Chapter 15
XAVIER
The initiation of a First Lady is supposed to be a wedding.
The hall hums with restless energy—the men drink, laugh too loud, the scent of smoke and leather thick as a promise.
My jacket sits on my shoulders like an accusation: stitched with blood, legacy, and the weight of a throne I never wanted.
Jeans stiff, boots scuffed, everyone’s eyes are on me, waiting for the claiming.
It should be a coronation, a binding vow.
Instead my chest is a room that swallowed its light.
Because my bride is missing.
I went to Isaiah’s room this morning to collect her—to dress her, to walk her out like a king taking what’s his. The bed was empty. Sheets bone-cold. Isaiah gone. Valentina gone.
The thought gnaws like a rabid dog.
If they ran off together—my best friend, my blood, with her—what then?
The calculus is ugly and immediate. An example would have to be made.
Isaiah—my right hand—would have to bleed for betraying me.
Valentina… I grit my teeth until iron floods my mouth.
I don’t know if I could do it. I tell myself I would, because that is what a leader does.
But when I picture it—her face slack, those green eyes closed—the idea becomes an ache that curls hot in my ribs and refuses to leave.
I stalk the compound’s corridors like a man hunting ghosts. Walls sweat oil and old scabs. Every door I push open, every empty room, fans the low ember of fury in my gut. She’s not here. Neither is Isaiah.
Boot steps fall behind me—steady, measured. Asher falls into stride, a long shadow at my side. His silence tonight is heavier than the walls.
“You ready?” he asks finally, voice flat, eyes scanning me with the kind of steadiness only he can hold.
“Yes.” The word slides out—automatic, iron. No hesitation, no crack.
But Asher shifts. He fidgets. Rolls his shoulders, rubs the back of his neck. Small motions, maybe, but they set me on edge. Asher never fidgets. Not when the world is balanced on knives. Not unless there’s something he can’t put down.
I stop and turn, pinning him with a look. “What’s going on with you?”
His storm-gray eyes lock on mine, controlled and unblinking, and there’s something else under the surface—warning, maybe pity. “You can’t keep Valentina to yourself.”
The words are a punch. My fists curl, ready to put him through a wall but I hold still. Breathing. Letting the silence between us stretch.
“She’s mine,” I say, low, dangerous.
Asher doesn’t flinch. “She won’t ever just be yours. And if you try to make her… you’ll lose her. And maybe us, too.”
The words hang in the corridor, heavier than smoke. They cut deeper than I’d let anyone cut me.
He presses further until the air between us is taut enough to snap. “If you’re so selfish you cannot share her—” His jaw tightens. “—you will destroy everything. Me. Isaiah. The only family you’ve got left. Is she worth that?”
The question is a blade. I taste blood in my mouth from clenching my teeth.
Those emerald eyes—god—those eyes would light a pyre for me and I’d burn the world down just to see them focused only on me.
To be the only thing that matters. To never have them wander to Isaiah when he jokes, or to Asher when he offers a quiet, steady hand.
But the other picture is darker: the empty space where my brothers should be, the silence in the house.
Losing them feels like a fate worse than losing her.
Family is bone-deep, older than the hunger in me.
Would I rather have the girl who sets my blood on fire, or the men who keep the fire from consuming me entirely?
I swallow hard, hating the weakness in my voice. “I don’t know,” I admit. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
“You’re going to have to get over yourself,” Asher snaps, voice like ice that cuts, “because Zay and I can’t just—” He stops mid-curse as his eyes flick down to my chest. I follow the motion and see the red dot on my chest.
“Xavier, duck!”
Asher’s hands are on me before I can process it, gripping my jacket and shoving me sideways with an urgency that surprises me.
The world detonates—the sharp report of a gunshot, the smell of cordite ripping through the corridor, the heat of displaced air.
We go down hard, shoulder to shoulder, the floor slamming my breath from my lungs.
For a moment sound is everything and nothing.
My ears ring, the light behind my eyes blooms white and then red.
I can’t tell—can’t feel—whether pain lances through my side or whether Asher takes the mark meant for me.
His body is pressed against mine; his breath is a ragged thing in my ear.
The metallic taste of fear sits on my tongue.
When the ringing fades enough for me to hear again, there is only the echo of the shot and the hollow that follows it. Men shout somewhere down the hall. Boots pound. Someone curses, low and urgent. The compound folds into motion—too slow and too fast all at once.
I lie there, lungs burning, and I realize in the cold space under my ribs that nothing will ever be the same. Not the claiming. Not the gang. Not the way I look at Valentina, if she ever returns. Not the way Asher looks at me—if he looks at me at all.
I want to get up, to wrench myself free and check for a wound and life and the truth of whoever fell. But the world tilts and the corridor swims.
Through the ringing, a thought as stupid and bright as a match strikes me: I would have burned everything for those green eyes. And now I don’t even know if I have them to burn for.
Somewhere, someone screams my name.
Thank you for reading Book 1 in Valentina’s story, if you enjoyed it, please leave your review, book 2 in her chaos is coming soon but first…
I have the best surprise!
You begged for more… and it’s coming.
Willow and her men — and their four kids — are ready to claim their Christmas chaos.
While you wait for Valentina and her raiders, get ready for snow, secrets, and heat.