Chapter 5 #2
Saint leads me through a side door into the lot behind the clubhouse.
The night air is cold enough to sting, and I pull in a breath that tastes like rain, exhaust, and damp asphalt.
Bikes line the far wall under security lights.
Beyond them, several bikes are idling with Obsidian men posted near each one.
Saint guides me toward his bike and throws a leg over the seat. “Climb on.”
I stop just the edge of the front tire. “My things.”
“You’ll get them.”
“My apartment—”
“You’ll get what you need.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Saint snorts. “It’s the only one I’m giving you in a parking lot full of men who are waiting to see whether Canon’s son knows how to obey.”
Humiliation flares in my chest again. “I’m not a dog.”
“No,” he says, gesturing for me to climb on behind him. “Dogs get praised for loyalty.”
I do so silently as he waits until my arms around his waist. He smells like leather, smoke, and something uniquely, which is a problem because my memory recognizes that too.
He grabs a helmet from the handlebars and hands it back to me, waiting another beat before starting the engine.
Some part of me wants to ridicule him and every member for not wearing helmets, that it’s just me but I clamp my mouth shut.
Then, the bike pulls out of the lot behind the first bike, headlights cutting through the damp dark.
For the first few minutes, it’s just silence.
The city slides by in smeared gold and black as rainwater streaks my helmet in thin, trembling lines.
I keep my hands folded tightly around his waist to hide the shaking, though I’m sure he can feel it.
Saint rides with one hand, his posture relaxed, his other arm resting over mine like he hasn’t just detonated two clubs and walked away with the fallout sitting on his bike.
I stare off to the side as my mind keeps trying to assemble a plan, but every thought collapses under the weight of what just happened. I’m married, or close enough that the difference feels irrelevant.
And Saint is real.
That might be the strangest horror of all.
The stranger from the club belonged to darkness, to anonymity, to a version of myself that could exist for one night and be buried afterward.
Saint Solomon Masters belongs to daylight and contracts and empires built on expensive poison.
I’d spent almost a week missing a man who didn’t exist outside memory, and now he’s driving me away from everything I know.
Saint’s voice breaks the silence the moment we skid into the parking lot of Obsidian. “Did Canon send you?” He waits for me to climb and then follows, helping me out of my helmet.
I do the same, confused by his question. “What?”
“To the club.”
The question is so cold and direct, that for a second I don’t understand it. “No.”
His eyes stay on the road. “Did Varina?”
“No.”
“Moth found no connection between that club we met at and Rogue territory. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”
“There isn’t.”
“Were you there to get close to me?”
I laugh once, but it comes out wrong. “I didn’t know who you were.”
“Convenient.”
Anger finally breaks through the fear enough to give me something solid. “You think I planned that?”
“I think Canon had his eldest standing in my meeting with financials, route projections, and enough access to be useful while pretending you were furniture. I think the Rogues need the alliance badly enough to get creative. I think men do stupid things when survival starts looking expensive.”
“You think my father sent me to a club to...” I stop because the rest of the sentence is too humiliating to say out loud. “No. He didn’t send me.”
Saint just glares at me. “Then why were you there?”
I should lie. A normal person would or at least soften the answer into something less raw. But he’ll find out eventually anyway.
“I needed that night.” I look ahead at the clubhouse because I can’t say it while looking at him.
“It had nothing to do with the Rogues. It had nothing to do with Obsidian. It wasn’t a setup or a plant or whatever else you’re thinking.
I didn’t know your name. I didn’t want your club.
I didn’t want information. I just wanted.
..” My voice thins, and I hate myself for it, but I keep going because stopping now would feel worse.
“I wanted to be somewhere nobody knew me. I wanted to stop being Canon’s disappointing son for one fucking night.
I wanted someone to look at me and not see a problem. ”
It goes quiet for a moment, the chaos from inside filling into the silence.
Then he says, “You found me.”
My laugh is smaller this time, almost bitter. “Lucky me.”
His mouth curves faintly, but he doesn’t look amused in any simple way. “You didn’t act lucky when I pointed you out.”
“Because you pointed me out in front of both clubs.”
“You were standing in a room where men were deciding your future while pretending you didn’t matter.”
“That doesn’t mean I wanted you to make me matter like that.”
His gaze flicks to me. “No. It means you wanted to stay hidden because hidden is where Canon trained you to survive.”
The accuracy of it hits hard enough that I look away. “Don’t,” I push out, my heart beating just a little harder. It’s terrifying how easily Saint sees through me. “Don’t talk like you know me.”
Saint is quiet for a beat. “I know enough.” He huffs out a small laugh. “I know you told the truth when lying would’ve been smarter.”
I place the helmet on the bike seat before twisting my hands together in front of me. “Maybe I’m just bad at lying.”
“No.” He glances over again, and this time his attention moves over my face slowly enough to feel like a touch. “You’re good at hiding. That’s different.”
I don’t have an answer to that.
It falls silent as I drop my gaze to the ground. It’s like he can see into my soul every time I meet his gaze. Saint shifts in front of me but I hold still, bracing myself for whatever violence he wants to dish out. It’s what I expect of this arrangement, anyway, at least in some part.
Obsidian doesn’t take nicely to outsiders.
I catch the movement out of the corner of my eye, his right hand reaching forward and sliding into my hair with the same terrifying confidence he brought to everything in that meeting room. His fingers push through the curls at the back of my head and then just sits there.
My whole body reacts, my eyes fluttering halfway closed. A second later, a soft, broken sound pulls from my throat. I clap both hands over my mouth as if I can shove it back in after it’s already spilled out into the open.
Saint goes still for half a second and then laughs. It rolls through the air and under my skin, and my humiliation becomes something hot enough to sting behind my eyes.
“Oh, I guess you really were telling the truth,” he muses.
I glare at him over my hands, or try to. It probably doesn’t work with my face burning and his fingers still loosely tangled in my hair. “Stop,” I say, muffled.
His thumb drags once against my scalp before he pulls his hand back, and the absence of it is almost worse than the touch. “God, I’m going to love this.”
The words send a shiver through me that has nothing to do with cold. I hate him for noticing that too. Saint’s smile fades slowly into something more calculating, though the heat doesn’t leave his eyes. “Here’s how this is going to work.”
I lower my hands from my mouth, but I keep them close, folded against my chest like that might protect whatever dignity I have left. “You don’t get to decide everything.”
“Yes,” he says. “I do. You belong to Obsidian now. Canon’s people think they’re getting a blood tie, access, reassurance.
They think sending you over keeps the alliance clean without weakening Varina’s position.
Maybe Canon even thinks he can use you to feed information back home because you’re his son and he’s used to you being useful when called. ”
“I’m not spying for him.”
“I know.” He leans gently against his back, his face half-lit by the security lamps outside. “You couldn’t lie to me about why you went to that club. You think you’ll manage espionage?”
My face heats again. “You’re an asshole.”
“Yes, I am and now, you’re mine.” There’s no shame in the admission.
No defensiveness. Saint wears it the way other men wear leather.
He leans slightly closer, not enough to trap me, just enough to make the air between us disappear.
“Whatever Canon’s people think they’re getting from this arrangement, I’m going to use against them.
Their routes. Their losses. Their dependence on Obsidian’s product.
Their habit of overlooking the quietest man in the room.
You’re going to tell me everything you know, and I’m going to decide what matters. ”
My pulse beats hard in my throat. “And if I don’t?”
His gaze drops to my lips and then to the pulse in my neck before returning to my eyes. “You will.”
Outside, an Obsidian man opens the clubhouse door, and noise spills into the lot with laughter, music, the low rumble of voices, and a world I don’t know waiting to decide what I am. I look toward it and feel the edge of panic return, sharper now that there are walls ahead of me instead of road.
Saint reaches forward again, but this time he doesn’t touch my hair. He settles his hand at the back of my neck, drawing me into that comfortable space I hate so much.
His mouth curves, almost gentle if I didn’t know better.
“Come on, Sín,” he says. “Let’s show them what Canon gave me.”
And because I’m terrified, furious, ashamed, and apparently much more ruined than I ever understood, I let him guide me inside.