trey go completely still beside me.
“He has taken what was promised to God,” Gideon says, “and claimed it for himself.”
The words settle like poison in my chest.
“This,” he gestures lightly as more images flash, invasive and violating in their exposure, “is not love. This is war. Spiritual warfare waged upon a soul too blind to see its own fall.”
My breath thins.
My heart stutters.
“And yet,” Gideon adds, his lips curving almost imperceptibly, “all is not lost. The lost may still return. The broken may still be made whole.”
His gaze sharpens, cutting straight through the screen, straight through me.
“Come home, Seraphina.”
The video cuts.
Silence crashes down over the room, heavy and suffocating.
It takes a moment for me to realize my hands are trembling, that my pulse is racing as though I have just escaped something I am not sure I can outrun.
I don’t look at Trey.
I can’t.
But I feel him.
Perfectly still.
Dangerously quiet.
The tension rolling off him saturates the air.
No one speaks.
Not Mac, not Logan, not Sam.
Even Niko is silent, his usual composure edged with something sharper, something unsettled.
Chace exhales slowly, already stepping forward, already moving into strategy as if motion alone can cut through the weight of what we have just seen.
“It’s everywhere,” he says, gesturing toward the screen. “Religious forums, mainstream media, fan accounts. Everyone’s picked it up. I’ve already started—”
“Find him.”
Trey’s voice slices through the room.
Lethal.
Chace stills.
Everyone does.
When I finally force myself to look at Trey, the expression on his face steals the breath from my lungs.
Because there is no hesitation in him.
No doubt.
Only one thing.
War.
Trey starts pacing.
It isn’t frantic, not on the surface, not in the way anyone else might unravel under pressure, but there is something coiled and volatile in the way he moves, in the measured stride that eats up the space between one end of the room and the other, his hands flexing at his sides like he is already imagining them around someone’s throat.
Find him.
The words echo, reverberating through me until they become something else entirely.
Find him.
My chest tightens.
No—no, no, no.
A cold, suffocating dread floods my veins so quickly it feels like I’ve been plunged beneath ice, like I am back there, back in that basement, back on my knees with blood coating my hands, his blood, Trey’s blood, soaking into everything, staining everything, and I can’t—I can’t do that again.
I can’t watch him die again.
The room starts to shift.
At first, it’s subtle, just a slight distortion at the edges of my vision, like the world is tilting on an axis I can’t quite correct, but then the noise begins to stretch and warp, voices overlapping, blurring together until I can’t separate one from the other.
Chace is speaking.
Mac says something sharp.
Logan swears.
Niko’s voice cuts in, low and controlled.
But it all sounds far away.
Like I’m underwater.
My grip on the coffee cup loosens, my fingers suddenly numb, and I focus on that, on something small, something manageable, because I cannot fall apart right now, not here, not in front of all of them, not when everything already feels like it’s teetering on the edge of something catastrophic.
Breathe.
I try.
God, I try.
But my lungs won’t cooperate, each inhale shallow and incomplete, like my body has forgotten how to do something so basic, something so necessary.
My heart is racing too fast.
Too loud.
A violent, relentless rhythm that drowns everything else out.
Trey is still pacing.
Still moving.
Still thinking about going after Gideon.
And all I can see—all I can feel—is the echo of him lying on that floor, unmoving, lifeless, his blood on my hands as I begged him not to leave me.
I sway slightly, my balance slipping just enough to send a sharp spike of alarm through me, and I straighten instinctively, forcing my spine rigid, forcing my body to hold.
Not here.
Not now.
Don’t make this worse.
I press my nails into my palm, grounding myself in the sting, in something real, something present, but it isn’t enough.
Nothing is enough.
The room narrows further, the edges of my vision darkening until it feels like I’m looking through a tunnel, like everything is closing in, collapsing inward, and I can’t…
I can’t.
My stomach drops.
My knees weaken.
I try to lock them, to hold myself upright, to stay standing, because if I fall apart now, if I become another problem, another distraction, then I am only adding to the chaos already building around us.
But my body betrays me.
The cup slips from my fingers.
It hits the floor.
The sound is distant.
Muted.
My vision flickers.
Sam’s eyes meet mine.
He sees it.
He sees me.
He’s already moving, already launching himself out of his seat, my name somewhere on the edge of my hearing as everything finally gives way.
The last thing I feel is the floor rushing up to meet me.
The last thing I see is him reaching for me.
Then…
Nothing.