“We don’t know if your brother will react the way we want him to. He may decide while Xavier’s out to eradicate us just for thinking we could take you.” Asher crosses his arms over his chest, and looks me over. “And Zay is in love with you, so we can’t risk something happening to you.”
“Only Zay?” I question, my heart beating rapidly in my chest.
“I wouldn’t call what Xavier feels for you love, killer,” Asher scoffs.
“And you?”
Something dangerous edges into his gaze as he looks me over, before clearing his throat. “What about me, killer?”
“Am I only here for Zay and Xavier? You don’t have a reason for fighting for me to be leader, knowing you would do it better.” I take a small step forward, my eyes locked with his icy grey ones. I want to drown in them.
“I can’t admit anything to you right now, because Xav said that he felt--”
I arch a brow, moving closer. “Before he got shot?”
“Nothing,” Asher says, voice even, “what he feels is most important, and until Iknowhe will make it out of this coma, I will not admit to anything until I know for sure he’s okay.”
I blink. “He just wanted me to be at the bottom of the club, Ash. He didn’t want me, but you--.”
“Xavier’s an asshole,” Asher says. “But he’s not stupid. He wants you. But in order for him to come out of this coma and not find out you’re dead, you need to be protected, and it's easiest if you are in front of us, rather than behind.”
I don’t want to ask the next question, but it pushes its way out anyway. “What does sitting at the head of the table mean, exactly?”
“It means you walk into that breakfast room with me,” Asher says, nodding subtly toward the hallway where the smell ofbacon and burnt toast hangs in the air, “and you sit in Xavier’s chair in front of all of them—the council, the patched members, the prospects, the hang-arounds. And you make it clear you’re not terrified.”
“I’m not terrified,” I lie.
His smirks. “Then act like it.”
He doesn’t offer his arm or guide me with a hand at my back. He just falls into step beside me, half a stride behind, a silent shadow with a pulse. No fanfare, no announcement—just the murmur of voices drifting from the breakfast room as we approach.
The Raiders’ dining hall is a rough hybrid of ranch kitchen and hunting lodge: long scarred tables, mismatched chairs, metal trays steaming with eggs and bacon, the air thick with grease, coffee, and leftover beer. It’s crowded—leather cuts, denim, tattoos, women passing plates—though no kids. Not today.
Conversation falters the moment we appear. Heads turn. Eyes follow. Recognition flickers in a few faces, curiosity in others, judgment in all of them.
At the far end sits an empty high-backed chair, unmistakably Xavier’s—leather worn at the arm, floor scuffed where his boots always rested.
My stomach twists. My steps don’t slow.
Every eye tracks me as I move through the room, tension buzzing like a live wire. Raiders patches stare back—skulls, gears, wings—promising consequences. Beside me, Asher stays stone-still except for the way his gaze sweeps the room, marking threats. He never touches me, but his presence says enough.
We reach the head of the table, but before I can sit down, I feel it.
The impact hits my shoulder and side at the same time—wet, cold, and sticky. Something explodes against my upper arm, splattering across my Raiders shirt and up my cheek. Yellow and clear ooze drips down, trailing toward my jaw. The smell hits me a second later: sulfur and grease. Egg.
Someone threw a fucking egg at me.
A laugh bubbles up from somewhere down the table, quickly choked off. My cheek throbs where the shell must have caught skin. For half a heartbeat I just sit there and feel it slide down, viscous and disgusting, tickling my neck. A wash of humiliation flashes hot up my spine. Humiliation, followed immediately by white, clean rage.
Asher moves before I do.
His palm slams down on the table beside my plate with a crack that makes a few people jump. The sound cuts through the mutters like a gunshot. His gray eyes sweep the hall with a cold, even fury I haven’t seen on his face yet.
“Who threw that?” His voice isn’t loud, but it doesn’t have to be. The entire room is quiet enough to hear the way the words grind against each other.
No one answers. A prospect at the far end looks away too quickly, shoulders hunching. Someone coughs. Chair legs scrape. The egg continues its slow slide down my shirt, sticky and humiliating and irrelevant.
“I asked a question,” Asher says, straighter now, hands curling slightly. “Who threw it?”
