Private Welcome back to the fire Pt.1

[Sommer Dai]

Sommer gripped his jacket and shoved him against the wall. His mouth crashed into hers like violence wrapped in need. It wasn't sweet. It wasn't soft. It was war.

Hands pulling. Teeth clashing. Breath shared like stolen credits.

Regret coiled behind every touch, but neither of them stopped.

Not until she pulled back, breathing hard, lips flushed, voice wrecked.

"This changes nothing."

Jakob nodded. "I know."

He stepped away, fixing his collar. A ghost of a smirk on his face, but no triumph.

He reached into his coat and handed her a small red keychip.

"The Diamond Eight clubhouse. Renovated. Quiet. You show up, you walk past the gate, no questions asked. You'll be safe there."

"I don't need your protection."

"No," he said. "But maybe you need a place where no one's pretending anymore."

She held the chip without looking at it.

He was halfway to the door when she said, "I won't be your second chance."

Jakob looked back, eyes heavy.

"You were never my first mistake."

And then he was gone.

The door shut.

Sommer stood alone.

And this time, the silence wasn't waiting.

It was begging.

 

[Kaelon Virex]

The holocom crackled to life in Kael's pocket as he stood overlooking the city from a balcony that didn't belong to him. Nar Shaddaa glittered below — hungry, cruel, familiar.

:: Incoming from Sommer Dai. Encrypted.

He exhaled, flicked the signal active, and her projection flickered into life midair — blue-hued, arms crossed, and sharper than a vibroblade.

Sommer.

He straightened up, already bracing.

"Hey, cousin," she said, her voice clipped. "I need a favor."

"Of course you do," Kael muttered. "Am I allowed to know what the Veil's exploding over this time?"

"I want eyes on the Diamond Eights."

Kael blinked. That was fast.

"Jakob's up to something. I need to know what. Discreetly."

He didn't ask why she wasn't doing it herself. Didn't ask why now.

Because deep down, he knew something had changed — he just didn't know what.

"Alright," Kael said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Give me a few hours. I'll run recon."

"Just you. No backup. I don't need him smelling a trap."

"He'll smell me eventually."

"Then spray something expensive and don't touch anything."

She cut the connection before he could mouth off.

Typical Sommer.

 

[Kaelon Virex]

Kael approached with the casual swagger of someone who belonged everywhere and nowhere. The Diamond Eight clubhouse looked like what you'd get if a swoop gang inherited an abandoned data center and tried to make it into a luxury crash pad.

Loud music. Neon skull art. Bikes lined out front like hungry animals.

Inside? Chaos.

It was a frat party from hell.

Shirts off. Shots poured. Dancers laughing. A zabrak passed out on the pool table. Someone was riding a crate like a mechanical bull.

Kael moved through it all like smoke — half-grinning, half-scanning.

He spotted the vault first. A durasteel safe built into the back wall of what used to be a server room. Locked tighter than a Republic treasury.

Next? A door behind the bar, seemingly normal — but Kael caught the light reflection glitch on its hinges. Optical camo.

"Hidden."

Definitely a false wall.

He pretended to trip while leaning against it — heard the subtle magnetic whine beneath the surface.

Reinforced.

Someone was hiding something big behind there. A cache? An armory?

And then he saw it.

A black crate. Half-covered by a dirty jacket.

Old Empire tech.

It still had the emblem etched into the corner — barely scratched out. Forbidden, if not fully illegal. Way too advanced for a gang of adrenaline junkies.

Kael's brow furrowed. His charm faded. This wasn't just a place for drunken sabacc and stims.

This was staging. Preparation.

He casually tapped his wristlink to record a scan — just enough of the crate to match its signature later.

Then he pulled away.

And just as he made for the exit, he caught sight of someone else arriving.

A woman in deep crimson. Long black hair. Carrying a datapad case.

Therin Vos.

Kael stepped out into the night with his heart hammering.

He activated his holocom again.

"Sommer," he whispered. "We've got a problem. A big one."

 

[Sommer Dai]

The moment Kael's encrypted voice ended, Sommer sat down in the middle of her living room floor — no glass, no drink, no armor. Just silence.

"Old Empire tech. Vaults. Secret doors. Therin's inside with him now."

She didn't answer Kael's follow-up ping. Not yet.

The walls around her flickered faintly with low ambient light, casting shadows across her bare arms. Her breath slowed, but her heart raced.

Jakob.

Her chest ached just thinking his name again.

It was happening.

He was building something behind her back. Again. With Therin.

And yet—godsdammit—she couldn't stop remembering.

It wasn't the gang fights that haunted her. Or the street jobs. Or the backroom lies.


It was the laughter.


Their busted swoop bike that always leaned left. The way he used to steal things just to give them away. The way they crashed parties they didn't belong at — him with a bottle in one hand, her in some oversized coat with the sleeves rolled.

He was chaos. But he made the world feel less cruel. He made her feel like someone wanted her — even when she had nothing but grit under her nails and blood on her shirt.

She remembered him dancing with her in a thunderstorm, stims buzzing through their systems, soaked and breathless and alive.

She also remembered waking up three days later in a stranger's warehouse, alone, shaking, half-naked, Jakob nowhere to be found.

She remembered crawling through the gutter trying to find enough credits for detox tabs while he was off chasing another deal, another thrill.

.... remembered being left behind.

Sommer leaned her head back against the couch, staring at the ceiling. Her mouth was dry. Her chest was tight.


She'd almost died in that version of her life. Not by blaster. Not by blade.


But by disappearing. Dissolving. Into spice, into drink, into the idea that chaos was all she was worth.


And Jakob — he was the match she kept striking just to watch herself burn.


And yet… when he looked at her in the hallway…
When his lips were on hers…
When his voice dropped low and called her by name like it was sacred…

She still felt it.

And that scared her more than anything Therin could threaten.

She stood slowly. Walked to her window.

Outside, Nar Shaddaa blinked like a beast. Uncaring. Hungry. Constant.

She turned away.

She wouldn't let it happen again. She wouldn't be that girl.

But she had to know.

Sommer reached for the red keychip Jakob had given her — still sitting untouched on her bedside table.

She stared at it. Just for a moment.

Then pocketed it.​

---

She finally pinged Kael back.

:: "Don't get closer to the clubhouse. That's not your war."

:: "I'll go myself."

 

[Sommer Dai]

They saw her before she said a word.

Leather heels clicked on black-tiled steps. A long coat draped over a body made of fire and defiance. Hair pulled back, eyes lined in shadow, lips bare.

Sommer didn't walk in like a threat.

She walked in like an answer.

The music slowed. Conversations trailed off. A couple gang members exchanged worried looks — one even elbowed the bouncer at the lounge door.

"Is that…?"
"No way."
"Boss ain't gonna like this."

Sommer didn't stop.

She moved through the chaos like smoke through a crack in the wall — untouched, burning cold.

The place still reeked of testosterone, oil, cheap stimshots, and old danger. But behind the laughter and neon, she felt it — the tension. Hidden rooms. Security drones. Vaults and war plans.

And somewhere deeper—

She found him where he always gravitated — not on the throne, but near it. Leaned against the pool table, a glass of black core whiskey in hand, talking low with two lieutenants and a Rodian tech.


He saw her the second she stepped into the main hall.

Everyone else faded.

She didn't smile. Neither did he.

She moved straight toward him.

"Clear the room," Jakob said, voice low, but final.

No one argued. Even his men — even the ones who loved him — cleared out like ghosts.

When they were alone, Jakob turned toward her, something unreadable in his face.

"You came," he said, voice rough.

"I'm not here for a reunion," Sommer said sharply. "I'm here for the truth."

Jakob set his drink down without breaking eye contact. "So ask it."

"You let Therin in," she snapped. "You—of all people—let her walk into your house, into your war room, into this club, and now I've got tech on my scans that shouldn't even exist in civilian hands."

He didn't flinch.

"You're building something, Jakob. And if I'm not part of it, I need to know what you're aiming at."

He stepped closer. "You came to ask if I was betraying you."

"I came to make sure you weren't going to get me killed."

A beat of silence.

"You still don't trust me," he said, voice low.

"I don't trust anyone who kisses me one night and arms a vault the next."

Jakob's jaw clenched.

"I'm not arming it for her. I'm arming it for what's coming."

"And you didn't think to tell me?"

"I didn't want you caught in it."

She stepped up to him now, furious. "I've been caught in worse. And I survived. You don't get to decide when I bleed."

Jakob's breath hitched. The way she said it — like he still mattered.

"You still think I'm that selfish?" he asked.

"I think you're still the same bastard who would rather break something than admit it scared him."

His voice cracked.

"You scared me. You still do."

They were inches apart now. Heat bleeding into the room.

Sommer swallowed hard.

"I don't know who you are anymore."

"I'm still the man who couldn't forget you even after I tried. Who built this place because I couldn't watch you fight the world alone anymore."

Her eyes glistened — but didn't fall.

"I hate you," she whispered.

"Not enough."

And then they kissed again — raw, angry, breathless. Not a reunion. A clash. Like pressing lips to a memory just to feel if it still cut.

It did.

But when she pulled back — this time, she stopped first.

She looked him dead in the eyes.

"If you want me in this, I don't play sidekick. And I don't take secondhand truth."

Jakob nodded once. The slow, solemn kind.

Then he turned to the back hallway — the vault corridor.

"Come with me," he said. "I'll show you everything."

Sommer hesitated.

Just for a second.

Then followed. Because

 

[AZIS/MORAVOKH]

 

[Sommer Dai]

.....no one walks into fire by accident.