Chapter 8
VALENTINA
The dream starts the same way. It always does.
Rain.
Cold, relentless, industrial rain soaking through my silk dress, pasting the fabric to my skin like a second layer of guilt.
The alley is a maze of slick cobblestones and deeper shadows that seem to breathe, to watch.
The air tastes of garbage, ozone, and impending violence—metallic and sharp on my tongue.
The distant bass of the club thumps against the walls like a heartbeat that doesn't belong to me, that can't save me, that's too far away to matter.
Marcus backs me against the brick. The rough stone scrapes my spine, each individual point of contact a sharp bite of pain that grounds me in this nightmare.
His hand is on my throat. Not squeezing yet.
Just resting there. A heavy, hot brand of ownership that makes my skin crawl, that promises worse things coming.
"Come on, baby," he purrs, and his breath is whiskey and rot, so close I can taste it. "Don't make this harder than it needs to be."
I try to shove past him, hands flat against his chest, pushing with everything I have. But he is a wall of granite. Immovable. His other hand snaps up, pins my wrist above my head with bruising force. I am trapped. I am small. I am nothing.
"I’ve seen you around the Cartel," he sneers, and his voice drips with something dark and hungry. "You’re such a fucking tease.”
"Let me go." My voice is underwater. Distant. Weak. Not my voice at all but the voice of someone drowning.
He laughs. It echoes, bouncing off the wet walls, multiplying, becoming a chorus of mockery that fills the alley until there's no room for air. "I don't think so. You think being Cast’s bitch sister makes you untouchable."
His hand slides down from my throat. Lower. Violating. Assuming. Taking liberties he has no right to.
I can't breathe. The world narrows to a pinprick of terror—his hand, his weight, his breath, the rough brick cutting into my back.
Everything else falls away. The rain. The music.
The world. It's just this moment of violation, this moment where I know with absolute certainty that if I don't do something, I won't survive this night.
Then—the pipe. My fingers find it without thought, scraping across rough brick until metal meets skin. Rusted iron abandoned against the wall, leftover debris from some long-forgotten construction project.
I grab it. The cold bites into my palm, shock of temperature cutting through the fear-fog. It's heavy—substantial in a way that grounds me, makes this real when nothing else about this moment feels real. My hand closes tight around the makeshift weapon, knuckles going white.
I don't think. Can't think. There's only instinct, only survival, only the desperate animal need to make it stop.
I swing.
The sound. God, the sound. Wet. Crunching. Final. Like a melon dropped from a height, like bone giving way under metal, like everything wrong in the world condensed into a single moment of impact.
Marcus's eyes go wide. Shock eclipses the lust, the cruelty, the confidence. Then, the light goes out. Just—goes out. Like someone flipped a switch.
He drops like a stone.
Blood blooms across the wet concrete. Dark, thick, viscous.
So much blood. It spreads too fast, a dark mirror reflecting nothing, mixing with the rain in pink rivulets that swirl toward the drain.
I stand over him, the pipe still vibrating in my hand from the impact, watching the life drain out of Xavier's brother.
Watching and unable to look away. Unable to process what I've done.
I feel nothing. No horror. No regret. No satisfaction. Just the cold rain beating down on my head and the weight of the metal in my hand and the static emptiness where emotions should be.
Then the dream shifts. Logic dissolves like sugar in water.
Xavier is there. Standing in the mouth of the alley.
He wasn't there a second ago but now he is, like he materialized from the shadows.
He looks at the body—his brother's body, Marcus's body sprawled and broken.
He looks at me. His face is blank. Empty.
All the warmth I know, all the fire, just—gone.
"You killed him," he says. His voice is flat. Dead. Emotionless in a way that's worse than anger would be. "You killed Marcus."
"I didn't mean to," I try to scream, but my throat is full of ash, full of concrete dust, and the words come out as nothing. Just air. Just silence.
"You killed my brother," he repeats like it's a simple fact. Like he's stating the weather. "And you lied to me about it."
He turns. Just turns his back on me and walks away, his form fading into the rain and shadows like he was never there at all.
"Xavier, wait!" I scream, and now I have a voice, now the sound rips out of me. I'm clawing at the air, trying to reach him, but my feet won't move. I'm rooted to the concrete next to Marcus's body. "Please! I'm sorry! I didn't—"
"Valentina."
A voice. Real. Close. Cutting through the nightmare like a knife.
"Valentina, wake up."
Hands on my shoulders. Shaking me gently but firmly. Grounding me in reality.
I jolt awake with a gasp that shreds my throat, that feels like I've been screaming for hours.
My eyes snap open to the dim moonlight of the bedroom, to familiar shadows instead of that alley.
I'm drowning in sweat—my tank top soaked through, my hair plastered to my neck and forehead.
My heart is hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird trying to break free, beating so hard I can feel it in my throat, in my ears, everywhere.
Xavier.
He's on his knees beside my bed, one hand gripping the mattress for support, the other on my shoulder.
His face is a mask of strained lines—jaw clenched so tight I can see the muscle jumping, eyes tight at the corners, breathing a little too fast and shallow.
There's a sheen of sweat on his forehead that has nothing to do with the temperature.
He's in pain. Serious pain from getting down here.
"You were screaming," he says, voice rough like gravel. "You were screaming my name."
I'm shaking. Violent, full-body tremors I can't control, can't hide. "I'm sorry. I didn't—I didn't mean to wake you. I'm sorry."
Then I notice what's missing. My eyes dart around the dim room, searching for—
"Where's your wheelchair?" Panic spikes through me, cutting through the fog of the nightmare. "Xavier, did you—did you walk here?"
The physical therapist's warnings echo in my head. Fifty percent weight-bearing. Only with the walker. Never alone. Risk of re-injury. Risk of permanent damage.
"Yeah," he grunts, and I can see the way his left leg is trembling from holding his weight, the way his knuckles are white where they grip the mattress.
"Your room is down the hall!" My hands fly to his arms, his shoulders, trying to help support him somehow. "You shouldn't be—the physical therapist said only fifty percent weight-bearing, you need the walker, you could damage—"
"Forget the physical therapist," he cuts in, one hand leaving the mattress to capture mine. His palm is rough, warm, solid. Real in a way the dream wasn't. But I can feel the tremor running through him, the strain of holding this position. "What's happening? What was the dream?"
Everything. Nothing. The murder I can't confess. The truth that will destroy us.
My throat closes up. The memory of the pipe—my fingers scraping across brick until they found metal, the cold bite of iron in my palm, the weight of it, the vibration on impact—bleeds into the room like it's happening now.
Marcus's face superimposes over Xavier's.
The sound echoes in my ears. "I can't—" I gasp for air, but my lungs won't work properly.
They're paralyzed, frozen. "I can't breathe. "
"Hey." His hand snaps to my jaw, fingers firm but gentle, turning my face to his. "Look at me, Val. Right here. Look at me."
I look. But he's blurring, everything's blurring. The room is spinning, tilting, and I can still smell the rain-soaked alley, still feel the brick against my back, still hear the crunch of—
"Shh." He pulls me forward, the movement making him wince but he doesn't stop. His free hand tangles in the hair at the nape of my neck, slightly damp with sweat, and drags my forehead against his. Our noses almost touching. His breath on my face. "Breathe with me. In through the nose."
He demonstrates, taking a slow, exaggerated breath that I can feel on my skin.
"I can't," I choke out, chest too tight, ribs too constricting.
"You can. Follow me. In."
I force air into my lungs. It stutters, catches halfway, but some oxygen gets through.
"Hold it," he commands softly. "Now out. Slow."
I focus on him. The scent of him—leather and smoke and skin and something uniquely Xavier. The heat radiating off his body even through the pain. The sheer, stubborn reality of his presence here, now, solid and real when everything else feels like it's dissolving.
Slowly, the alley fades. The panic recedes like a tide going out, leaving me hollow and trembling and wrung out.
"There," he whispers, thumb stroking my cheekbone in a gentle rhythm. "You're okay. You're safe. You're here with me."
I killed your brother, the voice inside screams. You're comforting me and I killed Marcus and you don't even know. You dragged yourself down the hall in agony because I was screaming and I'm his murderer.
The guilt is a physical blow. It slams into my chest, steals what little breath I'd managed to recover. Tears spill over, hot and fast, tracking down my face. "I'm sorry," I sob, and it comes out broken. "I'm so sorry."
"For a nightmare?" His voice is gentle, confused. "Don't be stupid. You can't control what you dream."
"For everything." The words crack apart. "For all of it."
"Val, talk to me." His thumb is still stroking, grounding. "Whatever it is, whatever you're carrying—we'll fix it. Together. Just tell me."