CHAPTER 258

**ZION**

The den was too quiet. The kind of quiet that crawled under your skin and made every breath sound too loud.

Harry sat slouched forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like it might give him answers. 

Ro leaned against the far wall, thumb grazing the edge of his lighter, flick—click—flick—click—over and over, the rhythm restless. 

Clark was sunk deep into the couch, head tilted back, eyes half-closed but nowhere near sleep.

And me? 

I couldn’t sit still. 

Couldn’t breathe right. 

...

Every second stretched thin, humming with the images I wouldn't let myself dwell on. 

If I’d been a second slower, if my feet had slipped, if my breath had come a fraction later… the picture broke apart into a thousand brutal possibilities: 

Her eyes wide with fear, blood on the sheets, me collapsing over her and knowing I hadn’t been there when it counted. The thought shoved hot bile into my throat. It wasn’t just about failing to catch a man. It was the idea that I might have failed her.

The thought hits harder than any hit did.

I staggered to my feet before I knew I had decided to. 

The chair came up in my hands like a reflex and then everything narrowed to that one brutal motion — I hurled it across the room. 

It crashed into the wall with a rotten, splintering bark; shards skittered across the floor and a sliver nicked my knuckle, warm blood beading where the wood cut me.

The room jumped at the noise. 

Clark swore, Harry’s jaw tightened, Ro’s eyes went hard. 

For a beat, there was only the harsh sound of my breathing and the clock ticking at the edge of my hearing.

“Jesus, Z!” Clark barked, equal parts shocked and pissed-off,

“What the fuck, Z?!” he barked, half-standing, half-reaching like he couldn’t decide whether to grab me or duck for cover. 

“You trying to redecorate the den, or just test how far you can throw shit before it breaks?” he snapped, running a hand through his hair. 

“I had him—right there,” I snap, voice raw, hands trembling around the bandage.

“Fucking inches. I could smell him,” I spat out, the words shaking with fury. 

“He was right there, and I let him slip. I let him.” My fist tightens until my knuckles burn, the bandage smearing red again.

“I should’ve finished it. I should’ve shoved the knife straight through his chest, felt it hit bone, and been done with it. Instead, I hesitated—like some goddamn rookie. I nicked his arm, watched him bleed, and thought that was enough.”

My voice cracks into something uglier, sharper. 

“He walked away. He fucking walked away. I had one shot, one clean shot, and I blew it.”

I slam my fist into the table, the sound echoing through the den. 

“That’s on me. I handed him his life back, wrapped it in my mistake, and now he’s out there—breathing, planning, laughing. Because I didn’t finish it.”

My fists curl until the splinter in my knuckle sings. 

“Next time,” I grind out, voice low and cold as a blade, 

“There won’t be a next time for him.”

The words don’t come out like a promise — they’re an execution order I give myself. 

“I don’t care if I have to drag him from whatever hole he’s crawling in with my bare hands. I don’t care if I have to pull every filthy, lawless trick left to me. He picked the wrong house, the wrong girl, the wrong brother to fuck with.”

Heat and ice warred in my chest. The sentence bites out of me, sharp and absolute: 

“I’ll make him remember the night he picked Winter. I’ll make him pay in the one currency he can never buy back.”

My hands curl into fists until the nails press bone. 

“Next time,” I repeat, and there’s no room for hesitation in it, 

“I won’t maim him to teach him caution — I’ll end it. I’ll drive that blade so deep he can’t ever breathe again.”

Harry closed the gap in two long strides and grabbed my shoulders so hard my ribs rattled. He levelled me with a look that had no room for jokes — just cold, unblinking intent.

“Calm the fuck down and listen to me, Z,” he said, voice flat and dangerous. 

“I know what you feel. I’d burn him with you if I could. But you don’t get to be judge, jury, and executioner tonight. If you go out there with blood in your mouth, you hand that bastard the story he craves — a martyr’s legend. He becomes the ghost that wins. You become the man with a grave and no justice.”

He didn’t shout; he pressed each word into me like an order. 

“Wanting him dead is one thing. Wanting him busted — a name, proof, a cell that never opens — that’s how you win. I want him pacing behind bars, saying your name because he’s stuck, not because you knelt over him in the dirt, wondering if it was worth it.”

His thumbs dug into my shoulders, hard and steady. 

“We’ll get him. We’ll make sure he never breathes easy again. But we do it clean. We do it smart. You promise me that, or I’ll put you in a van and drive you somewhere you can’t cut your own throat trying to be a god.”

His thumbs dug into my collarbones as if to punctuate every word. The fury in his voice was sharp, but underneath it something raw and unadorned showed through: care without coddling.

“You’re my brother, Z — hell, all of you are; my fucking crew,” he said, each word a slab of granite. 

“We ride or die together. But I’m not burying you because you let rage steer the wheel."

His eyes were flat, dangerous in a different way—less fury, more iron.

“We will get him. We will break him. But we do it smart. We trap him. We don’t let him turn this into a martyr story. You want him broken? We’ll break him where it counts—rights, law, evidence. Alive. So he can rot in a cell and remember every time he breathes who made him pay.”

Ro stepped up beside him, calm as a scalpel.

“This isn’t drama, Z,” he said, voice flat and clinical. 

“You kill him in a dark alley and all you get is noise — headlines, sympathy, lawyers digging for a motive. He becomes a martyr and you become the villain. That’s not victory, it’s a story that ends with you in cuffs.”

He leaned in, eyes cold as steel. 

“We want him broken where it matters: fingerprints, phone records, DNA — a stack of evidence so high the judge can’t ignore it. We don’t want a body in the dirt. We want him in a cell, making collect calls, watching his life wither behind bars. That’s permanent. That’s the endgame. Let us build the trap. You don’t pull the trigger.”

Then, quieter, almost brotherly: 

“We’re tighter than he thinks. Let’s make sure he learns that the hard way.”

Ro’s gaze locked on mine, voice dropping until it was all dare and promise.

“He won’t know what hit him,” he said.

“We’re not four separate people out there — we’re one machine, forged from the same fights, the same blood and stupid jokes. We read each other without words; one moves, and the rest snap into place. When we close, there won’t be a seam to slip through — just the four of us, tight as a braided rope, and him in the middle with no way out.”

He rapped the table again, finally. 

“We’re not just friends, Z. We’re a unit. He tries to pick us apart, but he only tightens the knot. And that knot? It’s going to be the last thing he remembers.”

Clark came in close, steady as always. 

“We’ve all seen you fly off. We’ve all had to reel you back. We’re not saying don’t be angry—we’re saying use the anger, don’t let it use you. Think evidence. Think traps. Think patience. We’ll watch your back. 

You're not alone, Z. We’ve all dragged each other out of worse. You’re not doing this alone.” 

His voice had that flat, practical edge—he said the things that made plans possible. 

Fuck!

My crew..

The three of them—steady, immovable—were the rope pulling me back from a cliff I didn’t even know I’d stepped toward. Their words were the only thing that kept me from leaping.

“Fuck, Z.” Harry’s voice dropped, quiet and hard as a blade. 

"Cool your fucking head and turn that fire into a plan, or I’ll shove you in a fucking van and drive you somewhere you can’t get yourself killed.”

My chest hammers.

The anger wants to explode; the logic in his words claws at me and, god help me, I nod because they’re right. 

Rage is a weapon—only problem is, I’m the one holding it.

His eyes pinned me — no softness, no comfortable slack that usually let me slide off the hook. It was all steel and gravity, the look that meant business.

“Use the heat. Don’t let it use you. Turn it into focus. Evidence, not blood. We catch him alive, we break him — in court, where it counts. You want him destroyed? Fine. We do it so he never walks free.”

Clark stepped closer and slapped a hand against my shoulder — hard enough to bruise, soft enough to steady.

“You taught me to drive stick at midnight in a rainstorm,” he said, the old joke easing into something sharper.

“You pulled me out of a bar fight when I broke my hand. We’re family, not fans. So breathe. Let us do our part. You do yours.”

Ro’s mouth twists into that half-grin he only gets when he’s about to do something reckless with rules.

“Remember Morocco?” 

He jerks his chin, and the others shuffle forward, the memory filling the room for a second: the blown tyre, the men with knives, the four of us backed to back with nothing but a busted flashlight between us.

“You fell asleep on me when you got stitched up,” he says, mock accusation in his tone.

“I carried you the last mile.”

Harry snorts, but the laugh is real.

“And I still owe you for not letting me drive the getaway car that night. You’d have crashed us into a ditch and then made a speech about poetic justice.” He meets my eyes.

Clark shakes his head, a grin tugging at his lips despite the tension.

“And don’t forget the dorm fire freshman year. You two were stuck in that stairwell for what—an hour? Ro tried to hold the door shut, Harry was swinging a chair at a fire extinguisher like he knew kung fu, and you, Z—you were the one keeping us grounded, pushing past the smoke, lifting the weak spots so we all got out.”

I can still feel it—the heat of the smoke, the sting in our lungs, the pulse hammering in our veins, and the certainty that none of us would have left the others behind.

“We live and die together, Z,” Clark says, voice low and steady, every word carrying weight.

“You’ve always made sure of that. Don’t ever forget it.”

It’s not heroic speeches or movie moments.

It’s the unshakable, blood-and-bone kind of brotherhood — the kind that catches you when you fall, drags you through fire, and doesn’t ask questions.

Ro’s grip tightened on my forearm, steady and unyielding, his voice a quiet snarl that cut through the air.

“He went after your girl,” he said, eyes dark and blazing. 

"That’s not just an attack on her. That’s an attack on all of us."

His jaw flexed, the muscle ticking hard. 

“He thinks we’re just four guys with tempers and bad timing—but we’re a unit. A damn wall. One of us gets hit, the rest of us respond as one. He won’t even see it coming. He comes for one, he gets all of us. And when we move, we don’t miss.”

The room thrummed with a dangerous, electric heat—the kind of unshakable loyalty you don’t find in casual friends or weekend warriors. 

This was the kind of bond forged in fire, blood, and shared chaos—the kind that made you willing to go to hell and back without a second thought.

These were the ones who’d hold your vomit in a gutter and still drag you to the hospital. The ones who’d stand in the dark with guns and no questions asked. The ones who would burn the city down and make sure you walked away.

The fury in me didn’t die; it twisted, hard and hungry.

But their words cut through the roar. For a breath, I could feel the engine of rage shift into something colder—fixation rather than frenzy.

“Fine,” I ground out, jaw aching.

“We do it your way. For now. But I swear—next time I see him, I’m not playing nice.”

I let their words sink in. The heat in my chest steadied into something colder, sharper. 

Revenge could wait. 

For now, we’d plan. 

Together.

I exhaled, the tension in my chest loosening slightly, replaced by the heat of a brotherhood I could always count on.

“Let’s go make sure this bastard regrets the day he ever came here.”

....