Chapter 10 Secrets of a Saint #2
As I reach my Jeep, the night presses too close. The drive home is a blur of headlights and tears I refuse to examine. When I pull into my driveway, a shadow darts across the edge of my yard, gone before I can focus.
My lawyer's brain kicks in before fear can take the wheel. This isn’t a random blur in the dark; it’s an escalation.
First, the office, public territory, and humiliation.
Now my yard, private territory, and intimidation.
This is patterned behavior, a stalker’s blueprint.
Testing proximity. Testing my reaction. Seeing what boundary can be crossed before the next one falls.
Whoever this is, they’re not improvising.
They’re working on a strategy. One designed to corner me and reach him.
I yank my door open, triple-check the deadbolt the moment I step inside and clutch the ring beneath my shirt like it might steady the shaking in my ribs. Only then do I breathe again. My house feels too quiet. Too empty. Too small for the storm inside my chest.
I sit on the couch with the ring at my chest and whisper to the dark. “I’m tired of surviving.” The silence doesn’t answer.
The shock hits all at once, late and brutal.
My hands won’t stop shaking. My breath won’t stay steady.
I keep seeing the shredded papers, the drawers gutted, my diploma shattered across the floor.
The lingering smell of sweat and adrenaline, proof they hadn’t just broken in…
they’d lingered. Watched. Waited. Violation crawls under my skin like something alive.
Panic rises next, sharp, and breath-stealing, the kind that squeezes your ribs from the inside.
Then anger crashes in, hot and humiliating.
How dare they do this? How dare they walk through my life like it was theirs to ruin?
And beneath it all, the worst truth settles like lead.
This wasn’t about me. It was about him. Fear for Steel hits harder than fear for myself. And guilt settles heavier than both.
My phone buzzes once. Then again. And again.
I don’t check it. I don’t have the strength.
I fall asleep curled up on the couch when a knock rattles the door.
It’s soft at first. Then harder.
My heart stutters. I cross the room slowly and place my hand on the deadbolt.
“Aria,” Isaiah says through the wood.
My breath shatters. I open the door an inch. He looks ruined. His hair is wet from snow, eyes red like he hasn’t blinked in hours, chest rising too fast under his cut.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he says.
“Then why are you?” I snap.
“Because every time I close my eyes, all I see is you running. And I… I can’t.” His voice fractures. “I can’t let that be the last thing between us.”
The cold drags in behind him, but I don’t step back. He does it for me, stepping inside, closing the door with one hand, the other lifting to cup my jaw.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry I can’t give you everything. I’m sorry, I don’t know how. But I’m not sorry for wanting you.” His forehead presses to mine.
“I’m scared,” I breathe.
“So am I.”
The kiss that follows isn’t angry. It’s slow at first. Trembling, aching, full of every apology neither of us knows how to say.
Then it deepens. Heat slicing through the cold, fingers digging into fabric and skin, hips meeting hips.
He backs me into the hallway wall. I fist his shirt. He lifts my leg with one hand, mouth trailing those slow, sacred kisses down my neck.
My knees buckle.
His forehead rests against mine, breath uneven. Then his hands slide down my sides, slow, reverent, trembling in a way I’ve never felt from him.
“Aria,” he murmurs, “tell me to stop.”
“I won’t.”
That’s all it takes. He lifts the hem of my shirt, knuckles grazing bare skin. Every inch he reveals feels like a confession. I tug his cut off his shoulders, push his thermal up until he lets me pull it over his head. Heat rolls between us, sharp and hungry.
My leggings cling to his thighs when he presses me into the wall. His fingers hook at my waistband, pausing, waiting for the smallest shake of my head before sliding them down my legs. Clothes fall to the floor in a trail he’ll pretend not to see tomorrow.
He cups my jaw, thumb brushing my lips, and whispers against my throat, “I’d burn down the world for you. I need you to understand that.”
My body arches into his. Then he lifts my leg with one strong hand, lines our bodies together, and when he finally enters me, my gasp breaks the quiet open.
Isaiah groans into my mouth, forehead pressing to mine, moving like he’s trying to memorize every inch of me before the world can take it away.
The pace turns frantic, then soft, then frantic again. Like two people trying to rebuild something already burning.
We collapse together, breath tangled, chests heaving. He pulls me into his lap on the couch, arms around me like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he lets go.
“Isaiah,” I whisper. “What aren’t you telling me?”
His breath stutters. “There’s someone out there tied to my father,” he says slowly. “Someone who should be dead. Someone who doesn’t let grudges go.”
“Who?”
He shakes his head. A lie by omission. A truth by fear.
His thumb brushes my cheek. “You’re not alone in this,” he murmurs. “Not ever again.”
And even though I know better, even though shadows follow me home and SUVs watch me from the curb, I let myself believe him.
For one night.
For one breath.
For one secret I haven’t learned yet.