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Home / Romance / Raven's MC Series; Marlowe & Torin -Book One of the series / Chapter 101 - Chapter 110

All Chapters of Raven's MC Series; Marlowe & Torin -Book One of the series: Chapter 101 - Chapter 110

134 Chapters

Chapter 101

~ROOK~I hated patterns. Patterns meant someone thought they were smarter than you. Patterns meant the same type of man had done the same type of harm enough times to trust his own arrogance. Patterns meant he expected you to react the way everyone else always did.The man Stevie flagged didn’t break any rules. Paid cash. No colors. No threats. No weapons visible. Which meant he was either clean or confident enough not to care. Neither option sat well.I moved through the room like I was checking on the bar, because that’s what everyone needed to believe. I adjusted a chair. Picked up a napkin. Stepped around bodies like I belonged to the flow of the place instead of controlling it. But my eyes were doing something else entirely. Angles. Faces. Exits. Hands.People in clubs telegraph themselves. Drunks get sloppy. Predators get bold. The ones that worried me were the ones who stayed controlled in a room built to loosen control.Reif stayed where I told him, perched on that stool near t

Chapter 102

~MARLOWE~Something in the air shifted around ten thirty. Not dramatic. Not obvious. But the laughter grew sharper. The music felt louder than necessary. People moved closer together without meaning to, like the room itself was shrinking. Like the walls wanted to press in and listen.My body noticed before my mind admitted it. The skin at the back of my neck tightened. My shoulders wanted to lift. My hands wanted to hide. Old instincts. Old training.I caught Stevie’s eye across the floor. She was leaning against the rail like she belonged there, one leg bent, posture casual. Her expression wasn’t.She lifted one finger slightly. One. Then she glanced toward the exit.I followed her line of sight and felt it settle in my chest like a stone. Another man.Different face. Same posture. Same stillness. Same way of watching the room like it was a map.He wasn't here for drinks. He was counting.I set a glass down and wiped my hands on a towel, forcing myself to breathe. My body wanted to cu

Chapter 103

~TORIN~I broke protocol the second I saw the message. No hesitation. No debate. Just a clean pivot from mission to home, like some part of me had been waiting for the excuse. The op wasn’t finished. Burdock hadn’t cleared us to disengage. Surgeon was still wrist-deep in satellite chatter, eyes locked on a tablet like the screen could bleed answers if he stared hard enough. Pattycake was running overwatch like he’d been born fused to a scope, body still, mind ruthless.But the name on my phone burned hotter than any red alert. Marlowe. Ravens. Tonight.My pulse hit my throat. My hands went cold. That wasn’t fear. Not exactly. Fear made you hesitate. This was something cleaner. An instinct sharpened to a point.I stripped my headset off and shoved it into Burdock’s chest. “I’m out,” I said, keeping my voice flat even as everything inside me went feral.Burdock caught it without flinching, his eyes narrowing. “We’re not done,” he replied, voice steady, commander-calm.“I am,” I said, alr

Chapter 104

~REIF~I knew I wasn’t supposed to move. Rook had said it like a command. Torin hadn’t needed to, he’d given me that slow, pointed look that meant he was already tired of me before I did anything stupid. Everyone treated me like I was glass wrapped in barbed wire. Too young to trust. Too sharp to ignore.So naturally, my brain kept doing what it did best. Seeing the angles nobody else had time to see.The club was louder than it looked from the outside. It always was. The bass hit my ribs and made my heartbeat feel like part of the music. Bodies moved. Laughter rose. The air smelled like oil and sweat and beer, but underneath all of it was something I couldn’t name.Marlowe had been near the counter. I’d watched Torin arrive and the whole place shifted around him like gravity had stepped into the room. Even I’d felt it. The way people straightened. The way men stopped leaning and stood up. The way women tracked him without meaning to.But my eyes hadn’t been on Torin. They’d been on th

Chapter 105

~STEVIE~By the time the door locked, The Ravens Head felt different. Not safer. Sharpened. Like someone had taken a blade and honed it until it could cut air.I leaned against the counter rail as I watched Torin move through the space like he’d never left. People made room without realizing why. Men straightened. Women watched him like storms you respected from a distance. Not because he demanded attention. Because he carried consequence.Marlowe stayed close to him. Not clinging. Anchored.That distinction mattered. I’d seen women cling. I’d seen them attach themselves to a man like survival depended on it. Marlowe didn’t do that. She stood beside him like she had her own spine, and the choice to walk away if he ever gave her a reason. I raised an eyebrow. Interesting.Rook gave orders without raising his voice, shifting bodies, redirecting movement, controlling exits like he was rearranging furniture instead of people, before moving behind the counter with practiced ease, locking th

Chapter 106

~ROOK~My phone vibrated once against the edge of the bar. I didn’t let it buzz again.I answered immediately and stepped into the office, shutting the door behind me with deliberate care. The music outside thudded through the walls, bass heavy enough to vibrate the floor, but in here the air felt different. Thinner. Sharper. Like the room itself knew it was meant for decisions that didn’t get undone.I leaned against the wall and brought the camera feeds up on the monitor, eyes sweeping through the grainy angles on instinct. Entrance. Bar. Dance floor. Back hallway. Alley. Roofline. The feeds never told you everything, but they told you patterns if you paid attention.“Talk,” I said quietly.“You confirmed eyes on her,” Burdock replied. No greeting. No lead-in.“Yes,” I answered.My gaze paused on the feed showing Marlowe beside Torin near the bar. Her hand rested lightly at his back, not gripping, not clinging. Anchoring. Like she’d decided where she stood in the world and dared anyo

Chapter 107

~MARLOWE~The Ravens Head didn’t feel like a bar anymore. It felt like a holding pattern before impact, like the air had tightened around the building and nobody wanted to be the first to inhale too deep. The music still thumped. The lights still flashed. Bodies still moved. But it was all surface. Underneath, everything had edges.Torin stayed close without hovering, his presence a steady pressure at my back as if the room itself bent slightly around him. Every instinct I once cataloged as danger now registered him as structure. As the kind of line you could brace against in a storm and not get swept.I didn’t cling. I didn’t shrink. I stood at the counter with my hands on the wood, shoulders squared, eyes tracking the room with a calm that felt borrowed from him. Or maybe it wasn’t borrowed anymore. Maybe it was mine.Jess had entered the Ravens Head fifteen minutes earlier, immediately briefed by Rook. Now he shut the office door and locked it. The click sounded too sharp, like punc

Chapter 108

~TORIN~Burdock didn’t waste words.“Deploying at oh-six hundred,” he said through the secure line. The connection crackled faintly, but his voice was clear, clean, the kind of calm that came from living inside crisis long enough to make it routine. “Three-day window. Hard break.”I sat on the edge of the bed in the back room of the Ravens, phone pressed to my ear, my free hand tightening around my knee until I felt the joint protest. “Copy,” I replied, keeping my tone even.“And Torin,” Burdock added, and the way he said my name meant he wasn’t wearing his commander voice. He was wearing the one that had kept men alive. “You don’t get to split yourself.”I closed my eyes briefly, breath slow. “I won’t,” I said, because I knew what he meant.“That wasn’t a request,” he replied, his voice sharpening like a blade being tested.“I know,” I said again, and I meant it.Silence stretched, heavy with years of command and consequence. I could hear faint movement behind Burdock, gear shifting,

Chapter 109

~REIF~They started watching me different. Not obvious. Worse.Obvious meant you could name it. Obvious meant you could fight it or dodge it or at least get angry at it. This was subtle, quiet, and constant. Torin checked in more. Rook didn’t let me leave alone.I sat on the back steps of the Ravens, phone balanced on my knee, pretending to scroll. The screen glowed against my fingers, but I wasn’t reading anything. I was watching reflections in the glass of the back door. Watching the street behind me without turning my head.Someone had been across the street for ten minutes.Didn’t move. Didn’t smoke. Didn’t look bored. Didn’t check his phone like normal people did when time dragged.Professional.My stomach tightened, and I forced myself to keep my breathing slow. If I looked scared, it was information. If I looked careless, it was opportunity.I didn’t want to give them either.Stevie stepped out beside me like she belonged to the night air, lighting a cigarette she didn’t actuall

Chapter 110

~STEVIE~I didn’t follow Reif.That was the point.If you follow a kid who’s trying to disappear, you turn him into a trail. You make him easier to track. You give the hunter a straight line to run and a reason to speed up.So I stayed.I stayed on the back steps where the concrete still held the day’s heat and the air smelled like wet asphalt, cigarettes, and the low, oily tang of the club’s exhaust. I leaned against the railing and let the night paint me into something forgettable. Just a dancer stepping out for air. Just another girl with a jacket pulled tight and a bored face and no idea what real danger looked like.My pulse disagreed.It beat hard and fast under my ribs, every instinct stretched thin and humming. I kept my breathing slow anyway. Even. Calm was a performance, and I was very good at those.The man reached the steps and stopped short when he saw me alone. His eyes flicked behind me first, quick and sharp, like he expected movement. Like he expected the kid to come t

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