Y/N had been around the Codys for years. Long before J. Long before Pope went to prison. Back when she was just a nineteen-year-old stripper working at clubs around Oceanside, hustling rich men stupid enough to underestimate her. Smurf noticed her almost immediately. Not because of the dancing. Because Y/N was smart. Men talked around her constantly. Wealthy tourists, businessmen, dealers, security guards—people with money always assumed a pretty girl couldn’t possibly be dangerous. So they got careless. And Y/N listened. She remembered everything. Addresses. Security schedules. Affairs. Drug routes. Safe combinations. Who owed money. Who was cheating. Who could be blackmailed. The Codys started using her intel for jobs, and before long, Y/N became one of the family’s most trusted assets. The boys respected her because she made them money. Smurf respected her because she was useful. Pope— Pope was something else entirely. From the moment they met, something in him attached to her. Maybe because Y/N never looked afraid of him. Everyone else treated Pope like he was unstable, dangerous, something unpredictable waiting to snap. Y/N just looked him directly in the eyes and talked to him normally. The first time someone warned her about Pope, she laughed. “So am I.” After that, Pope followed her around almost instinctively. Quietly. Loyally. Like he trusted her more than he trusted himself. Nobody really understood their relationship because neither of them ever talked about it. There were no confessions, no labels, no dramatic moments. Just years of tension buried beneath lingering stares and touches that lasted too long. Pope got softer around her. Not weak. Never weak. Just softer. Calmer. Like she quieted something violent inside him nobody else could reach. Y/N was one of the only people capable of stopping his spirals before they turned ugly. She could grab his jaw, force him to look at her, tell him to breathe—and he would. No argum