Chapter 10 Secrets of a Saint
TEN
SECRETS OF A SAINT
ARIA
The mirror lies. It tells me I look rested.
Put together, almost normal. But the woman staring back knows better.
She’s the kind who wakes up gasping at shadows and checks every window twice before turning on a light.
She’s the woman who falls asleep with Isaiah’s mouth on her skin and wakes up alone in an empty motel room she shouldn’t be in to begin with.
And she’s the one who keeps touching the ring under her blouse like it’s a heartbeat that doesn’t belong to her until now.
I paint lipstick over the bruise at the corner of my mouth. Foundation hides the shadows under my eyes. And a half-smile hides the fact that I spent the night checking my phone like an addict waiting for a dealer who stopped picking up.
I smooth my hair and straighten the blazer I didn’t iron. No one in this office has to know I slept four hours in a bed that wasn’t mine, in arms that aren’t mine, in a place I shouldn’t have been.
I whisper to my reflection, low and sharp. “Get it together.”
The reflection doesn’t believe me.
By the time I step out of my car, my legs feel hollow, but my expression is polished. People don’t look too closely when you wear heels and confidence like armor.
Leah meets me at the door with her latte and her judgment.
“You’re late again,” she singsongs. “Did someone keep you up?”
I roll my eyes. “The storm messed with my sleep.”
She lifts a brow. “Pretty sure the storm doesn’t leave hickey-shaped weather patterns.”
I push past her, heat climbing my throat.
Meetings blur into paperwork. Paperwork blurs into phone calls. Phone calls blur into me zoning out while staring at the same sentence for ten straight minutes.
Half the day I’m replaying last night. Isaiah’s hands on my body, the way he said my name like it cracked something inside him. The other half of the day, I’m pretending I’m not replaying last night.
By two p.m., even my coworkers stop pretending not to notice.
“You look tired.”
“You feeling okay?”
“Everything alright at home?”
I smile. I lie. I keep breathing. But every time I unclip a file, every time I blink, every time silence settles too long…
…I feel eyes on me.
The days blur. Sleep is a rumor I stopped believing in. Work piles on, motions, briefs, arguments, the noise of the courthouse swirling around me, and I wear professionalism like armor no one realizes is cracking at the edges.
Leah knows something’s wrong. She watches me over her desk with that “You’re a mess, but I’ll wait until you break to say anything” stare. She keeps quiet because she thinks heartbreak is safer than the truth.
If only.
By the fourth day, I’ve lost count of how many times I check the door, the lot outside the windows, the sidewalk. I keep expecting the world to shift, for something to snap back into place, for Isaiah to stop pretending distance keeps me safe.
Isaiah hasn’t called me once since the motel, and it hurts more than the storm ever did. He keeps his distance like loving me is a line he can’t afford to cross twice, and I pretend I’m fine even as the silence crawls under my skin.
I tell myself I’m not waiting on him. That I don’t check my notifications just to feel the spike of disappointment when his name isn't there. But every buzz of my phone makes my pulse jump like a spark catching dry tinder.
Instead, I catch the first black SUV that parks across the street, unmoving, windows tinted so dark I can’t make out anything inside.
I tell myself it’s a coincidence. A parent waiting for a kid. A delivery guy. Someone is on break. Then I see the plate number. It’s a Michigan plate with blue lettering, half covered by slush. I write it down in my notes app with shaking fingers.
When I check again an hour later, the SUV is still there in the same spot, same angle, the engine humming like a threat.
Then the phone calls start. Rings that end the second I answer. Voices that don’t speak. Breathing, or maybe that’s just my fear filling in the blanks.
By noon, I’m glancing over my shoulder so much the paralegals start to notice.
By two, I swear someone is trailing me through the hallway. By three, I’m sure of it.
Isaiah’s silence feels less like rejection and more like a warning. Like he knows something I don’t. Like he’s keeping distance because danger is closing in, not because he stopped wanting me.
The realization hits low and hot in my chest.
I make it through the rest of the day on muscle memory alone, signing things I barely read, pretending I’m okay while adrenaline thrums under my skin like static.
A shadow lingers in the space between the garage pillars longer than coincidence should allow. The cold slams into my lungs. My pulse trips over itself.
Someone is watching me. Again.
And Isaiah’s parting words from the motel replay like a bruise pressed too hard. Call me next time. I don’t care what hour it is.
I don’t call. Not yet. Because what scares me most isn’t the SUV. It’s the truth sitting in my chest. If I call him, he’ll come. And every time he comes, we spiral deeper.
But by the time I pull into the driveway of my little house in St. Louis, my nerves are raw. I check the rearview mirror twice before stepping out. My porch light flickers. It didn’t flicker last night.
Something is wrong. Bad wrong.
There’s only one person who’ll tell me the truth, even if it hurts.
And that’s how I end up gripping the wheel, heart pounding, driving toward the only garage in Mt. Pleasant that feels like home and danger at the same time.
Isaiah King is avoiding me.
But tonight?
He doesn’t get that luxury.
Someone is following me. The shadows are getting closer. The threats didn’t stop with the storm, and whether he wants it or not… I’m already too deep in this war.
By the time I reach the outskirts of town, the fear curdles into determination.
If someone’s watching me, if this is connected to Isaiah, then hiding won’t save either of us.
I turn onto the dirt road toward his garage. The sky bruises purple overhead. Steel’s garage sits at the edge of the trees like it’s been waiting. The dark metal door is half-open, warm yellow light leaking out.
My heart thunders.
He’s inside. And I’m either here to warn him, or start the fight we’ve been avoiding since the moment we touched again.
Inside, Isaiah’s back is to me. His broad shoulders tense beneath his cut, hands working on the stripped-down engine of a Harley like he can rebuild the world with a wrench if he just tries hard enough.
“Isaiah,” I say.
He freezes. His shoulders go rigid, and he turns slowly. His eyes rake over me from my shaking fingers, my clenched jaw, to the fear I can’t hide if I tried.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, already crossing the room.
“I’m being followed.”
He stops inches from me, breath shallow, body tight as barbed wire. “What happened?”
“A black SUV has been sitting outside my office. A car slowing behind me. Calls that disconnect.” My voice cracks. “Isaiah, someone is watching me.”
Anger flashes in his eyes, swift and violent. Not at me, at the world.
“Let me handle it,” he growls.
I shake my head hard. “No. Talk to me. Tell me who’s behind this.” He looks away. That single motion guts me. “This isn’t random,” I push. “You know something.”
His jaw ticks. “I know enough.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
Something inside me snaps. Fear, fury. I’m not sure which. “Stop treating me like something you can fix with silence!”
His stormy grey eyes whip back to mine. Danger in the dark depths.
“You want the truth?” he bites out. “The law won’t save you, Aria. You know that better than anyone.”
The words slice like glass.
I shove him hard. “So you get to decide for me?”
“Yes.” His voice is low, lethal. “Because whoever’s out there isn’t after you. They’re after me. And using you to get there.”
My breath catches. “Tell me who.”
He hesitates. His fear speaks before he does. “There are old names tied to my father,” he says finally. “Old enemies, someone the Saints thought they buried. Old debts. Someone wants to drag me back into that war.”
That’s not all of it. But it’s all he’ll give me.
“You can’t keep this from me,” I whisper.
“I have to.”
“You don’t trust me.”
His breath stutters. “It’s because I trust you that I can’t.” The room goes still. Cold. Sharp around the edges.
“This isn’t love,” I say, voice trembling. “It’s survival.”
He steps closer. His eyes burn with intensity, and they’re locked right on me. “Same thing around here.”
And suddenly the argument is heat. Too close, too raw, too much.
His hands are on my hips. Mine fisted in his shirt. Anger blurring into desperation. Fear melting into hunger.
I shouldn’t kiss him. He shouldn’t touch me. But we collide anyway. Mouths crushing together with the same reckless certainty that has wrecked us from the beginning.
He lifts me onto the workbench, lips bruising mine, hands gripping my waist like he’s trying to hold back an entire war.
I tear at his shirt. He growls into my mouth. Metal bites my thighs as he pushes between them, heat radiating through denim and leather.
My breath fractures. His name breaks in my throat. “Isaiah…”
“Don’t run,” he whispers against my skin. “Not again. Not from this.”
“This is wrong.”
“Then stop me.”
I don’t. Instead, I pull him closer.
The kiss turns molten, messy, unrestrained. The kind that tastes like everything we can’t say and everything we shouldn’t want. But the moment burns too hot, too fast.
Because when he kisses me like a promise… all I taste is the secret he won’t share.
I push him away, panting. He steps back, chest heaving. “Aria.”
“No.” My voice breaks. “I can’t do this with half-truths.”
I want him. God, do I want him. But wanting him has never been what saves us.
I slide off the bench. Avoiding his eyes, while I grab my coat.
He calls after me, voice raw. “Don’t walk away.”
But for the second time in my life, I do.