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CHAPTER NINETY-ONE

JASON’S FOOTSTEPS SOUNDED across the concrete, each one deliberate, each one heavier than the last, as he paced slow, measured circles around her like a predator savoring the kill. There was no rush in his stride, no urgency, just the steady confidence of a man who believed he already owned the outcome.

And Zeynep…

She wasn’t even looking at him.

Her eyes stayed locked on me.

Her body was twisted on the floor, wrists bound behind her back, her frame slumped sideways against the filth. Blood stained the corner of her mouth, and her hair—wild and tangled with sweat, dirt, and blood—fanned out like a halo of ruin. But her face was calm. Too calm.

I knew that look. I’d worn it once too—when you stop fighting in your mind long before your body gives up. When you accept that the pain is coming and start figuring out how to survive it.

Jason crouched beside her, his voice dropping to something soft and vile. “You remember what I said, don’t you?”

She didn’t answer.

He reached out, brushing a blood-matted strand of hair from her cheek, the movement slow, almost gentle, so damn wrong it made bile rise in my throat.

“I used to watch you,” he murmured, the words slick and low like oil spreading across water. “Back when you belonged to Drago. You were Drago’s favorite little plaything, weren’t you? Walking around like the rest of us were beneath you, like we weren’t good enough to touch you. Like we were animals.”

Zeynep swallowed hard, lips trembling, but she didn’t flinch, didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction.

“I was there the night Rory died,” he went on, his voice thick with venom. “I saw his eyes. Saw the fear. He was shaking right before Drago put a bullet between them.”

“She didn’t do that,” I growled, the sound ripping up my throat. I pulled hard against the chains, the rusted pipe groaning in protest. “Drago pulled the trigger. That blood’s on him.”

Jason stood, slow and menacing, and turned toward me with a sneer that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You still don’t get it. She ran. She made a choice. And that choice put Rory in the ground. My best friend’s body rotted in a shallow grave while she kept breathin’.”

“You want revenge?” I barked, every word laced with fury. “Then fuckin’ take it out on me. Come on. Let’s settle it. But don’t you fuckin’ touch her.”

Jason tilted his head with a slow, mocking smile. “Oh, soldier boy. You’re not the one I came here to hurt. Beating you wouldn’t satisfy me. Watching you break while she screams? That’s where the pleasure is.”

He turned back to her.

My chest seized. My breath caught.

“Don’t,” I said, my voice low, shaking with rage. “Don’t you fuckin’ touch her.”

He grabbed her by the jaw, fingers digging into her skin as he forced her face toward me. Her eyes met mine, wide, terrified, but still trying to stay strong.

“You see him?” Jason hissed into her ear. “That’s the man who’s gonna watch while I ruin you. That’s the man who let it happen. He couldn’t stop it.”

Zeynep whimpered, not from fear for herself, but for me.

And I saw it.

She wasn’t afraid of the pain. She was afraid of what it would do to me .

That single sound—small and broken—shattered whatever restraint I had left.

Jason grabbed the front of her shirt and tore at the neckline, dragging her across the floor, toward the center of the room like she was nothing but weight.

“STOP!” I roared, the word tearing from my lungs like a gunshot. I yanked against the chains with everything I had. Felt the metal dig into my wrists, blood running slick down my arms, pain lighting up every nerve like fire—but I didn’t stop.

The pipe bent.

Jason shoved her down to her knees, his hand still tight in her shirt.

“You’ll scream soon enough,” he said, his voice menacing, almost gleeful.

But Zeynep didn’t scream. She lifted her chin just a little. Her voice cracked, rough and quiet, but steady. “You can’t hurt me… not inside.”

He backhanded her.

Her head snapped to the side, and she crumpled to the floor with a cry that cut through the room like a knife.

That was it.

That was the match on the gasoline.

I snapped.

The pipe shrieked, metal screaming against stone as the bolts ripped free from the wall. The chains tore loose, and I staggered forward, arms slick with blood, vision swimming—but none of it slowed me down. I was already moving. Already on him.

Jason turned too late.

I hit him like a fucking freight train.

We crashed to the ground, his body slamming against concrete, his knife skidding out of reach. He scrambled, reaching for it, but I kicked it across the floor and brought my fist down.

Once.

Twice.

Again.

His nose broke under my knuckles. Teeth snapped. Blood sprayed across the floor.

He tried to twist away, but I had him pinned, my knees locking him in place as I pounded into him, rage pouring out in every strike. My vision blurred, red creeping in at the edges, but I didn’t stop—not until the fight drained from him and his breath came in shallow, rattling gasps, eyes glazed, body twitching.

I dropped him.

Turned.

And found her crawling back toward the wall, her body trembling, her hands still bound and slick with blood. Her lip was split, her face bruised, but her eyes—God, her eyes were still her.

I crawled to her, dropping the knife halfway there, my own arms shaking. When I reached her, I pulled her into my chest, wrapping myself around her as tight as I could, her body folding into mine like it was the only place she belonged.

“I got you,” I whispered, breath hot against her hair. “You’re okay, baby. I got you. I got you.”

And then, boots. Doors. The thunder of footsteps.

Voices shouting. Guns raised. A roar of bodies storming in.

The club had arrived.

But I didn’t look up.

Didn’t move.

Because I was already exactly where I needed to be.

Right here.

With her.

***

BACK AT THE clubhouse, the room was dark, quiet except for the soft spill of light leaking in from the hallway and the slow, even rhythm of her breathing.

Zeynep lay curled on her side, the sheet tucked up to her shoulders, her face half-hidden beneath the fall of her hair. She looked small. Still. At peace for the first time in days. That steady rise and fall of her chest was the only thing keeping me grounded.

I hadn’t closed my eyes since we made it back to the clubhouse.

Didn’t plan to anytime soon.

I just sat there, unmoving, watching her like she might vanish if I blinked. Like this was some twisted dream I hadn’t woken from yet—and any second now, I’d find myself back in that goddamn room with her blood on my hands and a chain still bolted to the wall.

But she was here.

Breathing.

Alive.

And I needed answers.

I stood slowly, easing off the bed without disturbing her. My fingers pulled the blanket a little tighter around her shoulders, brushing against her skin like a silent vow. I ran my hand gently through her hair once before turning and stepping out into the hallway.

The clubhouse was dead quiet. Not the usual late-night lull with muffled music and laughter in the distance. This was something else. The kind of silence that settled in after shit went sideways. When your family was nursing wounds too deep for bandages.

A few murmurs sounded faintly from somewhere down the hall, voices quiet, tired. No music. No laughter. Just that heavy aftershock you feel when the reaper came close and walked away empty handed.

I found Devil in the common room.

He was sitting alone at the bar, a half empty bottle of whiskey in front of him, shoulders hunched just enough to give away how damn tired he was. He didn’t look over right away. Didn’t need to. The moment I stepped into the room, he glanced up, met my eyes with that steady, unreadable expression he wore when everything under the surface was on fire.

“You alright?” he asked.

I gave a single nod. “She’s asleep.”

He let out a grunt, could’ve been relief, could’ve been nothing. Hard to tell with Devil.

I crossed the room, dragged out the stool beside him and sat. Elbows on the bar, shoulders tight, heart still hammering like the danger wasn’t over.

“You got a minute?” I asked.

“You don’t have to ask,” he said.

I stared straight ahead at the shelves of liquor behind the bar, every label blurring into the next. My throat felt raw. My wrists throbbed where the scabs pulled every time I moved. I let the question sit there a second before I asked it.

“How’d you find us?”

Devil didn’t answer right away. He grabbed a clean glass, poured two fingers of whiskey, and slid it across the bar in front of me.

I didn’t touch it.

“Devil,” I said again, firmer this time.

He sighed through his nose, that calm mask slipping just enough to show the weight behind it. “We got a call.”

I turned my head toward him slowly. “From who?”

“Don’t know.”

“Bullshit.”

He didn’t flinch. “Number was untraceable. One of those burn phones. Gatsby ran it. Kickstand tried to backtrack the ping. Came up empty.”

I sat back, the leather seat creaking under me, the chain burns on my wrists biting as I flexed my hands.

“What did they say?”

Devil turned his glass in slow, absent minded circles, the ice clinking loud in the quiet.

“They gave us a location. That’s it. No name. No voice. Just a whisper and a warning.”

My jaw clenched tight. “So someone was watching. Someone knew —and they waited until the last damn second to lift a finger.”

He nodded once, the movement stiff. “That’s about the shape of it.”

Silence stretched between us again, thick as smoke.

I swallowed back the heat rising in my throat, fists curling on the bar. “It had to be Chelsea. Maybe not the call, but all of it… she was behind it. Why, I don’t know, but I want her found, and I want her to pay.”

Devil gave a slow nod. “We’re on the same page. She’s off grid for now, but we’ll keep lookin’. Someone always talks.”

“She’s not just a problem,” I muttered. “She’s a threat, and as long as she’s out there, Zeynep’s not safe.”

He didn’t argue.

Didn’t need to.

Chelsea wasn’t a memory. She was a fuse still lit, walking through the wreckage she helped create like she’d earned the fire.

And she thought she could walk away clean.

Not a fucking chance.