Chapter 24 - Double Blind

Jaxon didn’t speak for a long time after Raven’s confession. He just sat there at the edge of the bed, his thumb brushing against her knuckles where the soft restraints still held her, not in punishment, but protection. She’d stopped crying, but the silence between them buzzed like static, thick with all the things they hadn’t yet said.

Finally, he broke it. “What exactly does Zane have on you?”

Raven blinked slowly, the words catching like glass in her throat. “I told you, he dug up Gabe’s grave. He’s threatening to expose everything.”

“That’s not specific enough,” Jaxon said, voice low but controlled. “What does he think he’s holding over your head?”

She swallowed hard. “He knows about the files. About my investigation. About… about my brother. He mentioned Gabe’s addiction, my failure to stop it. Said he could paint it like I was part of it, feeding him pills, neglecting him.”

“That’s a stretch,” Jaxon muttered.

“He doesn’t need truth,” Raven said. “He just needs enough dirt to cloud everything, add in my affair with my old editor."

Jaxon’s head snapped up.

Raven winced. “It was years ago, but it wasn’t what everyone made it out to be. My boss, the Editor, he came on to me sexually, office harassment. I wanted to leave the paper. I couldn't stand being in the same room as my boss. A new intern started there. She saw everything, he'd tried with her too. He wad later fired. I left the newspaper, but they asked me to come back. Zane’s twisting it into something scandalous. Like I slept my way into stories.”

Jaxon’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t interrupt.

“And then,” she said shakily, “he said he could make it look like I’m trafficking info for a rival family. Frame me. Wreck what little name I have left. And you.”

“I can handle my reputation,” Jaxon said. “I don’t care what he says about me.”

“I do,” Raven snapped. “He won’t stop at you. He’ll come for everyone I care about. He already has.”

Her voice cracked on the last word. Jaxon reached up, unbuckled the restraints slowly, and pulled her into his arms.

“We’ll burn him down together, baby,” he whispered into her hair. “But we have to be smart.”

That was the first time he had used a pet name for her. Calling her baby.

By morning, they were no longer speaking like strangers. The tension hadn’t vanished, but it had shifted. Solidified into something grim, forged in shared stakes and deeper truths. Raven ate a real breakfast. Jaxon paced his office, giving orders into encrypted phones.

When he returned, she was already dressed, jeans and a fitted blouse replacing silk and stilettos. Her hair in a tight braid. No makeup. She looked like the version of herself she hadn’t seen in weeks, the journalist, the fighter.

“I need to go back,” she said without preamble.

“To Club Eden?” His brow furrowed. “You’re staying here. We agreed.”

“We didn’t agree,” she cut in. “You decided.”

His eyes narrowed. “And I’m deciding to keep you alive.”

“My friend works there,” she said, voice trembling. “She doesn’t know anything, but she’s close enough to me that she’s in danger now. I have to make sure she’s okay.”

Jaxon studied her, calculating. Then: “You think he’ll make a move on her?”

“I think he already has,” Raven said. “Someone left a warning in her locker. She hasn’t said much, but she’s spooked.”

Jaxon turned to the window, jaw tight. “You go back, you’ll be watched.”

“I already am.”

“You’ll follow my rules.”

“You don’t own me.”

“No,” he said, voice soft but steely, “but I love you. So I’ll die before I let Zane touch you again.”

That stunned her into silence. "Wait! What? Did he just admit he loves me?" But she didn't dare ask him to repeat what he had just said.

He didn’t press it. Just looked away. “If you’re going in, I’m setting up surveillance. The club already has eyes, but I’ll reroute the feeds. Only Victor and I will monitor.”

“And Dante?” she asked.

“I don’t trust him,” Jaxon admitted. “I’ve started using off-the-books informants. Background checks, financials. He’s hiding something. I’ll find it.”

“Then we do this together?” she asked.

He hesitated. “We do it… in parallel.”

That stung more than it should have, but Raven understood.

Club Eden gleamed that night, as always, but to Raven, it felt different. Sharper. Like stepping into a lion’s den with blood on her skin.

The air pulsed with music, lights dimmed just enough to disorient, just enough to distract. The dancers moved like shadows, the clients prowled like wolves, and Raven moved through it all like a ghost in black.

She checked in with her friend, Amara, who tried to play it cool, but was visibly rattled. Someone had left a note in her locker that read: Tell the reporter to stop digging, or you’ll end up in the dirt next to her brother.

Raven’s stomach churned.

Amara hadn’t connected the dots, hadn’t realized Raven was the reporter, but it was only a matter of time.

She scanned the club from behind the bar, pretending to inventory bottles while actually watching the security staff. One of the new guards had a tattoo she recognized from her earlier research, an emblem linked to a shell company tied to arms deals.

Something deeper was threading beneath the usual depravity. Something organized. International.

She moved toward the office wing, careful not to draw attention. Jaxon had promised surveillance, but she didn’t trust anyone not to have blind spots.

At one point, she felt it, the familiar prickle at the back of her neck. Watching eyes.

Was it Zane? Not likely but it was someone.

Dante passed her in the hallway, all charm and empty menace. “Didn’t think you’d show your face again,” he said smoothly.

“Didn’t think you cared,” Raven answered flatly.

He smiled. “I always care about the boss’s pet projects.”

She kept walking, but something about his tone stayed with her.

Later that night, she slipped into the stairwell, followed a back corridor, and took the service exit. There were whispers of another drop, something big. Unscheduled. Off the Eden books.

She’d planted a listening device in Dante’s office earlier that week. Now, with her phone to her ear, she heard static… then his voice.

“…shipment’s late. We’ll do the exchange in the old foundry, southeast district. Tell them to bring the girls quiet.”

Raven’s heart stopped.

She didn’t wait. She texted Jaxon immediately: Found something. Following Dante. Will update.

His reply was instant: Raven, do NOT go in alone. Wait for backup.

But she was already in motion. She couldn’t risk them slipping away.

She tailed Dante’s car in a borrowed club vehicle, headlights off, heart racing. He didn’t notice her. The city peeled away until they reached the rusted skeleton of an abandoned foundry. No lights. Just shadows and the soft sound of tires on cracked concrete.

She parked, slipped out, and moved closer on foot.

What she saw chilled her.

Two vans,a few armed men and three young girls, maybe seventeen. They were drugged or terrified. Dante was at the center, counting crates of something she couldn’t identify. A buyer argued with him in clipped Russian.

Guns. Drugs. And girls. This had nothing to do with Club Eden’s operations. This was something darker. Something outsourced.

Zane’s side business perhaps.

Raven stepped closer, behind a stack of crates, heart hammering. She raised her phone to take a picture, when she heard the noise.