Chapter Fifteen
What They Thought You Had
Savage
Peace doesn’t feel like relief.It feels like standing in the eye of something that hasn’t decided whether it’s finished with you yet.
The compound runs like it always has—engines, voices, steel against concrete—but the edge is gone.Not dulled.Just ...absent.Men laugh without checking who’s listening, prospects move without flinching, and radios stay quiet long enough to become background noise instead of lifelines.
The cartel pressure evaporated.There has been no retaliation, no escalation, no final show of dominance.They simply stopped pushing.Which is worse because cartels don’t retreat without reason.I know they’ll be back for their pound of flesh, but for now I need to enjoy the peace.
I stand near the fence long after dusk, fingers hooked into the chain link like I can feel the city breathing through the metal.Vegas glows in the distance, neon and illusion and men pretending consequences don’t apply to them.
Behind me, the Sons of Sin are steady.In front of me, the silence stretches.
Footsteps crunch softly over gravel, but I don’t turn.Raven stops beside me.
“You’re doing that thing again,” she says.
“What thing?”
“The brooding-like-you’re-about-to-declare-war thing.”
I huff quietly while I fight a smile.“Observation isn’t escalation.”
“With you it usually is.”
She leans against the fence beside me, shoulder brushing mine without hesitation.That ease still catches me off guard, not because it’s rare, but because it’s earned.
“You don’t trust it,” she says.
“No.”
“Good.”
I glance at her.“Good?”
“It means you’re not stupid.”
