Chapter Seventeen
Where I Ask
Savage
The compound doesn’t sleep. It breathes.
Ghost is alive, Cherry is back, and the cartel pressure dissolved into silence instead of blood. For the first time in what feels like a lifetime, no one is actively trying to kill us.
I sit alone on the back steps, whiskey resting against my knee, staring out at desert darkness that doesn’t care about wars, cartels, clubs, or men stupid enough to believe they can control any of it.
Peace feels strange in my bones. Unfamiliar and dangerous in its own way.
Footsteps sound behind me before Raven settles beside me without invitation, shoulder brushing mine like that space has long since stopped being contested ground.
“You’re brooding again,” she says.
“I’m thinking.”
“Same thing.”
I huff quietly. “You’re consistent.”
“I try.”
Silence stretches between us but it’s easy and comfortable. That still surprises me. Because Raven Blackwood was never silence I could sit inside comfortably, until somewhere along the line, she became the only silence that didn’t feel like pressure.
“They’re really gone,” she says softly.
“For now.”
She nods faintly. No triumph. No relief parade. Just acknowledgment of reality.
I glance at her. Moonlight catches her profile, sharp lines, steady gaze, the same woman who walked back into my world like a goddamn detonation I didn’t see coming.
Everything changed after that. Mostly me.
“Raven.” She looks at me immediately.
“Yeah.”
There’s no good way to say this. No strategic framing. No leadership tone. Which means there’s only honesty.
“I need to tell you something.”
Her brow lifts slightly. “That sounds ominous.”
“It is.”
That gets a faint smile. Then she studies my face more carefully. Because Raven always knows when something matters. I turn fully toward her, no distance, and no avoidance.
“I love you.”
Raven doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t soften. She just watches me like she’s measuring whether the words carry any real weight.
“I didn’t plan to,” I continue quietly. “Didn’t want to. Didn’t think it was something I could afford.” Her breathing shifts slightly. “But somewhere between war, blood, chaos, and you being the most impossible woman I’ve ever known...”
I shake my head faintly. “It stopped being optional.”
The desert wind moves cool between us. Raven’s gaze doesn’t waver.
“That,” she says softly, “is a terrifying sentence coming from you.”
I laugh quietly. “You’re not helping.”
“I’m not supposed to.”
“I’m not saying this to claim you,” I say. “Or cage you. Or turn you into something that revolves around me.”
“Good,” she replies.
“I’m saying it because it’s true.”
“I know,” she says.
I stare at her. “You know?”
“Yes.”
“How.”
“You’re not subtle, Savage. You never were.”
I huff quietly. “Debatable.”
She turns slightly toward me, eyes sharp but softer than they have any right to be. “I love you too.”
Everything inside my chest locks. Not explodes, just locks into place. Because Raven Blackwood does not say things she doesn’t mean.
“That,” I mutter, “is an even more terrifying sentence.”
She smiles faintly. “Good.”
We sit there in the quiet aftermath of something far bigger than gunfights, politics, or wars.
“I don’t want to own you,” I say quietly.
She laughs with her head thrown back. “I wouldn’t let you.”
“I know.”
“And I don’t want to belong to anyone.”
“I know.”
Silence stretches between us.
“But,” she adds. That word hits like impact. “But,” she repeats calmly, “I want to choose where I stand.”
My pulse spikes. “And where do you stand?”
She holds my gaze. “With you.”
The world goes very still. Not euphoric. Not explosive. Just certain.
“As myself,” she continues. “Not your property. Not your obligation. Not your weakness.”
“I wouldn’t survive you as anything else.”
“Correct.”
I laugh, low, real, and relieved in a way I didn’t know existed.
“I’m not asking you to stay because I need you,” I say.
“Good.”
“I’m asking because I want you to.”
Raven studies my face carefully. Then she nods. “I’ll stay.”
My chest tightens.
“On two conditions.”
“Of course.”
“You never mistake my independence for distance.”
“I won’t.”
“And you never, ever, try to cage me.”
I meet her gaze steadily. “Raven...”
She waits.
“I learned that lesson the hard way.”
“Good,” she says softly.
I pull her into my arms. Alignment finally locking into place without tension pulling at the seams. She melts into me without hesitation, warm and solid and very, very real.
“This is insane,” she murmurs.
“Always.”
“You’re still a nightmare.”
“So are you.”
She smiles faintly against my chest. We sit there in the quiet, the compound breathing behind us, the desert stretching endless and indifferent ahead.
The war didn’t end with blood. It ended with clarity. Ghost survived and Cherry came back. The cartel miscalculated.
And Raven Blackwood chose to stay. Not because she was claimed. Because she asked herself where she wanted to stand. And decided the answer was beside me.
And that’s the only version of forever I’d ever trust.
The End