8. Gideon
GIDEON
The dust in the yard tastes like iron and diesel.
It’s high noon, and the sun beats down on the compound, turning the gravel into a griddle.
I don’t need to train her. The woman picked off cartel scouts in a damn hurricane and carved a path through the garage with nothing but a shim.
But I keep dragging her out here anyway.
I tell Dante it’s protocol. I tell myself I’m looking for the fracture in her armor. The truth is much uglier—I’m a man hooked on the way the air thrums when she’s within arm’s reach. She’s a live wire, and I’m a masochist looking for a shock.
"Feet wider, Cruz," I growl, circling her like a shark. "You’re off-balance. I sweep that leg, and you’re eating rocks, not to mention your own teeth."
The brothers are lined up on the garage benches, pretending to clean grease from their chrome, but their eyes are glued to us.
They’ve seen me break men twice her size in three minutes.
They haven't seen anyone look at me the way she does—like I’m a minor inconvenience she hasn’t decided how to dispose of yet.
She doesn’t say a word. She just shifts her weight, her black hair tied back in a knot so tight it looks painful.
I lunge. It’s not a drill speed; it’s a heavy, oppressive press of weight intended to smother her.
I grab her shoulder, my scarred hand dwarfing her frame, and try to drive her into the dirt.
Savannah doesn't panic. She drops her center of gravity, her body turning into liquid.
She rolls over my arm, the friction of her skin against mine sending a jolt straight to my gut.
She pops up five feet away, chest heaving, those eyes burning with a cold, predatory light.
"Again," she says.
Fuck me.
I don't hold back. I throw a heavy hook she has to dip under, then I’m on her, pinning her against the chain-link fence.
The metal groans. I’ve got my forearm pressed against her collarbone, right over that silver scar, trapping her.
Most people would choke. Most people would start clawing at my eyes.
Savannah just stares. There’s no fear in her. No plea. Her pulse thumps against my arm—steady, rhythmic, defiant. She’s small, but she feels like a mountain.
"Yield," I huff, my face inches from hers. I can smell the salt of her sweat and the faint, woodsy scent of the birds she carves.
She spits a mouthful of blood into the dirt and smiles. It’s a jagged, terrifying thing.
"Make me, Judge."
She drives a knee into my thigh, finding the nerve with surgical precision. My leg buckles. Before I can reset, she’s slipped under my arm, leaving me standing there with nothing but a handful of heat and the realization that I’m losing a war I started just to feel her fight back.
The sun bleeds into my neck, turning the gravel into a blurred haze. Sweat stings my eyes, but I don’t dare blink. Savannah hasn't moved for thirty seconds. She's a statue in tactical black, her hand hovering inches from the rubber knife tucked into her belt.
"You’re playing tag, Cruz," I spit, pacing a tight circle. "This isn't a dance. If I’m a cartel hitman, I don’t wait for you to find your center. I gut you while you're still thinking about it."
From the shade of the porch, I hear a soft, rhythmic clicking. Malachi is leaning against a pillar, flipping a silver coin over his knuckles. He’s got that smug, cat-like grin painted on his face.
"Careful, Gideon," Malachi calls out, his voice smooth as silk and twice as dangerous. "You look half-feral. Any more drool and I’ll have to get you a muzzle."
I ignore him, though my jaw aches from grinding my teeth.
I can feel Dante’s weight too—the President is a shadow in the doorway of the clubhouse, arms crossed, his gaze heavy and calculating.
He isn't watching the technique. He’s watching me.
He’s watching the way I lunge a fraction too fast, driven by a desperate, frantic need to get my hands back on her.
Savannah’s pupils are blown wide, eclipsing the amber. She isn't looking at my face; she's looking at the hollow of my throat. Her breathing has thinned out, a shallow, jagged rhythm that tells me she’s right on the cliff.
"You're holding back," I growl, closing the gap until I’m towering over her. "You’re scared to actually hurt me. You think I’m fragile?"
"I think you’re loud," she says, her voice flat, deadly calm. "You need the noise. You need the violence to feel like you’re more than a foot soldier. I don't need to break your bones to know who I am."
The words hit like a physical blow. The air in the yard curdles. The brothers on the benches go dead silent, the sound of ratchets and laughter cutting off mid-beat.
I roar, a raw, ugly sound, and launch myself at her.
We collide like two cars meeting head-on.
No grace. No technique. I slam her into the ground, the air rushing out of her lungs in a sharp hiss, but she doesn't go down easy.
She wraps a leg around my waist and twists, using my own momentum to roll us.
We tumble across the dirt, a violent blur of limbs and dust. I catch an elbow to the temple that makes my vision pop white, and I respond by driving my shoulder into her gut, pinning her into the packed earth with a force that makes the fence rattle.
"Is that enough noise for you?" I snarl into her ear, my chest heaving against hers.
She doesn't answer with words. She rakes her nails across the "FEAR" on my knuckles and lunges for my throat.
I overreach. I lunge for her throat, my fingers grazing the sweat on her skin, but Savannah isn't there anymore. She’s a ghost in the dust. She drops low, hooking her heel behind my ankle and twisting her hips with a violent, snapping grace.
The world tilts. Gravity betrays me. I hit the dirt with a bone-jarring thud that rattles my molars, the air fleeing my lungs in one pathetic wheeze.
Before I can blink the grit from my eyes, she’s on me.
She straddles my chest, her knees locking into my ribs like a vice.
It’s a weight I should be able to throw off, but the precision of her balance pins me.
In one terrifyingly fluid blur, she draws the rubber training knife.
The blunt edge bites into the soft skin beneath my jaw, forcing my head back into the gravel.
The yard goes tomb-quiet. I can hear the clicking of Malachi’s coin stop. I can hear the wind whistling through the spokes of a nearby bike. But mostly, I hear her.
Savannah is trembling, her chest heaving in or out of sync with mine.
Her black hair has come loose, whipping across her face in jagged ink-strokes.
Her eyes aren't just sharp anymore—they’re burning, bright and ruinous.
Our bodies are fused together by sweat and dirt, a frantic, electric heat radiating through my leather vest.
I don't move. I don't try to flip her. I just lie there, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird, and I grin. It’s a raw, jagged expression. I’ve spent my life looking for a wall I couldn't break down, and I finally found it. The roar in my blood is deafening.
"You’re sick," she whispers, her voice shaking with a sudden, sharp edge of disgust.
She pulls the knife back a fraction, her eyes scanning my face, looking for the anger she expected. She doesn't find it. She finds a man who’s never felt more alive.
"You enjoy this," she spits, her grip tightening on the hilt. "Men like you… you don't care about the cause. You just want the blood. You'll lose yourself in it until there’s nothing left but a shell."
I stare up at her, watching a bead of sweat roll down her forehead and disappear into her collarbone. My voice comes out a low, gravelly rasp.
"You keep talking like you hate the monster in you, Savage," I say, the words vibrating against the blade at my throat. "But every time we fight, you come alive too. You’re not just surviving anymore. You're breathing."
The world shrinks to the space between her knees and my ribs.
The air is thick, choked with the smell of kicked-up silt and the electric hum of a fuse burning down.
Savannah’s blade stays pressed into my throat, but the pressure changes.
It isn't a threat anymore; it’s a connection.
Her eyes are wide, searching mine, and for a heartbeat, the predatory stillness in her shatters.
I see the fracture. She sees the hunger I’ve stopped trying to hide.
Her knuckles are white around the hilt, and I find my hands moving without permission, my fingers brushing the heavy denim of her thighs.
The heat coming off her is a physical weight, a fever I want to drown in.
We’re two live wires tangled in the mud, waiting for the spark to turn into an inferno.
The violence has bled out, replaced by a suffocating, jagged intimacy that makes my lungs seize more than the dirt ever could.
Then, she blinks.
The mask slams back into place, but it’s cracked.
Savannah recoils as if I’ve shoved her, scrambling off my chest with a frantic, uncoordinated motion I’ve never seen from her.
She stumbles back, the rubber knife clattering to the gravel.
Her chest heaves, her breaths coming in sharp, uneven hitches that sound more like sobbing than exhaustion.
She doesn't look toward me. She doesn't look at Dante or Malachi. She turns and storms toward the edge of the compound, her movements jerky and desperate. She isn't walking; she’s fleeing.
"Gideon," Dante’s voice rolls across the yard, low and warning, but I don't move.
I stay flat on my back, the heat of her departing body leaving a cold void on my chest. I stare up at the vast, uncaring blue of the summer sky. My ribs ache where she pinned me, the bruises already blooming in deep, dark purples under my skin. My throat stings. My blood is a riot.
I should get up. I should mock the brothers watching from the sidelines or go find a heavy bag to destroy.
Instead, I just lie there in the dirt, tasting iron and salt.
I can still feel the ghost of her weight.
I’ve spent my life looking for a fight I couldn't win, and I finally found it. But it isn't the kill I’m craving anymore. It’s the way she looks when she’s trying to break me—and the terrifying truth that I’d let her.