Chapter 3
chapter three
WILLOW
I’m frozen. Not because I was just caught ending a man’s life, or because said man is wrapped in a tarp in the back of my truck, but because he is standing in front of me.
Saint Shade.
The man I’ve spent months thirst-commenting on. The one I’ve made a whole damn obsession series about. The masked mystery with seven million followers and the kind of body that makes the internet collectively feral.
And he’s here. Maskless. Real. Watching me like I’m the show.
My stomach drops straight through the ground. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.
Every comment I’ve left, every rail me in half joke, every DM that I will deny to my grave—it all flashes through my mind. And now the universe has decided to laugh in my face by dropping him right into my murder cleanup.
And oh, my hell. Up close, he’s even hotter. Which feels deeply unfair. His shoulders are ridiculous, his jawline could slice through glass, and those green eyes are so sharp they could pierce straight through my soul.
Ugh, I hate him already.
He’s just as frozen as I am. Actually, he looks kind of… terrified. He never, ever meant for me to see that tattoo, the only identifying mark Saint Shade has. With his eyes fixed on me, he just stands there, blond hair glowing like some fallen angel in the neon light.
And that’s when it hits me. Blond. I blink hard. “Wait. You’re blond? You’re… blond?”
A laugh bubbles up out of me, sharp, too loud. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. I’ve been obsessing over you for months, and you’re blond? I had you pegged for dark and broody, dripping in angst. And instead, you’re—what, surfer boy chic?”
Finally, a sign of life. His mouth quirks. And then he actually rolls his eyes. “You’re surprised? Everyone knows blonds have more fun.”
I gape at him. “Wow. That’s… that’s your line? You’re unmasked in front of me for the first time, and that’s what you go with?”
“Sorry to bust all your dark-haired bad boy fantasies,” he gripes, actually looking a little annoyed by my expectation.
It just never, ever crossed my mind that a thirst-trapping, masked acrobat magician would ever be… blond.
But at his shift, at his annoyance that creeps into his tone, I sober. I come back into this very real, very dangerous moment.
Saint Shade just saw me commit murder.
My pulse kicks into overdrive. My survival instincts finally roar awake.
I yank my phone from my pocket.
Click.
The sound of the camera shutter slices through the silence, sharp as the daggers still cooling in their hiding place on the underside of my tarot table. His face freezes on the screen, crystal clear. Saint Shade, maskless. Blond. Green-eyed. Caught.
Before he can even blink, my thumbs are moving as I start a text. I attach the photo and fire it off to Iris with two words:
For safekeeping.
Sent.
Done.
Leverage secured.
His whole body jerks. “What the hell are you doing?”
I shrug like it’s nothing, but my hands are slick with adrenaline sweat. “What does it look like? Insurance. You saw me, I saw you. Now we’re both fucked if anyone talks.”
His jaw tightens, those perfect cheekbones going hard as marble. “Delete it.”
“Not a chance.” My voice comes out impressively steady. He’ll never know my knees are about to give. “I’ve got your face now. You breathe a word about what you saw, and Saint Shade goes viral without his mask.”
His eyes narrow, and for the first time, I see the dangerous edge beneath all that polished acrobat-smolder.
He takes a slow step closer, voice low and sharp. “You know, I came here to get you to stop posting about me. You’re two inches from shouting my damn name into the web. Stop, and I won’t drop an anonymous tip to the cops about the body cooling in your truck.”
The air between us is electric. Standoff. Predator vs predator. My heart thuds so loud I can hear it in my ears, but I refuse to blink first.
His glare is sharp, honed. Mine is all bite, all claws.
“You delete that picture,” he says again, slower this time, like maybe I didn’t hear him.
I tilt my chin, smirk painted on like war paint. “Not a chance,” I say coldly. “You saw me. I saw you. Now it’s mutual assured destruction, babe.”
His nostrils flare, and for a second, I think he’s going to snap.
What’s he capable of? Could he hurt me? I have to be pretty sure he can.
He knows how to clean up blood, and he didn’t freak the hell out at the sight of a dead body.
Saint Shade, whatever his actual name is, is dangerous.
But instead of exploding on me, like he probably should, he reins it in, smooths his tone into something silkier, colder. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”
“Welcome to Las Vegas,” I snap, extending my hands out, indicating the city around us.
“Games are kind of the thing here. You want to test me? I’ll post your little blond mug to TikTok right now.
Front page of For You. You’ll be Saint Shade for about two more minutes before the world makes you Saint Exposed. ”
He doesn’t flinch. If anything, he leans in closer, voice dropping to a knife’s edge. “And you, Dagger Kitten, are one slip away from prison orange. So, let’s be clear: you stop making videos about me, and I don’t let the authorities know about your extracurriculars. Think of it as… balance.”
The nickname slams into me—Dagger Kitten—and lord help me, it sparks something hot under my skin. But I don’t let it show. I just arch a brow. “Balance,” I echo, like the word tastes foreign.
The silence stretches, humming between us. Neither of us blinking. Both holding cards we can’t afford to play.
And then slow but steady, something changes. In his eyes, in his expression. It totally throws me when his voice shifts, softer than I expect. Almost raw. “Please don’t expose me.”
The words sucker-punch me harder than any threat could have.
He swallows, takes a breath, and for the first time, Saint Shade looks less like a Vegas god and more like a man caught in the floodlight. “It would ruin everything. Everything I’ve built. It would turn my whole world upside down.”
I blink at him, thrown off balance. This isn’t menace.
It isn’t bravado. It’s something that sounds an awful lot like desperation.
I think back to my last tarot reading on him.
The starting over. The before and the after.
This life, Saint Shade, it means everything to him, and it has a gravity that I can’t understand.
I should laugh. I should tell him that’s the whole point of leverage. But instead, I study him. Really study him. The tension in his jaw. The honesty bleeding through his eyes. He’s not bluffing. He’s not scheming.
He’s begging.
I lean back, folding my arms. “You’re serious.”
“Yes.” His voice doesn’t shake. His eyes don’t leave mine. “Dead serious. Please, Willow. Back off on Saint Shade.”
My pulse stutters. For the first time all night, the edge in me dulls just a little. I don’t know what the hell tomorrow looks like, but in this second, standing behind my shop across from the world’s most mysterious magician, I know one thing for sure:
Neither of us is walking away untouched.
The silence between us stretches, thick as blood. His plea still echoes in my head, raw and unpolished in a way that makes my chest ache. He isn’t bluffing. And for reasons I don’t want to unpack, I can’t brush it off.
“So that’s the deal then.” My voice is quieter than I mean it to be. “I keep your secret, you keep mine. A stalemate.”
He nods once, slow, deliberate. “A pact.”
The word lands heavy, final.
I huff out a laugh that sounds nothing like humor. “Do people usually seal blackmail pacts with a handshake or just… finger guns across a corpse?”
He finally cracks a smile, and damn, it’s a really nice smile. And how weird is it that his teeth are familiar? I’ve seen that teasing smile on screen hundreds of times. “You’re funny, Dagger Kitten. That doesn’t come out enough in your videos.”
And there he admits it. That he’s watched my videos just as much as I’ve watched his. “You know, it doesn’t quite seem fair,” I say as I fold my arms over my chest. “You know my name. How about you share yours? Or do you want me to go digging for it on the internet?”
His expression sobers a little bit. He debates, I see it in his eyes. “Kade,” he finally says.
I literally roll my eyes. “No, it’s not.”
His gaze narrows and he huffs a laugh. “What do you mean?”
“You’re the most un-Kade-like Kade that never existed,” I say as I look him up and down again. Everything in me riots against the name. I feel it with every ounce of confidence in me that he’s lying. “There isn’t a chance in hell your name is Kade. It just doesn’t fit.”
He shrugs his shoulders and looks away, which is a tell. “I don’t know what to tell you. My name’s Kade Arden. You can go ask any of my staff. Though they might not confirm. They all had to sign NDA’s as soon as they were hired.”
“Very convenient,” I say, deadpan.
He just smirks and shrugs.
Behind the fence that blocks off the other side of the block, I hear a door slam shut, and then loud, ruckus voices as they head out into the night, All Hallows Eve still young.
“I need to get this taken care of,” I say, feeling awkward all of a sudden. I nod my head toward the wrapped body in the bed of my truck. “Do you, uh… need a ride home or something?”
One of his brows kicks up and he actually blushes. “I drove here.”
“Of course you did.” I roll my eyes. “Stalker.”
That pulls a short, rough laugh out of him, and against my better judgment, it eases something in me. It shouldn’t. He didn’t deny it when I called him a stalker. Why the hell does that word feel hot?
“Look, you obviously know what you’re doing,” he says, his tone softer. “But I’m going to say it anyway. Back roads only. Don’t drive the Strip with that thing in the back. And go to a random carwash when you’re done, somewhere outside the city. Make sure that truck bed shines.”
My eyes narrow. He’s suspiciously good at this shit. “So, what now?” I move on, because I know he won’t answer if I ask him why he seems to know what he’s talking about. “We just… walk away? Pretend we didn’t just become the weirdest kind of partners-in-crime?”
His mouth curves, not quite a smile. “Blackmail you later?”
The ridiculousness of it almost makes me laugh. Almost. Instead, I nod once. “Guess so.”
I pull the driver’s door to the truck open, my boots crunching against the gravel at my feet. Not-Kade takes ten steps down the alley, toward the main road. But he turns back just before he steps out onto the sidewalk. Green eyes, serious, unreadable.
Dammit. Why is he even more beautiful than I imagined?
Breaking the eye contact, I pull myself up and into the truck. When I yank the door closed and pull my seatbelt on, I check the rearview mirror, and he’s gone.
I grip the steering wheel before I start the engine. My whole body hums with adrenaline and something else I really don’t want to name.
Tonight, I was caught. Someone saw me murder a bad man. I’ve been so damn careful, but I guess I’ve gotten cocky. I don’t even have a serial killer name (though I wouldn’t mind one) because my targets are random enough, and not a single body has ever been found.
But something as simple as curtains would have saved me from being discovered tonight. I was so focused on the kill that it didn’t even occur to me that someone could see into the back room.
You’re getting lazy, Vale, I think to myself as I start the engine. I put it into reverse, backing out of the alleyway and onto the street. I check up and down the block, but I see no evidence of not-Kade or what might be his vehicle.
My knuckles are white on the steering wheel as I roll down the road.
My brain won’t shut up. Can I trust him?
Should I run? I picture my go bag waiting at home.
Cash. Burner phone. Fake ID. I could be out of Nevada before sunrise if I wanted to.
But the thought curdles in my chest. I don’t want to run.
This is my city. My streets. My justice.
My family is here. And yes, Vegas might be gross and too bright and too loud and too hot, but I still love it.
And damn it, I don’t want him to be the thing that scares me out of it.
But will I have to leave it all behind?
My thoughts are racing as I drive through the night. I do take back roads as I make my way out of the city. I turn off the main road, headlights cutting through desert black. It’s a long drive, but I’ve never minded. Finally, the cliffs rise ahead, jagged teeth gnawing at the night.
I’ve done this fourteen times. It should feel routine. But today is different in every sense of the word.
The cliff edge greets me like an old friend. Below, Lake Mead sprawls black and bottomless, the water swallowing secrets better than any graveyard.
I grunt as I drag the body out of the truck, muscles burning. My thighs and shoulders ache, but there’s satisfaction in the strain. CrossFit wishes it had corpse day.
The tarp crinkles against the gravel. The cinder blocks clank like chains. I lash the knots tight, looping rope with practiced hands. I could probably do this blindfolded by now.
I heave, shove. For a second, Travis Bell’s corpse teeters at the edge, as if giving its last goodbye to a world he made worse. Then gravity does its thing.
The cliff I stand at the top of is sharp enough that he doesn’t hit anything at all before he reaches the water. The splash is muffled, anticlimactic. A burp of bubbles. Ripples that smooth out too fast.
I count. I always count. One, two, three, eighteen, fifty, a hundred… until I’m sure he’s sinking for good.
The water closes, calm, dark, endless. My church. My confession booth. My burial ground.
Fourteen men. Fourteen predators. Fourteen ghosts swallowed by the Colorado.
But tonight feels different. Because for the first time, someone else saw. Someone helped. Someone dangerous enough to tip my whole world sideways.
I stare into the dark water and whisper, “What the hell does tomorrow even look like?”
The ripples don’t answer.