Elijah
The warehouse is already alive when I arrive.
Engines ticking as they cool, low voices carrying across the open space, the metallic scent of oil and steel mixing with something sharper underneath it, something familiar enough that my body registers it before my mind does.
Men.
A lot of them.
Christian’s.
Spread out across the perimeter, inside, near the loading bays, positioned in a way that isn’t random, isn’t casual, each one placed with intent, each one watching.
And when I step inside, it changes.
The noise doesn’t stop completely, but it shifts, drops a fraction lower, like something has been pressed down, like a current has moved through the room and altered it without anyone needing to say a word.
I feel it.
The weight of their attention. The way their eyes follow me as I walk past. Not openly. Not disrespectfully. But enough. Enough that it’s noticeable. Enough that it doesn’t sit right.
My gaze flicks across a few of them as I move deeper inside, catching the way a couple of them look away a little too quickly, the way another mutters something under his breath to the man beside him.
What the fuck. I don’t slow down. I don’t acknowledge it. But I clock it. Store it.
By the time I reach Christian and Lucian, irritation is already sitting under my skin.
“What’s wrong with everyone?” I ask flatly, my eyes moving between them.
Lucian looks amused. That slight tilt of his mouth like he’s already enjoying this. Christian doesn’t say anything. He just watches.
“You’ve earned yourself a reputation,” Lucian says.
I frown.
“What does that mean?”
His amusement deepens.
“The guys have given you a nickname.”
A beat. I don’t react immediately.
“What nickname?”
“The Butcher,” he says easily. “The Bellandi Butcher, to be exact.”
My jaw tightens.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
Lucian lifts a shoulder, completely unbothered.
“The men who were there when you handled Paul have been talking.”
I look at both of them now.
“And you didn’t think to shut that down?”
