The sun was starting to dip when the guys showed up—Chase first, barefoot and already stripping off his shirt, as if nothing about today was different.
Jax brought beer. Theo brought his mouth, which wouldn’t stop moving even as he cannonballed into the deep end without warning. I stayed dry. Feet propped on a lounger, making it clear I wasn’t planning to move.
No game. No practice. Just the four of us at the pool behind my house. No one else was home. Heat shimmered off the pavement, the water gleaming, smooth as glass under the late-afternoon sun. It was too warm for an autumn day—sticky, heavy with the kind of stillness that warned a storm wasn’t far off. The kind of day that made it clear we were on the edge of something.
“Logan’s scared shitless.” Chase laughed as he passed me a bottle. “Won’t even meet my eyes in the hallway.”
“Same,” Theo added, pushing water off his face and slicking his dirty-blond hair back. “I caught him at lunch. Said he didn’t know Mila was gonna be at the bonfire. Swore Elise just told him to make it look good.”
“But he watches you, Luke, with hatred burning in his eyes,” Jax said.
I took a long drink, letting the cold settle in my chest. I didn’t care about his hatred, or even if he tried to start something with me. Bring it. It was Mila who I worried about. “He’s not a problem unless he tries something against Mila again.” He was Elise’s puppet, and that alone made him dangerous to a degree, but since we’d stopped him once, she should change tactics.
“He won’t.” Jax grinned. “He knows you’ll rip his spine out.”
“Still.” I tipped the bottle toward the pool. “Eyes stay on him.”
“Done.”
Silence stretched across the patio, thick with unspoken agreement. Not awkward. Not uncertain. Just the kind of quiet that followed decisions already made—no votes needed.
Chase leaned back against the chair, his tone casual. “So what’s the move with Elise?”
I didn’t flinch. “She thinks I’m still an option.”
“And you’re not?” he asked.
I kept my face flat. “She’s not a threat to me. But she is to the people I don’t want touched.”
Theo whistled under his breath. “So, what, we ghost her? Blow up her socials? Threaten her boyfriend if she’s got one?”
“She doesn’t,” Jax muttered. “She’s been waiting on Luke to get over Mila.”
“She’ll keep pushing until she’s slapped down,” I muttered. “We just need to decide how clean we want it.”
Jax shifted in his seat. “You want her scared? Or exposed?”
“Both,” I admitted. “But no drama. No sloppiness. We do this wrong, her dad gets involved.” And Charles Dunn wasn’t someone we wanted to deal with, not yet anyway.
And that was a bigger problem. Because Dunn didn’t just pull strings—he rewired the whole damn game board. Power wasn’tenough for him. Control was. Every woman in his orbit was a pawn—Elise included. He treated them as accessories to his image. Replaceable. Silenced. Useful only so long as they bent to his agenda. The man was a textbook misogynist, the kind who wore tailored suits and smiled for cameras while gutting people from the inside out.
“That’s happening,” Chase said. “If Mila’s mom is under Dunn, then it’s already crossed into family lines.”
I nodded once, gaze fixed past the pool, past the house, past everything. “Which means Elise won’t stop. This’ll piss her off, make her reckless. But she’s not broken. Not yet.” Not enough to leave Mila alone.
“Good,” Jax muttered. “Means we’ll see her coming.”
I wasn’t so sure. Elise didn’t need to attack head-on. She’d smile while she cut you.
I nodded once. “Which is why we can’t touch Elise physically. No threats. We cut her out socially. Cold. Let her feel the sting of being invisible.”
Theo frowned. “She’ll come harder.”
“Let her.” I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “That’s when we corner her. When she’s desperate.”
“And Logan?” Chase asked. “We letting him walk?”
I thought about it. About his smirk. His retreat. His shitty little shrug as though he wasn’t part of it.
