Chapter 2
Our stolen meetings feed a dark desire
That burns like lightning through the canyon walls,
While heaven's hosts and hell's own choir conspire
To keep us apart. But passion calls
Across the void between our warring realms,
And we don't heed the price when darkness falls.
Our hookups resumed after Savannah and I broke away from each other. That's just how it is with us. We are something separate. Not meant to be together for real, just allowed stolen moments at midnight if we're brave enough to take them.
Dust and flowers.
She risks her halo's light, while terror whelms
my blackened heart with something close to grace—
Our love breaks up both celestial helms
We know destruction waits in our embrace,
I got there first. Just like I used to when we were kids. The silo rose up like a monument to every sin we committed inside it.
That worlds will shake if we should truly touch,
Yet still we meet in this forsaken place.
The desert blooms conceal what costs too much—
Being there, inside the silo, always felt like somethin’ sacred and sinful at the same time.
Where crimson stones bear witness to our sin,
And thorny flowers bloom from pain and such
Forbidden longings burning from within.
And that's what we are. That's what this is.
Our love is Purgatory.
An endless space of nothingness.
This wasteland keeps our secret, dark and grim—
A place where damnation and light begin.
Nothing but cravings, and dead hope, and forbidden fruit.
It was always like that with Savannah and me. Her angel to my demon. Her rise to my fall. Her light to my dark.
Dust and flowers.
This is the only way it works. She stays in her Heaven, I live in my Hell. And as long as we abide by this one rule—this one commandment from God—do not eat the fruit…
The world still turns.
But the moment we taste it—not the sin of fuckin'. That's not the forbidden part. The moment we take more than was offered, the moment we reach for happiness in the same space—the world just spins apart. Spirals out of order like a dirt devil on the desert sands.
That night, last week, my motorcycle was outside, cooling in the night air. And even though she was the one who demanded this meeting via text, I had myself half-convinced she wouldn't come.
But she did. Hoofbeats echoed through the night, announcin' her arrival.
Moments later, Savannah appeared in the doorway, just a silhouette back lit by the moonlight. She was wearin' a white sundress, almost glowin' as she stood there in the dust. No makeup. Hair flowin’ down her shoulders. The girl from before, not the woman I left behind.
But her eyes—they burned with something that wasn't there when we were young.
She didn't speak to me, not right away. She just came inside like she always did. Though nothin' about this night was like the ones that came before.
We circled each other like wolves, neither of us willing to break first. Her bare feet made no sound on the concrete. My boots echoed with each step. The space between us felt electric, charged with everything we couldn't put into words.
"Three weeks." She broke first. "Three fucking weeks, Legion."
I didn't answer. What could I possibly say that wouldn't sound like an excuse?
"You just disappeared. No note. No call. Nothing." Her voice was loud, crackin' at the edges. "I woke up and you were gone. Like you'd never been there at all."
"Come on, Savannah." I kept my voice flat. "You know who I am. You always have."
"I knew who you were," she spit back. "Not what you'd do."
"And what did I do that was so fuckin' surprisin'?" The anger rose inside me. Hot and familiar, but out of place in the presence of Savannah Ashby. "You got what you wanted."
She scoffed at me. "I got what I wanted? How the hell do you figure?"
"You got Mercy. I don't know why you and your family are so fuckin' interested in mine, but she was the goal, wasn't she."
"I am interested in her because of you!"
"Oh, that's the part I do understand."
"What are you talking about?"
"You're just like him, ya know that? Deep down." It was a lie, I knew that. Savannah isn't nothin' like Cash. But I felt it in the moment, so I said it. "Mercy isn't just a charity project, she's your tether to me."
This made her laugh. "My tether to you? I don't need a tether to you, Legion Kane.
I own you." She looked me in the eyes when she said that, serious as a fuckin' snake bite.
"I own every bit of your heart. I don't have to conjure up a fake relationship with your baby sister to hold your interest. I live rent-free in your diabolical mind every moment, of every day. "
She wasn't wrong.
"I saved her," Savannah stepped closer to me with her chin raised. "While you were unconscious with sepsis, Cash was filing for emergency custody. What was I supposed to do? Just hand her over?"
"You should have asked me."
"When? While you were dyin'?" Her laugh was bitter. "Or after, when you were too busy acceptin' my hospitality to take notice?"
We're close enough now that I can smell her perfume. Something expensive, with notes of vanilla and amber. It makes my chest ache.
"You wanna tame me," I told her. "You wanna undo everything I've built in my life."
"What have you built?" she snapped back. "You're a biker in an outlaw club, Legion. That's not a foundation for anything!"
I didn't take the bait. "You just wanted to fix the broken Kane kids, like we're another Ashby project."
Her eyes flashed. "That's not true."
"Isn't it? You got what you wanted. Mercy in your fancy academy. Me in your mansion. Everything nice and contained where you could manage it." I didn't have to throw in the dig at the end—but I did. "You're just like your mother."
Her self-righteous indignation reared its wild head so fast, I almost laughed.
"Like my mother?" At this point she was hissin' at me. "I wanted us safe. All of us. Together."
"But on your terms."
"Better than yours," she growled back at me. "What was your plan? Steal her away so Cash could sic the sheriff on you? Send his dogs to hunt you down? Go back to the club that didn't want either of you?"
The truth of it burns, even in the here and now. But I didn’t flinch. "You don't get to decide what's best for us."
"Someone has to." Her voice dropped. "Since you're so fucking determined to destroy yourself."
"I chose the only family that ever wanted me."
Her laugh was cruel. "Family? The same family that branded you like cattle and let it get infected?"
"At least they don't pretend to be something they're not."
"And what am I pretendin' to be?" Her voice trembled when she asked this.
"Someone who wants me for me." The words tasted like ash. "Not just another broken thing you can fix to heal whatever your mother did to you."
Her palm cracked against my cheek before I even saw it coming. The slap echoed in the empty silo, sharp and final.
But I caught her wrist before she could pull away. Instincts, I guess. I held it between us like evidence. "You don't get to walk away from this," I told her in a low voice. "Not until we finish it."
"It was finished when you left," she whispered, but she didn't pull away.
For a heartbeat, we were suspended in that moment—her wrist in my hand, her eyes locked on mine, both of us breathing hard with things we couldn't take back.
Then we just… collided.
It was something out of a movie, I remember thinkin'. An uncontrollable moment of her mouth crashing against mine, her teeth scraped my bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. I pushed her back against the silo wall, pinning her there with my hips.
She bit down on my lip, and I growled into her mouth, my hands already bunching the white fabric of her dress, pulling it up her thighs.
"I hate you," she gasped into my kiss, even as her fingers tore at my belt. "I fucking hate what you did."
"Show me," I challenged her, sliding my hand between her legs to find her already wet. "Show me how much you hate me."
She made a sound like she was breaking and shoved me back, just enough to create space. Then she was workin' my jeans open, yanking them down my hips with none of the tenderness we typically share.
I ripped her panties down her legs, the delicate fabric tearing in my hands.
"You left me," she accused, wrapping her hand around my cock, stroking hard enough to hurt. "You just walked away."
I silenced her with my mouth, pushing her harder against the wall. The silo was cold, but we were burning up. Her hand twisted around me, demanding, punishing as she jerked me off. I slid two fingers inside her, feeling her pussy clench around them.
"Fuck you," she breathed, even as she rocked against my hand. "Fuck you for making me want this."
I lifted her up, hands rough on her thighs, and she wrapped her legs around my waist. Her nails dug into my shoulders, breaking the skin, as I pushed her against the wall.
"Is this what you came for?" I asked, positioning myself at her entrance. "To remind yourself what it feels like to be fucked by a demon?"
"Shut up," she hissed, and then pulled me into her with her heels against my back.
I fucked her hard, without gentleness or restraint. She cried out, head falling back against the metal wall with a dull thud. Her white dress was bunched around her waist, already stained with dirt from the wall and my hands.
"This what you need?" I demanded, driving into her with each word. "To be fucked against a wall by someone who ruins everything he touches?"
"Yes," she gasped, her nails drawing blood from my shoulders. "Yes, goddammit."
We weren't making love. We were tearing each other apart.
Her teeth found my neck, biting down hard enough to leave a mark. I gripped her thighs tight enough to leave a bruise, holding her up as I pounded my cock into her.
"Tell me you don't think about this," I growled against her ear. "Tell me you don't wake up wet, thinking about me inside you."
"Every night," she admitted, voice breaking. "Every fucking night."
I shifted my angle, hitting deeper, and she threw her head back with a cry that echoed through the empty silo. Her body tightened around me, so close to the edge.
"Come for me," I commanded, one hand moving to where we were joined, finding her clit with my thumb. "Come while you're thinking about how much you hate me."
She fractured around me, her body convulsing, walls clenching around my cock as she cried out my name like it was torn from her throat.
I followed her over, emptying myself inside her with a groan that sounded like surrender.
For a moment, we stayed locked together, breathing hard, sweat cooling on our skin. Her legs were still wrapped around me, my face buried in her neck. Neither of us spoke.
There wasn't nothin’ left to say that our bodies hadn't already confessed.
Finally, I lowered her to the ground. Her legs shook as she stood there, and she didn't look at me when she pulled her dress down.
The white fabric was smeared with dirt and sweat, torn at one shoulder where I grabbed her too roughly.
I fixed my jeans, watching her. She moved to the small mirror she hung up years ago, trying to smooth her hair and wipe away the evidence of what we did. But there was no hiding it.
She didn't speak as she walked to the door. Didn't even look back.
Outside she whispered something to Cassia, then it was nothin' but hoof beats.
I stayed behind, sitting on the concrete floor where we first kissed when I was sixteen. My body was spent, but my mind was racin'.
This wasn't over.
It was never going to be over between Savannah and me.
The silo had always been our confessional. Our battlefield.
Now it's our purgatory—the place we return to punish each other and feel alive.
To remember what we lost and what we can't let go.
I knew she'd be back.
And so will I.
Back in the here and now, I stare at the text from Mercy, my thumb hovering over the screen. Savannah said to tell you 'hi' this morning.
"Hi" isn't a greeting—it's a summons. It's the sound of a match being struck.
It's code. Not something we ever agreed on, but it's Savannah's way of callin' me to the silo.
Meet me tonight. Fuck me tonight.
That's what 'Hi' means.
I rub my thumb over the screen, feeling the brand on my chest throb with my heartbeat.
I blow out a breath, wishin' this day was already over.
Waitin' until midnight will be torture.
I glance back at the clubhouse. The whole place is a powder keg. Brick’s selling us out. He wants me to join in. Accept whatever deal the Feds are offerin’. And if I refuse, he wants me dead.
And none of it matters when I read that text.
Hi.
I should tell Savannah no. I should focus on figuring out what I’m gonna do. I should be sitting with Butch, or planning my next move.
But I know exactly where I'll be at midnight.
Same place I've always been when she calls.
Same place I'll always be.
Because when it comes to Savannah Ashby, I've never known how to say no. Not at sixteen. Not at thirty-two.
She is my poison fruit and I will never stop tasting her.
I light another cigarette, inhaling deep enough to burn. The nicotine doesn't calm me anymore, but the ritual gives my hands something to do besides reaching for her ghost.
I type out a reply to Mercy, delete it, type again. My finger hovers over the send button.
Focus on school. I'm proud of you.
It's the only clean truth I have left to give. The only part of me that isn't stained with blood, or lies, or broken promises.
Everything else is scorched earth. Club politics. Brothers who might be enemies. Brick's calculating eyes. Butch's blood drying under my fingernails.
And Savannah. Always Savannah.
I hit send and crush out my cigarette under my boot, calculating how long I have to wait to feel her wet pussy clench around me.
Then I turn back toward the clubhouse, already feeling her skin under my hands, already hearing her breath catch when I push my cock inside her.
Some men pray for salvation.
I just count the minutes until damnation.