Chapter 13
The compound was quiet in the way only aftermath could be.
Mandy stood under the shower spray, watching rust-colored water swirl down the drain. Someone else's blood. Her blood. She couldn't tell anymore where one ended and the other began.
She'd killed today. Multiple times. Had pointed a weapon at human beings and pulled the trigger and watched them fall.
She should feel horrified. Guilty. Broken.
Instead, she felt alive. Terrifyingly, desperately alive.
The bathroom door opened. She didn't turn, didn't flinch. She knew the weight of those footsteps.
"Room for one more?"
Riot's voice was rough, exhausted. She glanced over her shoulder and found him stripping off blood-soaked clothes, adding them to the pile of her ruined things on the floor.
"Always."
He stepped into the shower behind her, and the first touch of his hands on her shoulders made her shudder. Not fear. Need. The same desperate, clawing need that had been building since the last bullet was fired.
"You're shaking," he murmured against her hair.
"I can't stop." Her voice cracked. "I keep seeing their faces. Keep feeling the gun kick in my hands. And the worst part is—"
"You don't regret it."
She turned in his arms, water streaming between them, and looked up into eyes that understood. "I should regret it. I should be falling apart."
"But you're not." His hands cupped her face, thumbs tracing her cheekbones. "Because they were trying to kill us. Kill you. And you refused to die."
"Is that what it feels like for you? Every time?"
"Every time." He leaned down, pressed his forehead to hers. "The violence isn't something I do. It's something I am. I spent years hating that, trying to fight it. And then I found the club, and I found you, and suddenly the violence had a purpose."
"Me."
"You." His mouth brushed hers—soft, barely there. "Everything I am, everything I'm capable of... it's all for you now. Every fight, every kill, every drop of blood on my hands. For you."
Something broke open in Mandy's chest. The last wall she'd been holding up, the final barrier between who she'd been and who she was becoming.
She kissed him.
This wasn't like before—not the desperate crash in the supply closet, not the deliberate intensity of their first night together. This was something rawer. More primal. The kiss of two people who had almost died and needed to prove they were still breathing.
She grabbed his shoulders and pulled him closer. He responded instantly, lifting her against the shower wall, her legs wrapping around his waist. The water pounded down on them, hot and relentless, and Mandy couldn't tell where the heat ended and her own fever began.
"Need you," she gasped against his mouth. "Need to feel you. Need to know this is real."
"It's real." He hitched her higher, grinding against her core. "I'm real. We're alive. That's all that matters."
"Then prove it."
He carried her out of the shower without bothering to dry off. They left wet footprints across the bathroom floor, water dripping onto the bed as he laid her down and covered her body with his.
This wasn't gentle. Wasn't careful. Riot's hands were rough on her skin, leaving marks that would bruise by morning. His mouth devoured hers like he was starving, like she was the only thing keeping him tethered to earth.
Mandy matched him touch for touch. Scraped her nails down his back hard enough to draw blood. Bit his shoulder when he ground against her. Demanded more with every gasp and moan, refusing to let him hold back even a fraction.
"Inside me." She wrapped her legs around him, arching up. "Now. I need—"
He was there before she finished the sentence. One thrust and he was buried deep, and Mandy cried out with the relief of it. Full. Complete. Anchored to something solid in a world that kept trying to spin apart.
"God, you feel—" His voice broke. "Every time. Every time it's like the first time."
She pulled him down for a kiss, swallowing his groan as he started to move. Hard. Fast. No finesse, no technique, just raw need driving them both toward something they couldn't name.
The violence that always scared her made sense now. She understood it in her bones, in the primal part of her brain that had taken over when those men came for them. It wasn't cruelty. It wasn't savagery. It was protection. Purpose. Love translated into the only language some threats understood.
Riot had killed for her. Bled for her. Put himself between her and death without hesitation or regret.
And she had done the same for him.
"Yours," she whispered against his throat. "I'm yours. All of me. Everything."
"Mine." The word tore out of him like a vow. "My woman. My heart. My goddamn reason for breathing."
He drove into her harder, and she met every thrust. The bed creaked beneath them. The headboard slammed against the wall. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew the whole compound could probably hear them, and she didn't care. Let them hear. Let everyone know.
She belonged to him. He belonged to her. After today, nothing could ever change that.
The orgasm hit without warning—crashing through her like a wave, pulling her under, drowning her in sensation. She screamed his name, real name, the one she only used in moments like this.
"Chase. God, Chase—"
He followed her over the edge, burying his face in her neck, his whole body shuddering with release. She held him through it, felt him come apart in her arms, and something in her soul settled into place.
This. This was what surviving felt like.
Afterward, they lay tangled in damp sheets, hearts still racing, skin cooling in the quiet.
Mandy traced the lines of ink on Riot's chest—the Sons of Liberty patch he'd have permanently someday, other designs she'd learned by heart over the past weeks. Her finger found a fresh bruise on his ribs, and she pressed a gentle kiss to it.
"Does it hurt?"
"Nothing hurts right now." His voice was sleepy, satisfied. "Pretty sure I'm running on pure adrenaline and endorphins."
"We should probably eat something. Drink water. Act like responsible adults."
"Probably." He didn't move. "Don't want to."
"Me neither." She settled her head on his chest, listening to the steady thump of his heart. "I keep thinking about this morning. About what could have happened."
"Don't."
"I can't help it." She propped herself up on her elbow, looking down at him. "If they'd gotten to you before I woke up. If one of those bullets had been a few inches to the left. If—"
"Hey." He reached up and tucked a strand of damp hair behind her ear. "I'm here. You're here. We made it."
"This time."
"Every time." His eyes were fierce in the dim light. "I told you before—nothing takes you from me. Not Trevor, not his crew, not anything. I will burn this city to the ground before I let anyone hurt you."
"And I'll be right beside you with the matches." The words came out steady. Sure. "I'm not the woman I was when you met me, Riot. I can't go back to being scared and helpless and waiting for someone else to save me."
"You were never helpless." His hand came up to cup her face. "You built a life from nothing. Survived things that would have broken most people. Figured out a criminal operation that had fooled everyone for years." His thumb traced her lower lip. "All I did was give you permission to fight back."
"You gave me more than that." She leaned into his touch. "You gave me something worth fighting for."
His breath caught. For a moment, he just looked at her—really looked, like he was seeing something new.
"Same," he said roughly. "You know that, right? Before you, the fighting was just... noise. Something to fill the silence. You made it mean something."
Mandy lowered herself back down, pressing her body against his from shoulder to ankle. Close as two people could get. She could feel his heartbeat syncing with hers, their breathing falling into rhythm.
"What happens now?" she asked.
"Now we rest. Heal. Let the brothers regroup." His arm tightened around her. "And then we hunt. Trevor's lost his muscle and his brain. All he's got left is his cleaner and whatever desperate moves he can think of."
"Vic Stanhope."
"You remember the name."
"Hard to forget." Mandy thought about the man who made witnesses disappear, who'd been planning to come for her eventually. "He's the one who would have killed me. If Kyle hadn't found us first."
"He won't get the chance." Riot's voice went cold. "When we find him, I'm going to make sure he knows exactly why he's dying. And then I'm going to make it slow."
She should have been horrified. Should have flinched at the casual promise of violence.
Instead, she felt something warm settle in her chest. Safety. Protection. The absolute certainty that this man would destroy anything that threatened her.
"I love you."
The words escaped before she could stop them. Hung in the air between them, terrifying and true.
Riot went still beneath her.
Then his arms crushed her against him, and his mouth found hers in a kiss that said everything words couldn't.
"I love you too." His voice was rough when they broke apart. "Been loving you since you smiled at me through your terror and offered me coffee. Been falling harder every day since."
"Even when I'm covered in other people's blood?"
"Especially then." His laugh was low, warm. "Watching you fight today... I've never seen anything more beautiful in my life."
Mandy felt tears prick her eyes. Not sadness—something bigger, more overwhelming. The feeling of being seen. Being known. Being loved not despite the darkness but because of it.
"We're both messed up," she whispered.
"Completely."
"This shouldn't work."
"Probably not." He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "But it does. And I'm done questioning it."
She let her eyes close, exhaustion finally winning out over adrenaline. His heartbeat was steady beneath her ear. His arms were solid around her. And for the first time since this nightmare began, she felt truly safe.
Not because the danger was over. It wasn't.
But because whatever came next, she wouldn't face it alone.
They breathed together in the darkness, two survivors clinging to each other in the aftermath of war. The bond between them had been forged in fire and blood and desperate need.
Nothing would break it now.