Chapter 6 — Sienna
The afternoon stretches long and tense after Diesel goes back inside.
I stay in the yard for a while, watching brothers move through their preparations, feeling the weight of what's coming settle over the clubhouse like a physical thing. The raid is tonight at twenty-two hundred.
In less than six hours, Diesel and five other brothers will drive to a warehouse and hurt people, maybe kill them, and the violence feels inevitable in a way that should scare me but doesn't.
I want Dutch hurt for what he did to Ray.
I want my father to understand that touching people in Vigil's orbit has consequences.
And I want Diesel to come back from this intact, which is the thought that actually scares me because it means I care about him in ways that go beyond strategic alliance or survival necessity.
I head inside around sixteen hundred and the common room is active but controlled.
Tate and Holt are at the main table going over maps one more time.
Cain's on his laptop, probably tracking communications or camera feeds or whatever intelligence he's been gathering.
Knox is cleaning weapons at the far end of the room, methodical and precise.
Everyone moving with purpose. Everyone preparing for violence.
I go upstairs to my room and close the door and sit on the edge of the bed with my hands pressed together, trying to slow my breathing, trying to calm the anxiety that's been building since this morning when Diesel told me Ray's face is destroyed.
This is my fault.
I know Diesel said it isn't, said it's on Dutch and on Crane and on him for making the arrangement public.
But Ray wouldn't be in that hospital if I hadn't walked through Vigil's gate. My father wouldn't have seen those photos if I hadn't agreed to the fake dating. Dutch wouldn't have been sent with a message if there was no message to send.
The logical chain runs straight from my decision to leave to Ray in ICU, and I can trace every link.
I stand and move to the window.
The sun is lower now, still brutal but angling toward evening. I can see brothers in the yard, more of them now, gathering even though only six are going on the raid. Support. Presence. The way the club shows up for itself when something matters.
A knock on my door pulls me from the window.
I open it and find Diesel standing there in the same jeans and black shirt from this afternoon, but something about him is different.
Tighter. More controlled. Like he's compressed all the rage and guilt and worry into a space small enough to carry and now he's just holding it, waiting for twenty-two hundred when he can finally release it.
"Can I come in?" he asks.
"Yes."
He steps inside and I close the door behind him and suddenly the room feels smaller, the air thinner. He moves to the window and stands looking out at the yard, hands in his pockets, shoulders tense under the black fabric.
"You okay?" I ask.
"No."
The honesty surprises me. I expected him to say he's fine, to deflect or perform the control he's been maintaining all day.
"What do you need?" I ask.
He's quiet for a long moment and I watch his back, watch the way he's holding himself like he's about to break and is using pure will to hold the pieces together.
"I don't know," he says finally. "I need Ray not to be in the hospital. I need Dutch already handled so I can stop thinking about what I'm going to do to him. I need to stop feeling like every decision I make gets people hurt."
I move closer until I'm standing beside him at the window. "Ray's alive. The doctor said he'll survive. And tonight you're going to make sure Dutch pays for what he did. That's not nothing."
"It's not enough."
"It's what you can do. That has to be enough."
He turns to look at me and I can see the strain in his face, can see how much the control is costing him.
"I told you this morning that wanting you and wanting to believe you are getting tangled up," he says. "And I meant it. I don't know if I'm making good decisions about you or if I'm compromising everything because I want you badly enough that logic doesn't matter anymore."
"Does it have to be one or the other? Can't you trust me because I've earned it and want me because you do?"
"I don't know. I've never wanted someone like this before. I don't have a framework for it."
I reach up and put my hand on his chest, palm flat over his heart the way I did in the yard this morning, and I can feel it racing under my palm.
"I don't have a framework for any of this either," I say quietly.
"I've spent my whole life being strategic about everything.
Every relationship I've ever had was calculated.
Every decision was made three moves ahead.
And then I met you and you asked me what I think instead of what I know, and that broke something open in me that I can't close back up.
So no, I don't know if you're making good decisions about me.
But I know I'm here and I'm not lying and I want you in ways I've never wanted anyone. "
His hand comes up and covers mine on his chest, holding it there.
"If we do this," he says, and his voice is rough, strained, "if we cross this line, I need to know it's real. I need to know you're not just scared or grateful or trying to secure your position here. I need to know you want this because you want me, not because it's strategic."
"It's not strategic. I stopped being strategic about you the moment you kissed me last night."
"You sure?"
"Yes."
His other hand comes up to my face, palm against my cheek, thumb brushing my jaw, and I lean into the touch because I've been wanting him to touch me again since last night, wanting his hands on me, wanting to feel wanted the way I felt wanted when he kissed me.
"This doesn't change what's happening tonight," he says. "I'm still going after Dutch. I'm still going to do things that are violent and permanent. And if something goes wrong—"
"Don't," I interrupt. "Don't say that. You're coming back."
"You don't know that."
"Yes I do. You're coming back because you're good at what you do and you have backup and you're not going to do anything stupid enough to get yourself killed. You're coming back."
He studies my face like he's trying to decide if I actually believe that or if I'm just saying it.
"I want you," I say, because I need him to know this before he leaves, before he goes to that warehouse and risks everything.
"Not strategically. Not because I'm scared or grateful.
I want you because you see me as something other than Victor Crane's daughter.
Because you asked what I think. Because you make me feel like I'm allowed to want things for myself instead of just surviving.
Because when you kiss me I forget to calculate and that's the first time I've forgotten in my entire life. "
His control shatters.
I see it happen. See the exact moment he stops holding himself back. See the tension in his jaw release and something darker and hungrier take its place.
His mouth crashes into mine.
Not testing or tentative. Just raw need translated into teeth and tongue and his hand fisting in my hair hard enough to sting.
I open for him immediately, tasting the desperation in the way he kisses me, the way his other hand grips my hip like he needs to hold on to something solid or he'll come apart.
I kiss him back just as hard. Matching his intensity. Meeting his need with my own. My hands find his shoulders and I grip tight, nails digging in through fabric, and he makes a sound low in his throat that's almost a growl.
He walks me backward and my shoulders hit the wall and the impact jolts through me but I don't care.
His body presses against mine, pinning me there, and I can feel everything. The hard planes of his chest against my breasts.
The solid muscle of his thighs. The thick ridge of him pressing insistent against my hip through too many layers of denim.
He wants me. I can feel exactly how much he wants me.
And knowing I did that to him, knowing I made this controlled man lose control, sends liquid heat pooling low in my belly.
His mouth leaves mine and trails rough kisses down my jaw to my throat.
His teeth scrape and then bite, not hard enough to break skin but hard enough that I gasp and arch into him.
He does it again, lower, and I tilt my head back to give him access, fingers sliding into his hair and holding him there.
His hands are everywhere. Sliding under my shirt, rough palms dragging up my sides, thumbs brushing the underside of my breasts through my bra.
I'm burning up. My skin feels too tight. I need less fabric between us. Need his hands on my bare skin.
I pull at his shirt and he breaks away just long enough to yank it over his head and throw it somewhere behind him.
Then his hands are on my shirt doing the same, pulling it up and off, and I'm standing there in my bra and jeans and the way he looks at me makes me feel like I'm burning.
His eyes track down slowly. Deliberately. Taking in every curve. The swell of my breasts straining against black lace. The soft roundness of my stomach. The width of my hips.
"Fuck," he says, and his voice has gone rough and raw. "Look at you."
His hands come up and cup my breasts, squeezing, testing their weight, and I'm very aware of how full they are in his palms, how substantial, how real.
He's not tentative about it. Not gentle. He touches me like he has every right to. Like my body is his to explore and claim.
His thumbs brush over my nipples through the lace and the friction makes me bite my lip to keep from making a sound.
He sees it. Sees me trying to stay quiet. And something dark flashes in his eyes.
"Don't," he says. "Don't hold back. I want to hear you."
Then he does it again, harder this time, and when I gasp he makes a satisfied sound and leans in to bite my shoulder, my collarbone, anywhere he can reach.
I'm shaking. I'm actually shaking with how badly I want this, want him, want his hands and mouth on every inch of me.