Members looked up as we entered. I felt their assessment—surprise at the outsider, questions in their eyes, a few knowing smirks at the way Axel's hand hovered at my lower back.
"Church in twenty," Axel announced. Not a request. "Spread the word."
He led me past curious gazes to what looked like an office. Sparse but lived-in. Desk covered in papers, leather couch against one wall, weapons locked in a glass case. His space—I could tell by the way he moved through it.
"Sit." He shrugged off his jacket, and I caught sight of bandages under his shirt. Someone had properly dressed the wound I'd cleaned. "You okay? They didn't hurt you?"
"I'm fine." I stayed standing, too wired to sit. "Though one of them might need his liver checked."
Something like pride flashed in his eyes. "Where'd you learn to fight like that?"
"My foster brother." The familiar ache twisted in my chest. "Tyler. He said pretty boys in the system needed to know how to fight dirty."
Axel's expression flickered atpretty boys. Something complicated moved behind his eyes.
He poured whiskey, handed me a glass. Our fingers brushed during the exchange. Neither of us pulled away.
"You need to know what you've stepped into." He knocked back his drink in one motion, throat working. "Devil's Dust is trying to expand. Take territory, establish new revenue streams. Some of those streams..." His jaw tightened. "Let's just say Phoenix has lines we won't cross."
"What kind of lines?"
"The kind that involve trafficking people." The words came out hard as bullets. "Girls. Kids. Whatever pays. Viper has no code, no honor. Just money and power."
"And Phoenix is different?"
His eyes met mine. "We're not saints. But we don't hurt innocents. Don't profit from misery." He set down his glass. "We protect our own."
"I'm not yours."
He moved then. Fast enough to make me gasp. Suddenly I was caged against his desk, his hands bracketing my hips, his body a wall of heat inches from mine.
"You became mine the second you put your hands on me in that parking lot." His voice had gone rough. Raw. "The moment you risked yourself for a stranger."
"That's not how?—"
"How it works?" His thumb traced my jaw, feather-light. "Maybe not in your world. But in mine, debts matter. Protection matters." His eyes dropped to my mouth. "And whether you like it or not, violet, you're under my protection now."
My heart was hammering. This close, I could see gold flecks in his grey eyes. Feel the controlled tension in his body, like a wire stretched to breaking.
"I don't need protection."
"No?" His other hand found my hip, thumb stroking through denim. "Then why are you shaking?"
I was. Fine tremors I couldn't control. But not from fear.
"Axel—"
"I should let you go." His forehead dropped to mine, breath warm against my lips. "Should walk away. Should?—"
"Should what?"
"Shouldn't do this."
"Do wh?—"
His mouth crashed into mine.
Nothing gentle about it. Nothing tentative. Just hunger—raw and desperate and devastating. His hands fisted in my hair, angling my head where he wanted it. I opened for him without thinking, tasting whiskey and need. My fingers found his chest, felt his heart slamming against his ribs as hard as mine.
