"Long enough." I cross the room, trying to ignore the way Zay's eyes track my movement, the way they linger on the hickey barely hidden by the hoodie collar. I perch on the arm of the couch, maintaining distance. "Let me go back to the compound. Let me handle Johnson and George."
"No," Asher says immediately. Not loud. Not aggressive. Just flat refusal with the certainty of someone who's already made up his mind.
I turn to look at him, feeling last night's conversation echo in the space between us. The way he looked at me in the hallway. The way he saw through every deflection. "Why not?"
He holds my gaze. Says nothing. Just stares at me with those cold, assessing eyes that catalog every micro-expression, every tell, every lie I've told in the past month.
It pisses me off. The way he looks at me like I'm a problem to solve. A variable in an equation. A potential liability that needs to be managed or eliminated.
"I'm serious," I press, letting edge creep into my voice. "Give me one good reason why I can't go back."
"Because I said no," Asher replies, still not breaking eye contact. Still reading me like a book I don't want opened.
"That's not a reason."
"It's the only reason you're getting."
The tension in the room ratchets up several notches. Zay shifts in his seat, sensing the brewing confrontation. Xavier watches us both with that calculating expression I know too well—the one that means he's weighing options, running scenarios, deciding who to back.
"I ran that club for three weeks," I throw at Asher, anger bleeding hot and immediate into my voice. "Kept everything together while Xavier was in a coma. Johnson and George didn't try any of this shit when I was there. They respected me. They followed orders."
"Things have changed," Asher says, voice still flat. Infuriatingly calm.
"Then let me go change them back."
"No."
"Stop saying no without explaining why!" My voice rises despite my attempt to control it, echoes off the walls. "What aren't you telling me? What's the real reason you don't want me there?"
Asher's jaw tightens fractionally—the only sign I've gotten to him. But he still doesn't look away. Doesn't blink. Just holds that infuriating eye contact that makes me feel exposed, analyzed, dissected under a microscope.
Xavier clears his throat. "Asher's concerned about your safety."
"That's not—" Asher starts.
"It is," Xavier interrupts, voice firm with the authority he's been rebuilding. "And I get it. But Val has a point. Johnson respected her. So did most of the membership. They followed her leadership."
"That was before," Asher argues, finally breaking eye contact with me to look at Xavier. Relief and frustration war in my chest—relief that he's not staring through me anymore, frustration that he still won't explain what 'before' means.
"Before what?" I demand. "Before what, Asher?"
Nobody answers. The silence stretches, heavy and loaded with things nobody wants to say. Secrets stacking on top of secrets until the whole structure threatens to collapse.
"Let's vote," Xavier says finally, cutting through the tension. "That's how we do things. Democratic process."
"This isn't a democracy," Asher counters immediately. "This is a dictatorship with you at the top. You make the call."
"Then I'm making the call to vote." Xavier looks at each of us in turn—me, Zay, then Asher. His expression is unreadable but I can see the decision forming behind his eyes. "Zay?"
Zay has been quiet this whole time, watching me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle with awareness andsomething else I don't want to name. Things have been weird between us since that night in the kitchen. Since I tried to use sex to deflect. Since he pushed me away and called me out for weaponizing attraction.
He still looks at me like he's obsessed. Like I'm the only thing in the room that matters, the only thing he can see. But there's wariness layered over the obsession now. Distance. The knowledge that I'm hiding something, that I'm not the person he thought I was.
"She should go," he says finally, voice steady. "We need someone there who can actually control the situation without putting a gun in people's faces. Asher and I—we're holding things together with threats and violence. That's not sustainable long-term."
"Thank you," I say, meaning it.
"I'm not done," Zay continues, eyes locked on mine with that unnerving intensity. "You go, but you don't go alone. One of us goes with you. Non-negotiable."