Chapter 2
Saint
A week later
Two buyers wait on the other side of the steel table. Wall Street types, both of them. The taller one's dressed in a pinstripe suit and wearing a five-thousand-dollar watch, keeping his eyes on the floor like a man who knows exactly how fast I can reach across and snap his neck.
Moth, the logistics of Obsidian's market, steps forward, tablet in one hand, black nitrile glove on the other.
He sets the padded case on the table and flips the latches.
Inside, twenty glass vials glint under the light, clear liquid with that faint iridescent swirl that makes it look like liquid starlight.
Pharmaceutical grade. Obsidian's own. No cut.
No shake. No risk of your brain melting out your ears like the garbage the Geminoids are pushing out of Jersey.
"One hundred and twenty thousand," Moth says, voice flat. "Cash only. Same as last month. Price holds because the product doesn't degrade."
The tall buyer nods once. "And the eastern corridor?"
My eyes don't move, but my mind catalogues the question like a threat. They always ask. Everybody wants the shortcut route now that the feds are sniffing I-90.
Moth doesn't glance at me. He knows better. "Corridor's ours. Delivery window is twenty-four hours once payment clears. You get caught with it, that's your problem. We don't know you. You don't know us."
Bricks, my right hand, shifts his weight against the cinderblock wall, arms crossed over his chest. The big bastard grins, a gold tooth flashing in his smile.
"You suits ever try this shit under the tongue in the middle of a board meeting?
Feels like God jacked off in your veins.
Makes your dick hard and your brain sharper at the same time. Hell of a combo."
Neither buyer laughs. I don't even twitch. Bricks' jokes never land when I'm in the room, unless I laugh first, and I haven't laughed since I was seven years old and my mother walked out without looking back.
Moth continues like Bricks hadn't spoken.
"Revenue's up eighteen percent quarter-over-quarter.
We're at four-point-two million this cycle.
Demand's climbing — hedge-fund kids, pro athletes, even a couple pain-management docs who don't want to write oxycodone scripts anymore.
Word's spreading that Obsidian's XR3 is the only batch that doesn't come with severe side effects. "
The shorter buyer licks his lips. "Exposure?"
Moth's jaw flexes. "Up. Eastern corridor's got new shadows. Not sure if it's Amethyst or those bastards running moonshine out of the hills. They've been sniffing the handoffs. Asking questions in the bars. We've doubled the escort runs for now."
I finally speak, every eye in the room snapping to me. "Double ain't enough."
Moth nods once. "Already tripled it. Bricks took lead on the last three runs himself."
Bricks grunts. "And I'm still bored. These assholes couldn't find their own dicks with both hands and a map."
I let the silence stretch until the shorter buyer starts shifting uneasily, more sweat beading along his forehead.
Then I step forward and pick up one of the vials, rolling it between my scarred knuckles.
Six to ten hours of clean, razor-edged euphoria.
Cognition dialed to eleven. Senses so sharp you can taste the fear in the air.
No crash. Just the slow, cruel realization afterward that real life is muted, gray, worthless.
This is why Obsidian isn't some trailer-park MC anymore.
The little glass tube is the difference between mid-tier muscle and an empire that moves product worth more per ounce than most crews move in a year.
My operation. My formula. My fucking neck on the line if one bad batch hits the street and bodies start dropping.
I set the vial back in its foam slot. "You want more next month, you pay twenty percent up front. Non-refundable. We're not a fucking Costco."
The tall buyer swallows. "Understood."
Stacked bricks of hundreds hit the table, still smelling like the bank. Moth counts in silence while I watch the buyers' hands, their eyes, the way the shorter one's left knee jitters.
Another of the crew, Demo, hovers ten feet back near the door, trying to look useful.
The kid's twenty-two, all nervous energy and fresh ink, still wearing the prospect cut like it might fall off if he breathes wrong.
He keeps shifting from foot to foot, hands opening and closing like he wants to help carry the case but knows he'd probably drop it.
I don't even look at him. Demo will learn, or he'll die trying. That's the rule.
Moth snaps the briefcase shut. "Clean. We're good."
The buyers take their product and leave through the side door without another word. Tires crunch gravel outside, kicking up dust I can see through the windows, and then there's just silence.
I blow out a heavy breath. Everything's running smooth tonight. Too smooth. Smooth always makes me itch.
I turn toward the rest of them. Bricks is already lighting a cigarette, flame cupped in one massive paw. Moth is logging the cash on his tablet. And then there's Demo, just standing there looking like a puppy waiting for a treat he hasn't earned.
"Eastern corridor," I push out.
Moth doesn't sugarcoat it. "They're probing. Two vans last week, tinted, no plates. Sat outside the drop at the old mill for forty minutes. They didn't move on us, but they're getting bolder. If they figure out the synthesis route, we're looking at a war we don't have the bodies for yet."
My jaw tightens. An alliance with the Rogues is supposedly going to fix that, but unlike a simple conversation to hand over extra muscle, extra guns, extra eyes, my father — the current leader of Obsidian — wants a true alliance.
An actual commitment.
Which means working with Varina. A woman I'd gladly choose to slit my own throat over ever sitting across from.
"We move the next run tonight," I say, clearing my head of what the near future will bring.
"Bricks, you and three others. Moth, reroute through the old quarry spur.
Demo —" I finally look at the kid. "You ride drag.
Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open.
Fuck this up, and I'll use your cut to patch the next hole in the road. "
Demo straightens like someone shoved a rod up his ass. "Yes, VP."
I turn away before the kid can say anything else stupid.
I head out of the warehouse, the evening chill sending a shiver down my spine.
The Obsidian warehouse sits half a mile down the road from the clubhouse, far enough away from the local bar and other amenities that Obsidian offers to the community.
Someone could be breathing their last on the concrete floor, and just up the road, everyone would be downing another beer like it was their last. It's the perfect setup.
XR3 paving Obsidian's way to the top. But just as powerful as our position currently is, it only takes one thing to make it come tumbling down.
I blow out a heavy sigh, drag a hand down my face before heading up to the clubhouse. I'm halfway to the side door when my father's voice cuts through the dark like a switchblade.
"Office. Now."
I don't break stride, just alter course, and follow him through the reinforced steel door that leads straight into the old factory's gutted admin wing.
Sol's office is the same as it's been for fifteen years: scarred oak desk, leather chair cracked from too many asses, and walls lined with framed newspaper clippings that only ever mention Obsidian in passing — suspected in this or that, never enough to stick.
A single lamp burns on the desk, throwing long shadows across the Obsidian skull painted on the far wall.
Sol drops into the chair. My father, still president, still the man who built this club from nothing but guns and balls and bad decisions. His hair's gone iron-gray, but his eyes are the same ones that taught me at thirteen how to break a man's neck without killing him.
I move toward the desk, staying on my feet as I hope this won't take long.
Sol doesn't waste time. "Rogue alliance is locked. I've been talking to Canon Ward for three weeks. They're in."
I just nod. This isn't anything I don't already know.
Sol leans back, places his boots up on the desk, and lights a cigar the way he always does when he's about to drop something heavy.
"They need revenue. Their last two shipments got hit hard — feds and some new crew out of Albany.
They're bleeding. We give them a cut of the XR3 pipeline, they give us twenty patched members for security runs and enforcement. Clean split. No overlap on turf."
My voice comes out flat. "And the catch?"
Sol's mouth curves, but it isn't a smile. "Marriage. Between the clubs. One of Canon's heirs marries into Obsidian to seal the alliance."
That wasn't the plan. I was supposed to work with Varina, not fucking marry her. This was going to be a partnership where we agreed not to fuck each other's clubs over, but apparently that's not enough.
A fucking political spouse dropped into my clubhouse, my bed, my life.
Someone who'd expect to be handled, watched, owned in public while I keep the machine running in private.
I can already picture it — the loud-mouthed Rogue princess or whichever kid Canon decides is expendable, walking around like they have a claim on my patch, my time, my goddamn space.
I'm not even sure how many kids Canon has. I also don't care.
"No," I say.
Sol's eyebrows lift a fraction. "Son, I wasn't asking."
"I'll take the alliance. I'll take their bodies. I'll even shake Canon's hand and pretend I give a shit. But I'm not marrying some stranger so we can move more vials. I don't need a political piece of ass in my bed. I don't need anyone in my space."
Sol exhales smoke toward the ceiling. The lamp catches the gold of his president's ring, the one I stared at as a kid while Sol explained why emotions were liabilities.
"You don't have to love them," Sol says, voice rough with years of whiskey and orders.
"You don't even have to like them. You have to own them.
That's it. Put a ring on their finger, put your patch on their back, and make sure the Rogues know the deal is ironclad.
They step out of line, you remind them who owns what. Simple."
My hands stay at my sides, but my knuckles itch.
Own them. The same words Sol used when I was seventeen and brought home a girl who thought she could stay longer than one night.
Own them. Like people were property. Like control was the only language that mattered.
I learned that lesson so well, I breathe it.
But this... this is different. This is inviting a variable I can't calculate into the one place I keep locked down tight.
I can feel the refusal building behind my teeth. I could tell Sol to go fuck the Rogues sideways. I could walk out and handle the eastern corridor the way I always handle threats — with bodies on the ground and a message written in blood.
But losing an argument with Sol isn't something I do. The old man taught me that losing meant weakness, and weakness got you left behind. Just like my mother.
My jaw tightens, copper trickling onto my tongue where my teeth dig into the inside of my cheek.
"Fine," I say. "I'll do it. But they stay out of my way. They stay out of the lab. They stay the fuck out of my head. This is business. Nothing else."
Sol watches me for a long second, cigar smoke curling between us like a noose. Then he nods once, satisfied the lesson landed the way it always does.
"Good. Canon's sending one of the heirs next week to meet the table. We'll make it official then. Now get the fuck out of my office and go make sure that next run to the quarry doesn't grow legs and walk off."
I turn on my heel without another word.
A spouse. A fucking leash wrapped in club colors. Someone who'll sleep in my bed, wear my ink, and expect me to pretend this is anything but a transaction.
I don't want them in my space.
I don't want anyone close enough to see the seven-year-old still screaming inside my chest.
But the pipeline needs bodies. The empire needs the alliance.
And Saint Solomon Masters doesn't lose arguments.