I pour coffee and sit at the scarred table near the window.Outside, a prospect is scrubbing dried blood from the concrete.It’s already faded, diluted by water and time, but the act matters.Nothing gets left.
Mama M slides a plate toward me without comment.Eggs.Toast.Something green I don’t recognize and don’t question.I eat because it’s expected.Because stopping would make the quiet louder.
“The men are rattled,” Mama M says eventually, voice casual.“But they’re not afraid.They’re recalibrating.”
I glance up at her.“That’s what I’m doing too.”
She gives me a sharp look.“Careful.”
“Of what?”
“Believing this was about you.”
I sit back slowly.“It wasn’t?”
She snorts.“It was about what happens when a man chooses alignment over habit.”
I stare at my coffee.“And I just happened to be the line he drew.”
Mama M’s mouth curves.“You always were.”
That lands heavier than anything else she could have said.
After breakfast, I walk the compound.Not patrolling.Just existing.Letting men see me upright, unbroken, and unchanged.That’s important.The moment people think you’ve been reshaped by violence, they start trying to manage you.
I don’t let them.I never will.
Fury nods at me as he passes, knuckles bruised and eyes sharp.Steel gives me a brief incline of his head, his way of offering respect without softness.Saint watches me longer than anyone else, calculation and concern braided together, and Crimson doesn’t look at me at all.
By midmorning, the weight settles fully into my chest.Not guilt, not regret, but responsibility.People died last night.Not by accident.Not in confusion.By decision.By design.
And while Savage pulled the trigger metaphorically, I know, deep in my bones, that my presence shifted the dynamic for him to make that decision.That doesn’t make me culpable.It makes me central.
I sit on the back steps where the desert wind cuts through the heat and think about all the ways that could go wrong.
Savage doesn’t come to me.That’s intentional too.If he did, I might let myself lean.And that would make today something else entirely.
Instead, Saint finds me.He doesn’t sit.He stands just close enough to be heard without being intrusive.
“Other chapters are calling,” he says.
I don’t look up.“About what?”
“About stability.”
“Do you mind translating that for me?”
“Vegas moved without permission.”
I exhale slowly.“Savage didn’t ask.”Fuck.
“No,” Saint agrees.“He acted.”
I glance up at him then.“And?”
“And that unsettles men who like predictability.”
“Power hates unpredictability,” I reply.“Even when it’s justified.”
