Chapter 26 - The Trap Snaps

“I can’t lose myself… I can’t lose you.” Those words had slipped from Raven’s lips like a secret she hadn’t meant to confess. Her voice cracked as she clung to him, breathless, spent, and trembling beneath the aftershocks of pain and pleasure.

Jaxon didn’t respond right away. His breath was ragged, forehead pressed to hers. For a moment, they were just skin and heat and confusion. Then he gently pulled away, rolling onto his back, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

The silence stretched.

Raven stared at him, her chest tight. “Say something.”

He didn’t look at her. “I need to take care of something.”

“Jaxon...”

But he was already getting up, throwing on a black shirt, pants and his watch. The cold was back in his face, the mask sliding into place with precision. She’d broken during that scene, cracked wide open, and she knew he had felt it too, but now he was locking it all away again.

Before she could ask what was happening, he kissed her once, softly, almost apologetic.

“Stay here.”

Then he was gone.

Jaxon waited in a church. Empty, except for the dust and candle smoke that still lingered in the corners. Stained glass cast fractured color over the stone floor.

Zane arrived ten minutes late. Of course.

He strolled up the aisle like he owned it, dressed in an ash-gray suit and devil’s grin. “Took you long enough to call a meeting, big brother. Starting to think you’d forgotten how this works.”

Jaxon didn’t smile. “We’re not here to reminisce.”

“No, we’re here to dance.” Zane’s voice echoed in the chapel. “You call me out here in the middle of the night, not even through the usual channels. That’s dangerous, Jax. Makes me think you’re getting desperate.”

Jaxon remained still. “You’ve been sloppy. Trafficking routes outside the Eden system. Girls going missing. Raven saw one of them.”

Zane’s grin slipped slightly, then returned. “Oh, Raven’s doing recon again? Cute.”

“I’m giving you one chance,” Jaxon said, voice like stone. “Pull back. Stop using my club as your hunting ground. Shut down your side business before it becomes mine.”

Zane’s expression sharpened. “Still playing the anti-hero, are we? The Don with boundaries.”

Jaxon didn’t move. “You know I don’t bluff.”

Zane stepped closer. “Neither do I.”

From his jacket, he pulled out a photograph. It fluttered to the floor between them.

Talia. Bound to a chair. Eyes swollen. Lip split. Alive, but only just.

“I told Raven she was in too deep,” Zane said softly. “But you never were great at listening to warnings, were you?”

Jaxon stared at the photo, but didn’t pick it up.

“She’s mine now,” Zane went on. “And if you so much as breathe in my direction again, I’ll start sending her back to you in pieces. A fingertip first, maybe. One of those pretty ballerina ankles next.”

“You touch her...”

Zane raised a hand. “You think this is about touch? No, brother, this is leverage. You don’t move, I don’t move. You push again, I’ll make Raven watch.”

The fury inside Jaxon was volcanic, restrained only by centuries of family training in the art of cold war.

“I’ll be seeing you soon,” Zane said, turning. “Or maybe I won’t. That depends on how smart you decide to be.”

He disappeared through the church doors, leaving only silence, and the photo.

Jaxon stared down at it, the weight of failure pressing against his spine.

He didn’t speak on the drive back.

Victor sat in the front, silent, watching Jaxon through the rearview mirror. No one asked what had happened. The tension in the car was answer enough.

When they reached the penthouse, Raven was waiting, hair damp from a shower, wrapped in one of his robes. She looked up from the sofa the moment he entered.

“Where were you?” she asked softly.

Jaxon didn’t answer. He walked past her, straight to the bar. Poured himself a glass of scotch, drank it in one swallow.

“Jaxon?” She crossed the room, eyes searching his face. “Talk to me. Please.”

He didn’t look at her. “It’s handled.”

She reached for him anyway, palms against his chest. “You’re shaking.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You are,” she whispered. “Whatever he said, whatever Zane did…”

That made him snap. “DON'T say his name.”

Her hands dropped. “You went to see him.”

“I had to.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

He looked at her finally, and something in his eyes, something broken,made her go still.

“He has Talia.”

Raven staggered back like she’d been slapped. “No… you promised she was safe."

"She was till he took her. She’s alive, for now.” His jaw clenched. “But he’s using her as leverage to keep me in line, to keep you obedient.”

Her stomach turned. “Oh my god.”

“I should’ve seen it coming. I let my guard down.”

“No. You didn’t. He’s a monster. You..." She stopped, voice breaking.

They stood in the center of all that luxury, surrounded by too many walls, too many secrets.

He looked at her. Really looked. “You knew something, didn’t you?”

She hesitated. “That night, at the gala, and after. You knew he was watching you. You knew he was in your ear.”

“Jaxon…”

His voice dropped. “You lied to me.”

“I was trying to protect her...”

“And yourself.”

Tears welled. “I didn’t know what to do. He said if I told you, he’d hurt her. I couldn’t...”

He stepped back.

Raven’s arms wrapped around herself. “I thought I could fix it without dragging you in deeper.”

“You don’t fix men like Zane, Raven,” Jaxon said darkly. “You survive them and that only happens when we move together. You should’ve trusted me.”

She stepped forward, trembling. “Then trust me now.”

They stared at each other, pain between them like an open wound.

“I love you,” she said quietly. “I didn’t want to. I fought it, but I do.”

Jaxon looked down. His voice was almost too soft to hear. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

She reached up, touched his face. “Then remind me.”

They didn’t play roles that night. There were no rules. No safe words. No titles. Just skin, need, and exhaustion.

They stripped each other in silence, bruises kissed, tears mingled with sweat. It wasn’t dominance or surrender, it was desperation. Their bodies collided like war, like absolution, like two people clinging to each other in the dark.

Jaxon kissed her like he was trying to erase the world. Raven held him like he was the only thing keeping her from falling apart. When it was over, they lay tangled in the sheets, his heartbeat echoing against her back.

She whispered into the silence, “We’ll get her back.”

Jaxon didn’t answer, but his hand found hers beneath the covers and held it tightly.

Later, when she was asleep, he moved silently. He slipped out of bed, retrieved her purse from the hallway bench. From a drawer in the closet, he pulled a small, black disc, thin, silent, nearly invisible. A tracker.

He tucked it in a seam of her bag where she’d never notice. When he returned to the bedroom, she hadn’t stirred.

He stood at the foot of the bed and watched her. “I don’t know how to protect you,” he said quietly, he heart saddened, in a way. “So I’ll watch you instead.”

And then he slipped beneath the covers once more, wrapping an arm around her waist like armor.