1
VALENTINA
The conference roomsmells like fear and expensive cologne, a combination that makes my stomach twist.
I'm sitting in Xavier's chair—his chair—and the leather is cold against my back, nothing like the warmth I'd imagined clinging to it. My hands are folded on the mahogany table in front of me, fingers laced so tight my knuckles have gone white, because if I let go, I'm afraid I'll start shaking and never stop.
People are talking.
Lots of people.
Their voices crash over each other like competing radio stations, all static and no signal, creating a wall of noise that I can't break through.
Someone is shouting.
Someone else is pounding their fist on the table.
The sound echoes through my skull, sharp and insistent, but I can't make sense of any of it.
All I know is that no one thinks Xavier is going to survive the night, and that he is in surgery—but every other member of the Raider council has already decided that he is dead.
Dead.
The word sits in my chest like a stone, heavy and immovable.
I don't know what happened, not really. One minute everything was fine—or as fine as things ever are in this world—and the next, chaos.
Pure, unfiltered chaos. Phone calls. Shouting.
People running.
And then I was being pulled into this room, shoved into this chair, told to sit while they figured things out.
But there's nothing to figure out.
Xavier got shot.
He's in surgery.
No one thinks he is going to make it through the night.
And I'm sitting here in his chair like some kind of placeholder while the Raiders—his people—tear each other apart trying to decide what happens next.
Across the table, Asher is covered in blood.
Xavier's blood.
It's dried now, dark rust-brown against his white shirt, splattered across his forearms and neck like some horrific piece of abstract art. There's a smear across his jaw that he hasn'twiped away, and every time I look at it, my vision blurs at the edges.
He's sitting with his elbows on the table, hands clasped in front of his mouth, staring at nothing.
His knuckles are split and bruised, and I don't know if that's from trying to save Xavier or from something else entirely.
He hasn't said a word since we sat down.
Not to me, anyway.
Jackie sits to my right, her dark hair pulled back in a severe bun that makes her sharp features even sharper. She's one of Xavier's most trusted lieutenants, a woman who could kill you with a look or a bullet, depending on her mood.
