His hand slowly, very slowly, moves from the gun at his back.
He sets it on the table. Then the other one. The sound of metal on wood is loud in the small room.
Zay watches him with a careful stillness.
“This goes against every instinct I have,” Asher says. “Every single one.”
“I know,” I say. “That’s why you let me do it.”
“Not alone,” Zay cuts in. “No way.”
I look at him.
He meets my gaze without flinching. “I’m not letting you walk into that building and disappear. If you want to go in without making it a raid, fine. But I’m not staying here listening to the clock tick while you play diplomacy with people who’d skin you for fun.”
He’s not wrong. And he knows there’s a line I won’t cross with him. I need him alive. I need his brain outside, waiting.
“Asher will ride on his bike with me there,” I say. “He will stay hidden. If I’m not out in…” I calculate, fighting the urge to keep shaving the time down until it’s ridiculous. “Forty-five minutes, Ash will call you. We pull everyone.”
He doesn’t like that number. It’s obvious in the twist of his mouth, in the way his fingers drum against his thigh.
“Thirty,” he counters.
“Forty,” I say.
“Thirty-five or I hotwire a bike and bring the entire clubhouse on my back.”
“Thirty-five,” I agree.
Asher’s jaw ticks. “If anything feels wrong, you leave. You understand me?”
His intensity flares through me like another weapon in the room.
I nod.
“Keys,” I say to Zay.
He digs into his pocket and pulls out the ring, calloused fingers brushing my palm as he presses them into my hand. His eyes catch mine for a heartbeat—dark, steady, complicated.
“No heroics,” he murmurs.
“Too late,” I say.
I turn to leave.
Asher’s hand catches my wrist.
I stop.
He steps close, close enough that the air thickens, close enough that I can see the tiny scar on his cheekbone.
“Come back,” he says quietly. No edge. No command. Just a request that feels heavier than anything else that’s been said in this room. “No matter what you see. No matter what she says. Come. Back.”
“I will,” I say, and mean it in a way I haven’t meant many things.
He hesitates, like he wants to say more, to touch more, to drag me back and lock me in the basement. Then he lets go.
I leave before I can change my own mind.