Ink glanced at Trixie and softened—just slightly. “Prospect made his choices, and the club handled it.”
She swallowed. “What now?”
“Now?” Ink said. “Now we clean out the rat tunnels and see if he squeaked anything else. And then we drink.”
Venom appeared behind him. “And then, we go hunting.”
Trixie’s stomach knotted. “Hunting for what, or who?”
Venom cracked his knuckles. “Your old man’s men. They’re too close. We need to push them back.”
She shook her head. “That’s too dangerous. They won’t stop. He won’t stop.”
“Good,” Venom said. “Neither will we.”
Cyclops put a hand on her back—light, but grounding. “Trixie. Come with me.”
She followed him, steps unsteady, until they were halfway down the hall. He stopped, turned, and cupped her face gently, carefully. “You’re not responsible for Cory,” he said again. “Don’t take that weight. It doesn’t belong to you.”
Trixie closed her eyes. “I wish it were that simple.”
“It can be,” he murmured.
“Not for me,” she whispered. “I—Cyclops, I’ve never had people put their lives on the line for me—never. Because if they did, they’d have to pay a price.”
“There is no price to be paid,” he said. “Not here.” A beat of silence passed between them.
She opened her eyes. “What if one of your brothers blames me? What if they already do?”
“Then they answer to me,” Cyclops said, voice like gravel. “Nobody touches you. Nobody looks at you sideways. And nobody blames you for Cory’s mistake.”
Her throat tightened. “Why?”
He stepped closer, his hand brushing hers. “Because I said so.”
She exhaled shakily. “Cyclops,”
“And because,” he added softly, “I can’t lose you.”
Her heart stuttered. She wasn’t sure how this man had become so important to her in such a short amount of time, but she was finished questioning it. “I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered.
His eye flickered with fear, relief, something deeper. Something she shouldn’t name, because if she did, she’d have to admit that she felt the same way about him, too. “Let me take you back to my room, Trixie,” he breathed. If she had her way, she’d stay there with him, in his bed, but that was going to be up to him.
She nodded, and he leaned in to gently kiss her lips when Ink yelled from the hall, “Cyclops, we got movement on the west cameras!”
Cyclops swore under his breath. “Fucking cameras. Stay behind me.”
“I always do,” she whispered. He grabbed her hand and pulled her along with him as he moved toward the surveillance room with lethal purpose. Her fingers tightened around his. Notout of fear, but out of something else entirely. It was something that made her heart race as much as the danger outside the walls. Something she didn’t dare call love—not yet. Not with war coming. But she knew one thing with absolute certainty—she wasn’t letting Cyclops fight this war alone.
CYCLOPS
The west cameras had picked up three SUVs on the compound property. Their windows were blacked out, and all three vehicles were idling at the tree line, just beyond the compound’s outer boundary. The engines were so quiet that Cyclops wouldn’t have heard them even if he’d been standing on the damn fence. But he could feel them. They were like a storm rolling in.
Ink zoomed the camera in on the SUVs. “Plates are fake. The vehicles have no markings and tinted windows.”
Venom cracked his neck. “They want a war.”
Cyclops stared at the screen, jaw clenched until it hurt. “Then they’re about to get one.”
