Chapter 33 - The Placeholder

Zane woke chained to a chair. The room was windowless, soundless. A black site, off-grid, outside the law, buried in the guts of a condemned building that didn’t exist on any map. Concrete walls. Steel door. One light overhead, flickering just enough to unnerve.

His head lolled. Dried blood crusted at his temple. His thigh throbbed where the bullet had punched through. He remembered the dock. The ambush. Raven’s eyes that held a cold fire in them.

Footsteps approached. Not rushed. Not angry. Deliberate.

He smiled before the door even opened. “Let me guess,” he rasped. “No due process?”

The door creaked open. Jaxon stepped inside, all black, no words. Behind him, Raven.

She didn’t look at Zane. Her eyes were on Jaxon, on the tension in his shoulders, the fine tremble in his right hand, only visible if you knew what to look for, and she did, she saw it.

Zane chuckled. “Family reunion. You gonna scold me, big brother? Or let her do it?”

Jaxon closed the door. It echoed like a gunshot.

“I want locations,” Jaxon said his voice flat. “Warehouses. Names. Supply chains.”

Zane leaned back as far as the cuffs allowed. “You think I’m scared of you now? Because you interrupted one shipment?”

Jaxon didn’t answer. He pulled out a knife, long, curved, gleaming steel. Set it on the table beside Zane without a word.

Zane’s eyes flicked to it, but his grin didn’t falter.

“You always had a flair for the dramatic.”

Raven stepped forward, quiet as breath. “How many girls have you moved this year?”

Zane’s gaze slid to her. “You care now, pet?”

Her hand cracked across his face. His head snapped sideways, blood dotting his cheek where her ring had cut skin. She didn’t even blink.

“Don’t you ever call me that again,” she said, voice ice.

Zane’s laughter was hoarse. “You don’t even know who you are anymore. His girl? Our spy? A savior? Please. You’re nothing, Raven. Just another tool.”

Jaxon moved without warning. The punch was swift, clean. Zane’s nose exploded in red. He choked on it, sputtering, grinning through the blood.

“You’re so predictable,” he spat.

Jaxon wiped his knuckles, face unreadable. “And you’re stalling.”

Zane didn’t answer.

Raven crossed her arms, but her nails dug into her sleeves. Watching him wasn’t satisfying. It wasn’t vindicating. It was sickening.

“You tortured Talia,” she said quietly.

“She was a loose end,” Zane replied. “She knew better than to run.”

“You put a child in chains,” she snapped. “You let her rot.”

“She was being used for leverage. Same as you.”

Raven moved before she could think, shoving the table back, grabbing Zane’s collar. “Say my name again and I swear to God...”

He laughed in her face.

“She broke faster than you think, Jax. A week in that room and she was praying to be used. Like they all do. Eventually.”

Jaxon didn’t stop her this time when she backhanded him again, harder.

Blood sprayed the wall. Zane leaned back, lips split and smiling. “Still got some fight in her.”

“You’re going to give us everything,” Jaxon said. “Or I’ll cut it out of you. One word at a time.”

Zane turned toward him then, eyes narrowing. “You think killing me ends this? I’m the visible piece, brother. The mask. The real network? They’ll keep moving. With or without me.”

“We’ll burn them too,” Raven said. “After you.”

For the first time, something flickered in Zane’s face. Not fear. But calculation. A twitch of his jaw. A flicker of doubt.

“I want immunity,” he said suddenly. “I give you names, you let me go. Witness protection. A clean break.”

Jaxon smiled for the first time, the kind of smile you never want to see. It wasn't kind or even human. “You’re not walking out of here alive.”

Zane’s smile faltered. “I know about your alliances,” he said, desperate now. “About the military contracts. The black ops laundering. Eden isn’t just a sex club, it’s your vault.”

Jaxon stepped forward, crouching low so their faces were level. “You’re mistaken.”

“Am I?”

Jaxon leaned closer. “I stopped protecting you the day you put a collar on that girl.”

Zane’s mouth opened to reply, but Jaxon shoved something into it. A tracking chip.

Zane gagged.

“You’re bait now,” Jaxon said.

Raven stared. “What?”

Jaxon stood. “We leak his location. Quietly. Someone will come for him. Then we follow the trail.”

Zane choked, spitting blood and plastic. “You won’t make it out alive.”

Jaxon ignored him. Turned to Raven. “We’re done here.”

The silence in the car afterward was suffocating.

Jaxon drove with one hand. The other rested on the hilt of his knife, still stained with Zane’s blood. Raven stared out the window, her fingers twitching in her lap. She couldn’t stop seeing Talia. Couldn’t stop hearing Zane’s voice in her skull, slippery and venomous.

“He’s not wrong,” she said finally, voice flat.

Jaxon didn’t look at her. “About what?”

“I don’t know who I am anymore.”

He didn’t answer. The weight of everything sat between them, the raid, the warehouse, the chained girls, the truths Zane had twisted like knives. Raven wasn’t just shaken. She was cracked open, bleeding inside, unsure what pieces of herself were even worth saving.

By the time they reached the penthouse, her hands were shaking again. Not from fear, something deeper. Grief.

Jaxon didn’t speak as they entered. The guards outside saluted him like always, eyes flicking to Raven but asking no questions. Inside, the silence grew heavier. Denser.

Jaxon peeled off his coat. Blood soaked the sleeve where a stray bullet had grazed him.

“You’re hurt,” she said.

“I’ve had worse.”

She crossed the room and took his arm anyway, guiding him to sit. He let her, not resisting. The quiet between them wasn’t cold, it was raw.

She found the first-aid kit. Kneeling before him, she soaked a cloth in antiseptic and pressed it gently to the wound. He hissed softly but didn’t flinch.

“You didn’t tell me about the chip,” she said.

“You would’ve tried to stop me.”

“Because you’re playing a long game, and I’m still trying to win the short one.”

His eyes found hers. “You still think we’re on opposite sides?”

She looked down. Cleaned the blood from his forearm. “I don’t know what we are.”

His voice was low. “You chose to save Talia.”

“I couldn’t leave her.”

“You didn’t.”

“But I still lied to you,” she whispered. “Still went behind your back and played both sides.”

His hand closed around her wrist. “Stop.”

She looked up, tears burning now. Not from pain. From the accumulation of everything. “I don’t know how to come back from this,” she admitted.

“Neither do I.”

Silence again.

He watched her clean the wound, slow and meticulous. Her fingers trembled less with each pass. The intimacy of it wasn’t sexual, it was survival. A quiet tether in the aftermath of carnage.

“You shouldn’t have to carry this,” he said after a long moment.

“I do, because I let it go this far, because I wanted to believe I could live in the shadows and still pretend to be clean.”

Jaxon’s throat moved as he swallowed. “None of us are clean.”

She dabbed the last smear of blood from his skin. “Zane knew things he shouldn’t.”

“He’s been watching you for weeks.”

She froze. “What?”

Jaxon nodded. “I found surveillance photos. Not just at the club, at the café, the train station, even the newspaper’s back entrance.”

She went cold. “You knew?”

“Not until tonight. I hadn’t seen the file, but I suspected.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

He stared at her. “Because if I told you, you would’ve run.”

She looked down again, feeling the burn in her lungs. “I don’t know how to be in this with you,” she whispered. “Not when everything feels like a lie.”

Jaxon leaned forward, resting his forehead lightly against hers. His voice was gravel. “Then don’t lie. Start there.”

She closed her eyes. Let herself breathe, just for a second. Her hands still on his skin, cloth stained red in her palm.

Outside, the city pulsed like a wound.

Inside, they stayed in silence, not avoiding each other, not having the distance between them, but because of the weight, the weight of the war ahead and of everything unspoken between them. Of the blood that wouldn’t wash off, no matter how hard she scrubbed.