Chapter 4
Ruby
If I let my mind run, it goes straight back there.
Velvet chairs. Stage lights. My name spoken into a microphone like it belonged to someone else. Luke’s fingers bruising my waist while he told me to be good.
So I keep my focus on the cabin.
Sin moves through the place like he knows every sound it can make. He checks the window, the lock, the corners. He doesn’t pace, but he doesn’t relax either. He looks built out of control and bad nights.
He crouches by the fireplace with a matchbook and a few split logs. When the first flame catches, the room changes. Warmth creeps into the air. Light softens the shadows.
I hate that it helps.
The fire pops once, sharp enough to make me flinch.
Sin turns, steady as ever. “You’re safe.”
My throat tightens. “You keep saying that.”
“Because your body hasn’t caught up yet.”
I don’t answer. He’s right. My body is still in that room.
He nods toward the bed. “You take it.”
I stare at him. “And you?”
“Floor’s fine.”
He says it like it’s nothing.
“There’s enough room for two people in that bed.”
His eyes lift slowly.
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is?”
He reaches for the folded blanket and thin pillow he already set near the fireplace.
“It’s a line.”
My chest tightens. “A line. I mean… if you wanted to do something to me, you already would have.”
Sin’s jaw flexes once. “You don’t know me.”
I want to say I know enough. I want to say he put himself between me and men who were ready to buy me like furniture.
Instead, I whisper, “I don’t know who I can trust.”
His gaze holds mine. “Trust the fact that you’re alive and you’re here.”
I swallow hard.
The bed feels like a spotlight. Like sitting on it means admitting this is real.
I move anyway.
The mattress creaks under me, and I pull the blanket over my lap.
Sin lowers himself to the floor with his back against the wall near the fireplace, long legs stretched out. He’s giving me space on purpose. Making sure I can see it.
Outside, wind scrapes through the trees. The cabin settles into the night with little sounds that make my body want to jump.
I hold still and pretend I can.
His phone buzzes once. Sin checks the screen.
“Tank’s still tracking the transport.”
My stomach twists.
The other girl’s face flashes through my head. The empty look. The way she stood under those lights like her soul had stepped out of her skin.
My hands knot in the blanket. “Do you think they’ll find her?”
Sin’s voice stays calm. “Tank doesn’t quit.”
That should comfort me.
Instead, it feels like a prayer.
I take a breath. “How do you do this?”
His eyes flick to mine. “Do what?”
“Walk into places like that,” I whisper. “Stay steady. Act like it’s just another night.”
His mouth tightens. Firelight catches the hard lines of his face, the scars, the ink disappearing under his sleeve.
“It isn’t just another night,” he says. “I’m steady because if I’m not, people die.”
The words land hard.
I study him through the firelight. “Why me?”
His gaze lifts.
“What?”
“You didn’t know me,” I say. “You could’ve stuck to the plan. You could’ve walked away.”
His eyes darken.
“I saw your face,” he says.
My throat tightens.
“And I ran out of patience.”
My hands shake under the blanket.
It shouldn’t mean anything.
It means too much.
I keep my voice low. “You didn’t know who I was.”
Sin holds my gaze. “I knew what they were doing to you.”
The fire pops again, and I flinch.
His eyes stay on me. “You’re going to jump at sounds for a while. That’s normal.”
Normal.
Nothing about tonight feels normal.
I swallow. “I was excited.”
His expression shifts slightly. “Excited.”
“It was our three-month anniversary,” I whisper, hating myself the second I say it. Like that matters now. Like it proves I was stupid enough to believe him.
Sin’s mouth hardens. “He used you.”
I flinch anyway, even though he’s right.
I stare at the blanket. “He wasn’t like that at first.”
Sin doesn’t interrupt. He just waits.
So the truth spills out because it has nowhere else to go.
“He came into the bookstore where I work,” I say. “Asked what I liked to read. Actually listened. Made me feel... noticed.”
My voice cracks on the last word.
I press my lips together.
Sin’s gaze doesn’t move. “You didn’t deserve what he did.”
The words are so simple they make my eyes burn.
I blink hard. “I should’ve seen it. I should’ve known.”
Sin’s voice turns rough. “Stop.”
I freeze.
“That’s what you tell yourself when you’re trying to make it your fault,” he says. “It isn’t.”
My chest aches. I don’t know what to do with a man who won’t let me carry blame that feels familiar.
I swallow. “I’m twenty-three.”
His expression doesn’t change.
“I’m still a virgin,” I whisper, shame and heat tangling together. “And he told them. Like it was a prize.”
Sin’s eyes go dark enough to shrink the room.
His hands curl once, then loosen again, like he’s keeping something caged.
“I know,” he says, voice low.
I swallow hard. “I’m sorry.”
That makes him look at me like I’ve said something impossible.
“For what?”
“For being... this.” I gesture at the hoodie, the shaking hands, the mess of me. “For being a problem.”
Sin’s jaw flexes. “You’re not a problem.”
I let out a shaky breath. “You didn’t have to pick me.”
The words hang there, raw and humiliating.
Sin looks at me for a long second, and the room goes still around it.
Then he leans his head back against the wall, staring at the ceiling like he’s measuring his answer.
“I didn’t pick you,” he says at last. “I pulled you out.”
It’s a correction.
It still feels like something else.
The fire crackles softly between us.
Minutes stretch. My heartbeat slows by degrees.
Sin shifts on the floor. Fabric scrapes. A quiet exhale.
He tries to get comfortable and doesn’t quite manage it.
He looks like a man who’s spent too many nights with cold ground under him and a weapon within reach.
I find my voice again. “You were in the military?”
His eyes flick to me. “Yeah.”
I hesitate. “Are you... okay?”
A humorless curve touches his mouth and disappears. “Depends on the day.”
That answer feels honest.
I shift on the bed, trying to make my body believe this is a safe room instead of a stage.
“Do you like being a biker?”
“It’s family,” he says.
Family.
The word twists something inside me.
My family left bruises no one could see. Taught me to be grateful for scraps. Sent me far enough away that I could finally breathe.
Sin says family like it means protection.
Like it means loyalty.
Like it means nobody gets sold.
I swallow. “I don’t have that. My family only hurt me.”
“You do tonight,” he says quietly.
My throat tightens.
Sin shifts again on the floor, and I hear the blanket bunch underneath him.
I lie back on the bed and stare at the ceiling, willing my eyes to close.
They don’t.
Every time I blink, the stage flashes behind my eyes.
Every time the wind hits the cabin, my heart jumps.
I hear Sin’s breathing change, slow for a moment, then sharpen again like his mind won’t let him drift.
He’s awake.
He’s listening.
He’s guarding.
Something in my chest feels too big for a room this small.
I roll onto my side and look down at him.
Sin lies on his back on the blanket, eyes open, staring at the ceiling like sleep is something he doesn’t trust. Firelight throws shadows across his face, sharpens every hard line, makes him look carved out of darkness and heat.
I shouldn’t think that.
The worst night of my life, and my brain still wants to turn it into a story.
A story where the man who saved me might also be the man who ruins me.
I swallow. “Sin.”
His gaze cuts to me instantly. “Yeah.”
“You’re not sleeping.”
His mouth tightens. “You should.”
“I can’t,” I whisper. “Not with you on the floor.”
His eyes stay on mine. “Ruby.”
“I mean it,” I say, pushing myself up. “Every time you move, I jolt.”
Sin goes very still.
The air changes.
“Come up here,” I say.
He looks at me like he’s measuring the risk.
Not to me.
To himself.
“I shouldn’t,” he says, voice low.
“Why?”
His jaw flexes. His gaze drops to my face, then my mouth, then away again like he’s forcing it.
“Because you don’t know what you’re asking.”
My cheeks warm. “I’m asking you to sleep.”
His eyes snap back to mine, and the intensity there makes my skin prickle.
“Ruby,” he says, voice rough, “you looked at me in that room like you were drowning. I’m still trying to forget it.”
My breath catches.
I swallow. “I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I trust you,” I repeat, and my voice breaks on the last word.
His gaze drags over my face like he’s searching for the lie.
“I’m not touching you,” he says finally. “If I get in that bed, my hands stay to myself.”
I nod fast. “Okay.”
His eyes darken. “You sure?”
I take a shaky breath. “Yes.”
Sin stands slowly. He moves to the bed and stops beside it, waiting like he’s handing the choice back to me.
I scoot over.
He brings the blanket with him, folds it once, and lies down on top of it like a barrier he can control. He stares at the ceiling.
I pull my blanket up around me, staying under it.
My breathing finally slows because he’s here.
Because I can hear him breathe.
Because his presence feels like a wall between me and everything that wants to drag me back.
After a long moment, Sin turns his head slightly.
“You need sleep,” he murmurs.
My throat tightens. “So do you.”
His mouth twitches, almost a smile, then fades.
“You have no idea,” he whispers.
I swallow. “Thank you.”
Something moves across his face, quick and raw.
Then he looks back at the ceiling and says, quieter, almost gentle, “Sleep, Ruby.”
And this time, my body listens.