Chapter 8
Oisín
By evening, my head is full of maps, names, doorways, warnings, and pieces of Saint I’m apparently not supposed to have.
He doesn’t sleep when the product goes wrong.
He gets worse when the corridor is unstable.
Bricks shadows the exits for him. Moth tracks everything and everyone.
Demo is terrified of Saint, and Tally knows more than she should and only offers what’s needed.
The dynamic here is both similar and different to the Rogues. More laidback and yet knitted tighter than the club I grew up in. I remember chaos and scrambling to make things work. As Varina fitted herself into her role, things evened out but it wasn’t always like that.
However, here, I can see years and decades of rules, guidelines, and unspoken paths that everything has followed. It means that things are predictable.
I take up residence near the back of the main room by a window, trying to stay out of the way while the clubhouse shifts from daytime discipline into nighttime tension. At least at my clubhouse, I had numbers to keep me busy. Here, I have nothing.
And no one wants to speak to me, either terrified I’ll take something back to the Rogues or to Saint. I’m not sure which one they think is worse.
Over the next hour, my attention shifts as I stop being bored and wait for Saint. I hate myself for it, because every time the side door opens, my body notices before my mind can pretend it doesn’t.
When he finally comes in, the room knows before I do.
The conversation dips, each of the Obsidian members straightening and moving into place.
Saint walks in wearing a black shirt beneath his cut, a small smear of dried blood near one knuckle.
His gaze moves across the room once, taking inventory with the precision of someone checking locks.
Then it finds me.
I swallow nervously, bracing for his next move. It’s like the entire room has their breath held as Saint stalks over to me without a word. He catches the back of my neck in his palm, and steers me toward the hallway.
“Hello to you too,” I mutter, about to ask about the blood on his hand.
His thumb presses in beneath my ear. “Quiet.”
My mouth shuts, my face heating all the way to my ears. Every Obsidian eye in the room tracks the way Saint moves me through the clubhouse like my resistance is a detail he has already accounted for.
He takes me into an office I haven’t seen yet, smaller than Sol’s boardroom but more personal than Moth’s.
There’s a dark desk, locked cabinets, two chairs, a low couch against one wall, and a map of the eastern corridor pinned under glass.
A phone on the desk is already lit with an incoming call.
Saint releases me only long enough to shut the door and answer it.
“Talk.”
I stand near the guest chair, suddenly unsure what to do with my hands. Saint listens to whoever is on the phone, eyes moving over the map while his face gives nothing away. The silence in the office feels heavier than the noise outside.
I take two steps toward the shelves, needing something to focus on.
I take in the brass lighter, a stack of files, and a small carved wooden horse that looks wildly out of place beside a handgun magazine.
Interesting. I have no idea why Saint brought me in here, though some part of me knows it’s just for control.
My fingers brush the horse before I think better of it.
Saint’s head snaps up to me. “Would you fucking sit down?”
I jerk my hand back. “I wasn’t doing anything.”
He points to the floor beside his chair.
Not the guest chair.
The floor.
My entire body locks up, and for one second the room seems to tilt around the command. Saint keeps the phone against his ear and says to whoever is on the other end, “No, keep going,” while his eyes remain on me.
I almost say ‘I’m not a dog’ but he’d have some retort for that too. My shoulders fall a little as I walk to him. Every step feels like betrayal until I reach the side of his chair. He doesn’t touch me as he keeps watching, waiting for me to obey.
My face burns as I lower myself to my knees beside him, the carpet rough through the loose sweatpants. I keep my back straight at first because some stubborn part of me is still trying to make dignity out of obedience.
Saint returns his attention to the call. “Move the Wednesday run to Thursday and split the escort. No, not through the mill. I don’t care what Pike said. The mill’s being watched.”
I swallow again, staring at the dark wood of the desk’s cabinets looking back at me, unsure what to do next. Settling my hands in my lap, I almost turn to ask Saint what this is for when one of his hands slides into my hair.
My breath catches in my throat, and I’m grateful he’s still talking because the sound would have embarrassed me in the quiet.
He just threads his fingers loosely through the curls at the back of my head while discussing routes, handoffs, payment windows, men I don’t know, and threats I only half understand.
His touch is absent and absolute at the same time, as if I’ve been placed somewhere and he expects me to remain there because remaining is the instruction.
For the first few minutes, my mind fights him. I think about how humiliating this is, how wrong it should feel, how furious I’ll be later when I can stand up and put enough language around the feeling to make it resemble anger.
Saint’s fingers tighten gently in my hair, not enough to hurt, just enough to remind me where I am.
When he tugs a little tighter, my thoughts start to liquefy.
My shoulders drop without my permission. My hands uncurl on my thighs. The noise inside my head folds inward beneath the steady weight of Saint’s hand until all the branching possibilities become one simple thing.
Stay.
No one has ever had me like this. I’ve always loved the submissive aspect of my encounters at the club but there’s never been any character to it. It’s never been more than one night that I can build on.
I used to think my need for submission was a flaw. But this… this feels like peace in a way I don’t know how to explain.
Saint’s hand dips down to my neck, squeezing lightly before moving into my hair again. A small sigh falls from my lips as my head lowers to his thigh.
The position should horrify me, and distantly, it does.
I’m on my knees in an Obsidian office with my head resting against the leg of the man who claimed me by contract less than twenty-four hours ago.
But beneath the humiliation, beneath the anger I know will return when I have enough room to rebuild it, something inside me settles with such sudden relief that my eyes sting.
Saint’s voice continues above me. “Then tell him the price goes up fifteen percent for making me repeat myself. If he argues, make it twenty. No, no bodies unless they force it. I want the corridor clean, not loud.”
I’m afraid of how much of me seems to move toward him but I’m also calmer than I’ve been in years.
His phone call lasts at least twenty minutes. Time becomes Saint’s voice, his hand, and the warmth of his thigh beneath my forehead. The whole day, with all its watching eyes and half-finished warnings, recedes until there is only the instruction and the strange peace of obeying it.
When Saint finally ends the call, the room goes quiet enough for me to hear my own breathing.
His hand stills in my hair before his fingers move once through my curls, slower than before, almost careful in a way that feels more dangerous than if he were rough.
“Your head went quiet, didn’t it?” he asks, a bit of reverence in his voice.
“I just needed you to stop fucking moving but this…” His words trail off as he gently tugs my head back, his gaze meeting mine.
His other hand moves to my lips, his thumb dragging across them.
For a moment, I think he’s going to kiss me. Then he just releases me completely. “Get up, Sín.”
I rise slowly, my head too light and too clear all at once.
Saint watches me with an expression I can’t read, but there’s something in his eyes that wasn’t there when he dragged me into the office.
He reaches out and catches my chin before I can look away.
“You’re going to tell me what you saw today. ”
I blink at him. “What?”
“The clubhouse. Moth’s board. My men. Whatever that head of yours collected while everyone thought you were too overwhelmed to notice.”
It clicks then, that this really is all for control. It wasn’t that I was left alone. He let me think I was so that he could see how useful I was. Just like my father.
Different, but the same.
I fold my arms in front of me. “The quarry spur is exposed,” I push out.
My voice comes out steadier than I feel as Saint’s expression sharpens.
“Your Wednesday run would’ve been a problem even if you moved it to Thursday.
The route looks clean on paper, but the board in Moth’s office has three red marks clustered too close together near the old access road.
If those are surveillance points, splitting the escort won’t fix it.
It’ll just give whoever’s watching two smaller targets. ”
Saint doesn’t answer immediately. He just watches me with his thumb still beneath my chin. A moment ago, he was looking at me like something he wanted to keep. Now he’s looking at me like something he can use.
Fuck.
Saint’s mouth curves faintly. “Show me.”
I glance at the map pinned under glass behind his desk. “Now?”
“Unless your knees need more time.”
My face burns so hot I have to look away. “You’re an asshole.”
“Yes, we’ve already established that.” he says, releasing me again and pushing to his feet. “And you’re going to show me where my route is bleeding.”
He moves to the map as I lean closer, finding the quarry spur, the access road, the cluster of handoffs that look safe only if you assume nobody is watching from the ridgeline.
“There,” I say. “If I were trying to confirm your route without moving on it yet, I’d sit here, here, and here. Not close enough to get made by the escort, but close enough to time the handoff pattern. You’ve been changing the roads, but not the rhythm.”
Saint goes very still beside me. “Explain.”
“You move like you’re avoiding tails, but your windows are too consistent.
Anyone patient wouldn’t need to follow you.
They’d just need to learn when the road starts getting used.
” I glance at him, then wish I hadn’t because he’s looking at me with an intensity that makes the room feel smaller.
“The Rogues make that mistake too. Canon thinks unpredictability means changing location. It doesn’t, not if the habit underneath stays the same. ”
Saint studies the map for another long moment before reaching for his phone. “Moth. Office. Now.”
My stomach tightens. “Wait, don’t tell him I saw it through the window.”
Saint looks at me. “You did.”
“I wasn’t supposed to.”
“No, you weren’t.” His gaze drops over my face, and his voice lowers. “But you noticed anyway.”
The problem is that had this happened in my clubhouse, I would have been disciplined, shouted at, and ridiculed. I would have been made to feel smaller. I would have been told that wasn’t my job and even as they were using the information I gave them, I would be pushed out.
I brace myself for all of that, but nothing happens.
Not even when a knock comes less than a minute later, and Moth enters without waiting for permission.
His eyes move from Saint to me to the map, then to my bare feet, the oversized sweats, my flushed face, and the faint unsteadiness I probably haven’t hidden well enough.
If he draws conclusions about what I spent the last twenty minutes doing, his expression gives nothing away.
Saint points to the map. “Quarry spur’s exposed.”
Moth steps closer. “Based on what?”
I wait for Saint to answer. He doesn’t. Instead, Moth just looks at me, suddenly waiting for me to explain. I give him the same information I give Saint, though my voice wobbles a little.
Moth stares at me for three full seconds before he looks at Saint, a chuckle pulling from his throat. “I told you he was operationally useful.”
Saint nods, dragging a hand down his face. “Great, fix it.”
Moth’s attention returns to the map. “I’ll redraw the windows.”
“No,” I say before I can stop myself.
Both men look at me. My mouth goes dry, but I keep going. “Don’t redraw all of them. That confirms you know someone’s watching. Leave two windows in place and create a false pattern around a dead drop. If someone moves closer, you’ll know which point they’re using.”
Moth’s face remains blank, but something in his eyes is almost dancing. “Damn, if you existed, why the fuck did the Rogues need a bailout?”
I just shrug, refusing to give up that answer. No one needs to know that all the big scary Rogue members never saw any importance in the information I knew unless they needed it. No one needs to know how useless they made me feel even when I was right there.