"Gone," I finish. "Say it. She's gone."
He doesn't respond, just finishes wrapping my ribs with tight, secure passes of the gauze. When he's done, he sits back, studying his work. "You should rest. That needs time to heal."
"Rest." The word tastes bitter. "Yeah. Because everything's so fucking restful right now." I take another drink, longer this time. "Life is spectacular, Ash. Just spectacular. The Vipers are closing in, taking territory we can't defend. Our girl is across town staying God knows where, probably thinking we hate her. Andmy cousin—my best friend—is upstairs drinking himself to death and smelling like piss because he'd rather destroy himself than admit he made a mistake."
Asher's expression doesn't change, but I see the tightening around his eyes. "He's in pain?—"
"We're all in pain!" The words come out louder than I intended, echoing off the kitchen walls. "We're all fucking suffering, Asher. But the rest of us are still showing up. Still doing the work. Still trying to hold this together while he wallows."
"It's only been a few months?—"
"It has been four months. Four fucking months of leaving us to run everything while he drinks and feels sorry for himself." I set the whiskey bottle down hard enough that it cracks against the table. "I almost died tonight. Almost left a fucking crater in an alley because we don't have backup, don't have support, don't have a functional president leading this club."
Asher stands, starts cleaning up the medical supplies. "What do you want to do?"
"I want him to get his shit together." I push myself up, ignoring the pull in my side. "I want him to stop being a coward and fix this."
"Zay—"
"No." I'm already moving toward the stairs, whiskey bottle in hand. "Something has to give. I have to be a man somewhere, and if that means dragging Xavier out of whatever hole he's dug himself into, then that's what I'm doing."
I take the stairs two at a time despite the screaming in my ribs, fury burning hotter than the pain. Xavier's door has rarely beenopened since he kicked out Valentina, and the rest of us pick up the pieces of what he shattered.
I don't knock.
The door slams open and the smell hits me immediately—bourbon, stale sweat, the particular funk of someone who hasn't showered or changed clothes or done anything except drink and spiral. Xavier's on the bed, passed out on top of the covers, empty bottles scattered across the nightstand and floor like a fucking monument to self-destruction.
I throw the whiskey bottle.
Not at him—I'm pissed, not trying to kill him—but close enough that it shatters against the wall above his head, showering him with glass and liquid and the sharp crash of sound that jolts him awake with a strangled gasp.
"What the fuck—" He jerks upright, disoriented, eyes wild until they focus on me in the doorway.
"Get up," I say, voice flat and cold.
"Zay, what?—"
"Get. Up." I step into the room, glass crunching under my boots. "Something has to give, Xavier. Right fucking now. Something has to give."
He blinks, trying to process through the alcohol fog. "It's the middle of the night?—"
"I don't give a shit what time it is." I cross to the bed, grab the front of his shirt—the same shirt he's been wearing for at least a week straight—and haul him up with more force than necessary. "I just got back from a shootout with the Vipers. They almostkilled me. Would have killed me if I hadn't gotten lucky. And you know what I kept thinking while bullets were tearing through brick inches from my head?"
He doesn't answer, just stares at me with bloodshot eyes.
"I kept thinking that if I died tonight, my last conversation with you would be me defending Valentina while you called her a liar and kicked her out." I shove him back against the headboard. "I kept thinking that the last thing I'd remember about my best friend, my brother, is him being a fucking coward."
"Don't—" He tries to push my hands away but he's weak from drinking, from not eating, from months of doing nothing but destroy himself.
"Don't what? Call you a coward?" I lean in close enough to smell the bourbon on his breath. "That's what you are, Xavier. You're scared of how much you love her, scared of how badly she hurt you, so you're hiding in a bottle instead of fixing it."
"She lied?—"
"She was terrified!" I roar it, and somewhere in the back of my mind I register that my side is bleeding again, that Asher's careful bandaging is coming undone, but I don't care. "She was scared of exactly what you did to her! And instead of proving her wrong, instead of showing her that you could handle the truth, you proved her right. You destroyed her in front of seventy people and then you came here to drink yourself to death while the rest of us try to keep everything from falling apart."
"You don't understand—" He's fighting now, trying to get leverage, trying to push me off.
Good. I want him to fight.