Chapter 9 Rafe
RAFE
Sleep never comes easy for me. It’s a fight, like everything else, a negotiation between my mind and whatever’s living under my skin.
Tonight it doesn’t come at all. I stretch out on the cot in my room above the old storage hall, staring at the cracked ceiling, listening to the pipes groan and the faint thump of bass from the club two blocks over.
My fists are already tight without me realizing.
The sheets smell like iron. My body feels heavier than it should, every breath dragging like it’s pulling chains.
When it happens this time, there’s no trigger.
No noise from the street. No memory bubbling up.
The beast just wakes. I feel it under my ribs first, a heat rolling out from the center of my chest, into my throat, down my arms until my knuckles ache to split.
My teeth press against each other like they’re grinding stone.
My skin crawls. My eyes blur and clear and blur again, vision sharpening in unnatural ways.
The bull wants out.
I swing my legs off the cot and sit hunched forward, breathing through my nose, palms pressed to my thighs.
I tell myself it’s not happening. I’ve done this a thousand times before.
I know how to clamp it down. But my hands are already swelling, the bones shifting, nails scraping at the air like claws. I close my eyes hard.
And then I see her.
Not like she is when she’s sitting across from me in that calm way, notebook closed, watching like she’s holding a match in a room full of gasoline.
This is different. She’s inside the darkness behind my eyelids.
Kaleigh. Barefoot, hair loose, wearing something soft that moves like smoke.
She’s standing at the edge of a storm made of my own rage. She lifts a hand.
The sound that comes out of my throat isn’t human.
It’s a low, guttural rumble, deep enough to make the metal frame of the bed creak.
But in the dream, she doesn’t back away.
She steps closer. Her hand touches my jaw and everything slows, like she’s cutting through the noise.
Her voice—if it’s a voice—isn’t words. It’s a feeling.
A weight sliding off my shoulders. A warmth against my spine.
I wake up gasping, bent forward, fists digging into the mattress hard enough to leave impressions. My body’s half-shifted, my arms thickened, veins standing out, breath steaming in the cool air. My eyes burn. Sweat runs down my back.
I drag myself upright and stumble to the sink, twist the tap, splash cold water over my face again and again until the shivering starts. In the mirror, for a split second, I see horns behind my reflection, curving up from my skull like shadows. Then they’re gone.
This isn’t normal. Not for me. I’ve always had the beast under lock. I let it out when I choose, not when it chooses. I tell it where and when. But now it’s rising without warning, like it’s been waiting for the right moment to show me who’s really in charge.
And the worst part—the part that should scare me but doesn’t—is that in the middle of it, I didn’t see blood. I didn’t see violence. I saw her. Kaleigh. The only thing in that storm that didn’t break.
The sun’s not up yet, but the city’s already stirring by the time I head downstairs.
The men are in the main hall, voices low, smoke curling from cigarettes as they check weapons and bills.
Pilar leans against a crate, scrolling through her phone, eyeliner smudged from last night’s work. She glances up at me but doesn’t smile.
Mateo’s in his usual corner, cream suit today, shirt unbuttoned at the collar. He’s got a glass of espresso in one hand and a folded newspaper in the other, like we’re running a shipping company instead of a blood economy.
“Calderon,” he says without looking up. “Walk with me.”
We cut through the back hallway toward his office.
The floor here is polished concrete, always too clean, and the smell of disinfectant burns faintly at the edges of the air.
He shuts the door behind us and takes his seat at the big desk made from repurposed church wood, knuckles drumming lightly on the surface.
“You skipped an assignment,” he says.
I don’t sit. “I made a choice.”
He sets the paper down, eyes meeting mine for the first time. “You’ve been making a lot of choices lately.”
I shrug one shoulder. “Maybe I’m tired of being your blunt instrument.”
He leans back, spreading his hands slightly. “You don’t get tired. That’s why I keep you. That’s why they’re scared of you. Because you don’t hesitate. Because you don’t think. You just end things.”
“Maybe I started thinking.”
He tilts his head. “That shrink of yours, you’ve been getting sweet on her?”
I stare at him without blinking. “She’s not mine.”
“She’s an outsider,” he says. “And outsiders are only useful until they’re liabilities. Right now, she’s a liability.”
My jaw tightens. “She’s not part of this.”
He smiles faintly, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Everything’s part of this. Especially when you start making noise, when you start letting witnesses run, when you start going soft. People notice. People talk. And when they talk, I have to show them I still control the room.”
I take a step closer to the desk. “Say what you’re saying.”
He doesn’t flinch. “Next time, we take her. Bring her in. Make her disappear. If you want her breathing, you’ll start following orders again.”
The silence between us goes sharp enough to cut. My hands curl at my sides. My breath stays even, but only because I’ve practiced for years.
“You so much as touch her—”
“You’ll do what?” he interrupts, still calm. “Kill me? You won’t. Because you know what happens next. Without me, this whole operation collapses. And you, Calderon, don’t survive without the ring. You’re just a fighter with nowhere to go. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re a free man.”
I lean forward until my shadow swallows his desk. “Try me.”
He doesn’t blink. “Orders stand.”
I walk out before I break his neck.
The hallway outside feels narrower than usual. The men glance up as I pass, then look away quickly. They’ve heard something. They always do. Pilar watches me from her post, but she doesn’t say a word. Not yet.
I keep moving. Out the side door, into the heat already rising from the pavement even though it’s barely eight a.m. The sky above Seville is pale, washed-out blue, the kind that promises it’ll burn hotter later.
My head is full of Kaleigh’s voice, soft and steady, telling me control isn’t strength, it’s armor.
I start walking without knowing where I’m going. My hands are still trembling. Not from fear. From holding everything in. From knowing the bull is right there under my skin, ready to tear through flesh and concrete just to get to her before they do.
I don’t stop walking until I’m standing in front of her building again. Same window. Same curtain drawn slightly aside. My heart is still a steady hammer, but now it’s carrying something else with it. A decision forming.
Mateo thinks he still controls the room.
He doesn’t. Not anymore.