Chapter 28 Saint
Saint
We could drown in the thick silence between us now.
I stare through the windshield at the road winding before us, creeping closer to the ranch every second.
The shopping bags sit between us on the bench seat like a barrier, full of clothes I picked out in another lifetime.
This morning feels like it happened to someone else.
Some other girl who could try on dresses and laugh over lunch and pretend she had a future.
That girl is gone now.
Calder drives with both hands on the wheel now, his jaw tight, his eyes fixed on the road. We’re both tense, with our emotions heightened.
I should say something. Ask questions. Demand answers. But my throat feels too tight, my chest too hollow. What’s there to say? What can we do? I still have no idea what’s happening. Will I have to actually endure the ceremony now?
Will Calder let it happen? And why did he sound so menacing about dinner?
The thought sits in my chest like a stone. Heavy. Cold. Undeniable.
I press my forehead against the cool glass of the passenger window and watch the trees blur past. Pine and aspen. Rock and sky. The same landscape I’ve known my whole life, suddenly foreign.
“Saint.” His voice breaks the silence, rough and low.
I don’t answer. Don’t move. Just keep staring at the darkening forest.
“I need you to listen to me.”
“Why?” The word comes out flat. Dead. “So you can tell me it’ll be okay? That you have a plan, not that I even need to know what it is?”
I see his hands tighten on the steering wheel, knuckles going white.
“This is different. I told you to trust me.”
“How?” I turn to look at him now, anger finally breaking through the numbness.
“How is this different, Calder? In what possible way is tomorrow night different from any other nightmare your family has put me through? When I know nothing about what is going to happen? Is he going to have you fuck me over the dinner table?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Just keeps driving, that muscle in his jaw working. When he finally speaks, his voice is carefully controlled. Too controlled.
“I’m working on fixing things. I told you that.”
“Working on it.” I laugh, and it sounds bitter even to my own ears. “That’s great. Really reassuring. You’re working on it while Roman plans to parade me in front of your entire family and watch you fuck me like I’m livestock being bred.”
The words are ash in my mouth, but I don’t take them back. Can’t take them back. They’re true.
“I won’t let it get that far.”
“You won’t let it get that far.” I repeat his words slowly, like I’m trying to understand a foreign language. “What does that mean? Are you going to kidnap me again? Take me back to the cabin and hide me until Roman finds us and kills us both?”
“No.”
“Then what?” My voice rises, hysteria creeping in at the edges.
Even though I know it’s irrational, and he’s told me over and over he won’t let it happen.
I’m still terrified and consumed with fear.
“What’s the plan here, Calder? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re driving me home to get ready for the worst night of my life tomorrow.
At dinner. Like I’m the appetizer before the main course. ”
He pulls off the main road onto a smaller track. Drives another hundred yards before pulling the truck to a stop in a small clearing. Kills the engine.
The silence rushes back in, thick and oppressive.
“Get out,” he says quietly.
“What?”
“Get out of the truck, Saint.”
For a moment, I think he’s going to leave me here. Just drive away and let me walk back to town. Part of me almost hopes he will. At least then I’d be free, even if it meant freezing to death in the mountains.
But I get out anyway, my new boots crunching on frosted grass as I round the front of the truck to where he’s standing. The sun has fully set now, stars beginning to prick the darkening sky. It’s beautiful out here. Peaceful.
I hate it.
“Say what you need to say,” I tell him, crossing my arms over my chest. “Tell me how you’re going to make tomorrow bearable. How you’ll be gentle. How it won’t be as bad as I think. Go ahead.”
He looks at me for a long moment, and in the truck’s headlights his eyes are the color of winter ice. Cold and clear and beautiful.
“If you have no intention of stopping it,” I continue, voice shaking now, “if you’re really going to go through with this, then maybe I should just let it happen. Stop fighting. Make it easier on everyone.”
“No.” The word comes out sharp. Final.
“No? That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”
“You need to go through the motions,” he says slowly, like he’s choosing each word carefully. “Like you’re going to go through with it all.”
I stare at him. “You want me to lie.”
“I want you to pretend.”
“Pretend.” The word feels wrong in my mouth. Too simple for what he’s asking. “Pretend I’m okay with being violated in front of your family. Pretend I’m a good little Bishop wife who knows her place. Is that what you want?”
“I want you alive.” His voice drops lower, urgent now. “I want you to trust me.”
“Trust you.” I laugh again, the sound breaking somewhere in the middle.
“Trust the man who kidnapped me. Who married me by force. Who stood by while his father branded me. Who’s driving me home to prepare for my own public—” I stop at the word rape.
Then continue. “That’s who you want me to trust?
” It’s stupid, I know, but the fear is making me lash out, and I need…
I don’t know, reassurance, I guess, that he really is the guy I’m… falling for.
I’ve fallen for? Oh God.
He moves closer, close enough that I can see the tension in every line of his body. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“You’ve already let things happen to me.”
“I know.” The admission comes out rough, like it costs him something. “I’m not denying what I’ve done, or what I’ve let happen. But tomorrow night, I’m ending it.”
“Ending what?”
“All of it.” He sighs, his shoulders sinking heavily. “I’ve been in contact with an FBI agent. Special Agent Reese. We were going to use the ceremony to get Roman. That’s obviously not going to work now, so I’ll need to figure out how to adjust things.”
The words don’t make sense at first. I hear them, but they slide off my brain like water off glass. FBI agent. Cover. Get Roman.
“What?”
“The barn was supposed to be wired,” he continues, voice low and urgent. “Audio and visual. The FBI would be listening to everything. I’m going to bait Roman into admitting crimes on tape. Anything they can use to arrest him. Take him down. That was the plan at least… but now…”
I take a step back, then another, until I hit the side of the truck. The metal is cold through my jacket.
“You’re working with the FBI.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“A few weeks. Since the branding.” He shoves his hands into his pockets like he’s trying to keep from touching me.
“I couldn’t tell you because I couldn’t risk anyone finding out.
Not that I thought you would tell anyone.
It’s just the more people who know, the higher the risk becomes.
I didn’t want to drag you into even more danger. ”
My mind spins, trying to reconcile this information with everything I thought I knew. Calder, the obedient eldest son. Calder, Roman’s enforcer. Calder, who follows orders and never questions his father.
Calder, working with the FBI to take down his own family.
“I thought,” I start, then stop. Try again. “I thought maybe you were just going to kidnap me again. That we’d run away and disappear.”
He shakes his head, and his expression softens, a sad smile tugging at his lips. “I can’t run, Saint. I’m a Bishop. This is Bishop land. This is where I belong.”
“But Roman—”
“Has gone too far.” The words come out hard. Final. “He’s always gone too far, but I’m not letting it keep happening. Not anymore. I’m afraid of what my brothers are becoming. What I’m becoming. This has to end.”
I slide down until I’m sitting on the running board, legs suddenly unable to hold me up. “Tomorrow night, but without the ceremony? “
“I don’t care about the timeline. Tomorrow night, this is over.
I’ll speak to Reese and figure out what we can do.
” He crouches in front of me, icy blue eyes level with mine.
“I’ll bait him into talking. Get him to confess.
The FBI will move in, and it will all be over.
For now, I need to reconfigure things for the new timeline. ”
“And if it doesn’t work?” The question comes out small. Scared.
“It’ll work.”
“But if it doesn’t—”
“It will.” He reaches out and cups my face with one large hand. “I won’t let him touch you. Won’t let any of them get to you or hurt you. You have to trust me.”
Trust. There’s that word again. He keeps asking for it, this man who’s given me every reason not to trust him.
Who took everything from me and keeps asking for more.
I shouldn’t trust him, but I do, and it hurts to admit it because I’m so afraid to give in, to give him this last piece when I’ve already lost or handed over everything else.
But looking at him now, crouched in the gravel with his hand gentle on my face and desperation in his eyes, I realize something.
He’s not asking for trust. He’s begging for it.
“I need you to pretend,” he says again, quieter now. “Pretend you’re going along with it. Act scared. Act angry. But don’t fight it so hard that Roman gets suspicious. Just go through the motions until I give the signal.”
“What signal?”
“You’ll know it when you see it.” His thumb brushes my cheekbone, so gentle it makes my chest ache. “Can you do that? Can you trust me?”
The question hangs in the air between us.
What choice do I have? I already do. He just needs to know it.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay.”
He lets out a breath, tension draining from his shoulders. He stands and pulls me up with him.
“We should get home. It’s getting cold.”
Home. The word still sounds strange. But I nod and climb back into the truck, and we drive the rest of the way in silence. A different kind of silence now. Heavy with secrets and plans and the weight of what’s coming.
The house is dark when we pull up, shadows stretching long across the porch. Calder carries my shopping bags inside, and I follow, suddenly exhausted. Drained.
He sets the bags on the bed in our room, then turns to look at me. “You should rest. Tomorrow’s going to be hard.”
“Hard.” The word feels inadequate. Tomorrow is going to be the hardest day of my life, and he’s calling it hard like it’s a difficult test or a long shift at work.
But I’m too tired to argue. Too tired to do anything but nod and watch him leave, pulling the door closed behind him with a soft click.
I stand alone in the bedroom, staring at the bags full of new clothes. The red dress I tried on this morning. The boots I wore out of the store. Things that feel like they belong to someone else now.
I should unpack. Should shower. Should do any of the normal things people do when they come home from a day in the city.
Instead, I sink onto the edge of the bed and stare at the wall.
FBI. Cover. Signal. Trust.
The words cycle through my mind like a prayer, like if I repeat them enough, they’ll start to make sense. But they don’t. None of this makes sense.
Calder is working with the FBI to take down Roman. Tomorrow night, he’s going to get his father to confess to crimes. The FBI will move in. It’ll be over.
And I’m supposed to trust him.
I press my palms against my eyes until I see stars.
The door opens again. I don’t look up, just listen to his footsteps cross the room. Feel the bed dip as he sits beside me.
“Saint.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.”
I drop my hands and turn to look at him. “What do you want me to say? That I’m terrified? That I don’t know if I can do this? That even knowing there’s a plan, I’m still scared out of my mind?”
“Yes.” He reaches for my hand and threads his fingers through mine. “Say all of that.”
“I’m terrified,” I whisper. “And I don’t know if I can trust you. I want to, but I don’t know how.” It’s not entirely the truth. I’ve already trusted him, been trusting him, so what’s a little further?
“I know.”
We sit like that for a long moment, hands linked, breathing in sync. Then I feel something shift in the air between us. Feel the weight of everything we haven’t said, everything we’ve been dancing around since the beginning.
I stand suddenly, pulling my hand from his. I strip off my jacket, then the sweater underneath. The new jeans. The boots.
“What are you doing?” His voice is rough, strained.
“If we’re going to do this,” I say, not looking at him as I pull off my shirt, standing in just my bra and underwear, “if I’m going to pretend tomorrow night, then I want something good to hold on to. Something real.”
I turn to face him now, chin lifted despite the vulnerability of standing almost naked in front of him.
“I want you.” The words come out steady, sure. “You want me. I don’t want the anger between us this time. I don’t want the fear. I want to choose this. Choose you. And not because I’m drunk or drugged.”
I hold my arms out to him.
For a moment, he doesn’t move. Just stares at me like he’s seeing something he never expected. Something precious.
Then he’s on his feet, closing the distance between us in three strides. His hands come up to frame my face, thumbs brushing my cheekbones as he looks down at me with those winter-sky eyes.
“Are you sure?”
I nod. “I’m sure.”
He kisses me then, and it’s different from every other kiss we’ve shared. Softer. Slower. Like he’s trying to memorize the shape of my mouth, the taste of me. Like this matters more than anything that’s come before.
I kiss him back with everything I have. All my fear and anger and desperate hope. All the feelings I’ve been trying to suppress since the moment he took me from my father’s house.
He lifts me easily, carries me to the bed. Lays me down on the quilt my mother made, the one piece of my old life I still have. Then he’s covering me with his body, still fully clothed, settling his weight between my legs.
I can feel him through his jeans, hard and ready. Can feel the heat of him, the solid strength. He props himself up on his forearms, looking down at me with something raw and vulnerable in his expression.
“Tomorrow,” he says quietly, “no matter what happens, remember this. Remember that you chose me. That we chose this.”
I reach up and trace the line of his jaw with my fingers. “I’ll remember.”
He leans down to kiss me again, and I feel his control cracking. Feel the desperation underneath the gentleness. He wants this as much as I do. Maybe more.