Chapter 10 - First Blood

It was supposed to be a normal night. As normal as a night could be inside Club Eden, where sex and money and power danced together like smoke. Raven had gotten used to the tension, used to walking through velvet-draped corridors with Jaxon’s voice in her head and Zane’s shadow just behind her heels, but nothing about tonight would end normally.

And it started with a scream.

She was on the mezzanine level when it happened, reviewing floor rosters in the main office. She heard it before she saw it, high, sharp, a woman’s scream that cracked like glass and tore through the throb of the music. Then came the sound of bodies colliding. A crash. Yelling.

Raven bolted for the balcony railing.

Below, chaos. Two men, big, inked, furious, were fighting in the center of the main floor. Bottles smashed. A table overturned. One of the servers ducked behind the bar as glass shattered inches from her head.

Security rushed in, but they hesitated, because these weren’t regular guests. These men weren’t drunk socialites or high-rolling gamblers. They were marked, tattoos up their necks, patches on their jackets, the kind that told a story Raven didn’t yet know but had seen in crime scene photos.

Gang-affiliated.Heavily. And Eden was neutral ground. Until tonight.

Raven darted down the back stairs, pushing through dancers and servers, weaving toward the fray just as one man slammed the other into a mirrored wall. Blood sprayed. It hit the tile like paint.

Victor was already shouting, trying to corral the bouncers.

And then, Jaxon appeared. He didn’t yell. Didn’t run. He just walked into the chaos, calm as a cathedral, his black suit immaculate, expression cold.

The room reacted like gravity shifted. The fighters froze. The bouncers stopped. Even the music cut out, as if the DJ felt the shift in the air from two floors away.

Jaxon stepped between the men and looked at each with quiet disgust.

“You bleed on my floors,” he said, voice low, “and I start collecting interest.”

Neither man moved.

“You want to die in a fucking nightclub?” he asked. “Because that’s what this is. A grave disguised as a dance floor.”

He snapped his fingers once. Victor moved like a blade, quick, precise, with three more men behind him. The first gang member went down with a crack of a baton. The second reached for something in his waistband. Jaxon drew his weapon first. No hesitation. A matte-black pistol, clean and silent, pointed directly at the man’s skull.

Raven’s breath stopped.

“Do it,” Jaxon said, voice like steel. “Give me an excuse.”

The man didn’t move. Smart choice. Jaxon lowered the gun slowly and nodded once.

“Take them out the back,” he told Victor. “Call Anson. Make it clean.”

The men were dragged out like trash, bloody and broken, and Eden held its breath. Then the music resumed. The illusion restored.

But not for Raven.

Back upstairs, Jaxon washed his hands. He didn’t speak as she hovered near the door of his office.

Finally, he said, “You came down.”

“I heard the fight.”

“You should’ve stayed out of it.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“You should be.”

He turned to her, drying his hands on a black towel. His shirt sleeves were rolled. Blood spatter speckled one cuff.

“You carry a gun?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Start.”

“I don’t want to shoot anyone.”

“No one wants to, but sometimes it’s not about want, it’s about survival.”

She stepped closer. “They were gang. You knew them?”

“Rival syndicate. Russian ties. They’ve been testing our boundaries for months. That was their message.”

“And your response?”

His smile was cold. “Already delivered.”

She exhaled. “This isn’t just a club.”

“No,” he said softly. “It’s a chessboard and tonight was a warning shot.”

He walked to her, brushed a blood-stained finger across her wrist. “You think I’m brutal, Raven? You haven’t seen what comes for kings when the board flips.”

“I’m not scared of kings.”

“No,” he murmured. “But you should be scared of their enemies.”

Later that night, Raven sat in the back hallway of the dressing rooms, her heart still racing. She felt the weight of the gun Jaxon gave her now strapped beneath her coat. Slim. Matte black. Loaded.

Her hands still shook, she wasn’t made for violence. Not like that. Not yet.

Talia slid down beside her, lit a cigarette, and offered a drag. “You good?”

“No.”

“Fair.”

They sat in silence for a minute. Then Talia said, “You know what makes Jaxon so dangerous?”

Raven looked over.

“He doesn’t kill because he wants to,” Talia said. “He kills because he thinks it’s necessary and when you believe that, when you believe it’s your duty to punish people, then you’re worse than the monsters who do it for fun.”

“You’re scared of him.”

“I respect him,” Talia corrected. “But I know what happens when respect turns to worship. Ask the girls who never came back.”

Raven looked down at her hands. “It wasn’t Jaxon who started the fight.”

“No, but it’ll be Jaxon who finishes the war.”

Hours later, unable to sleep, Raven opened her journal: Tonight I saw what real power looks like. It wasn't r age, or chaos, it wasn't even violence. It was control. He walked into bloodshed and made the world stop spinning and I didn’t look away I looked straight at him and God help me, but I wanted him more.”

She closed the journal. Walked to the window. Watched the city hum beneath her.

Somewhere below, men were cleaning blood off Eden’s floors.

And somewhere even lower, Jaxon Morreau’s enemies were bleeding for real.

She touched the strap of the gun beneath her coat and for the first time, she didn’t feel like prey.

She felt like a queen.