It’ll be because someone else flinched.
Chapter Seven
Pressure Valve
Savage
The problem with pressure is that it doesn’t care where it builds.
It stacks behind your eyes.In your chest.In your hands when you grip something too tight and don’t notice until it cracks.I’ve spent years learning how to bleed it off without letting it touch anyone else.
Tonight, it’s clawing at my spine.I feel like a pressure cooker ready to explode.
The meeting with the captains ran long and sideways.Too many opinions.Too much second-guessing.The cartel is pushing boundaries they know damn well I’ll hold.Saint watching me like he’s counting how many times I choose containment over conclusion.And Crimson is waiting for something to happen so he can make a move in the fucking aftermath.
By the time the meeting breaks, I don’t want blood.I want silence.I don’t go to Raven’s room because I’m entitled to her.I go because she’s the only place the noise doesn’t follow.
Her door isn’t locked.That tells me she wants to be interrupted or she’s not thinking about safety at all.But I knock anyway.
“Jesus Christ,” she calls.“If that’s another meeting, I swear...”
I open the door.She looks up from the bed, boots off, shirt half unbuttoned like she abandoned the effort halfway through.Her eyes sharpen when she sees me.
“Fuck,” she breathes.“You look wrecked.”
“Don’t try to fix me,” I say hoarsely.
She smiles slowly.“I wasn’t planning to.”
I shut the door behind me and lean back against it, exhaling like I’ve been holding my breath all damn day.
“Say it,” she says.
“Say what?”
“What you need.”
