Chapter 11 The Rumor
ELEVEN
THE RUMOR
STEEL
The world looks different when it’s still dark and she’s still asleep.
Aria’s curled against my chest, legs tangled with mine, her breath warm on my skin.
The room smells like her perfume and sex and the things I’ve tried for years not to want.
Outside, the February wind hits the siding hard enough to rattle it, but in here, it’s quiet.
Danger always feels the loudest in the quiet.
Her fingers twitch against my ribs, like she’s reaching for me even in sleep. A weak part of me wants to stay. Wants to steal one more hour, maybe two, maybe the whole damn day. But the stronger part, the darker part, the President my father carved out of me, knows sunrise can’t find me here.
Saint Outlaws don’t catch feelings. Saint Outlaws don’t get caught.
I brush a strand of hair from her cheek, and she doesn’t wake.
My hand hesitates, just one inch from tracing her jaw again.
I feel the warmth radiating off her skin, and I pull back quickly, like touching her again might burn through every layer of armor I have left.
If she opened her eyes and looked at me like she did last night, like I was something worth holding onto, I wouldn’t leave at all.
I slide out of her bed, pull on my jeans, my thermals, then my cut. The leather feels colder than usual, heavier too. Like it knows exactly where I’ve been and who I’ve been with. I grab my boots quietly, but before I move to the door, I hesitate.
Her Saint ring glints from where it hangs on her nightstand lamp, catching the faintest hint of moonlight. Mine by blood. Hers by a choice I’m terrified she’s going to regret.
I lean down, press a kiss to her hair, and whisper against her temple, “Be safe.”
She doesn’t hear it.
I slip out before the sun breaks the horizon, the door clicking shut behind me like the last word in an argument we’ll have again.
My SUV waits in the driveway, exhaust ghosting in the cold. Frost clings to the windshield, glittering beneath the porch light. I pull the door open, climb inside, breath clouding in the freezing air, and for a moment, I let myself look back at her quiet little house.
A thousand thoughts hit at once. What if someone followed her home? What if the SUV wasn’t the only car watching? What if she wakes up and I’m gone, again? What would Tama have told me to do? His voice echoes in the cold space. “Distance saves lives, boy.”
One night. One breath. One mistake I’ll make again.
The engine growls to life, loud in the stillness, and I ride away before I can talk myself into staying.
The clubhouse smells like coffee, bacon, and bad decisions. Most mornings, my brothers keep the noise level somewhere between “rowdy” and “someone’s going to lose a tooth by noon,” but today the room goes sharp the second I walk in.
Eyes lift. Conversations shift. A chair scrapes too fast. Someone stops mid-laugh. A fork hits a plate with a clang that echoes way too damn loud.
Rampage smirks like he’s been waiting. “Well, well, well,” he drawls from behind his mug. “Look who finally decided to show up. President’s got a glow about him this morning.” He raises his eyebrows. “Must’ve been a hell of a sunrise.”
Snickers roll through the room. Throttle chokes on his coffee. Caine mutters, “Mystery woman didn’t let him sleep.” Even Honor, usually quiet, hides a grin behind his toast.
Draft lifts his head from a stack of receipts just long enough to give me the kind of look that says he noticed something he shouldn’t have. Nova whistles low under his breath.
Rock doesn’t smile. He leans back in his chair, arms crossed, watching me with those old soldier eyes that see too much. “You look tired,” he says evenly. “Or busy. Hard to tell lately.”
The laughter flickers out.
I grab a plate, ignoring the tension, the looks, the itch crawling up my spine, and load food that the club bunnies prepared. I swallow it down, even though it tastes like gravel. Every chuckle, every sideways glance, every whispered “mystery woman” rides the edge of a knife.
Saints don’t date in secret. We don’t fuck in secret. We sure as hell don’t fall in secret. And they’re starting to smell smoke.
Rampage jabs again, grinning. “Come on, Prez. Tell us who she is.”
“She’s none of your damn business,” I say without looking up.
The table goes dead still.
Rock’s gaze sharpens. “Everything’s our business when it affects the club.”
Which is the whole problem. Aria affects everything.
I push back from the table, chair legs scraping across the hardwood. It’s not loud, but it cuts the room sharper than a shout. My brothers freeze.
Some of them exchange glances. Some look away too fast. Some lean forward, hungry for the slip. I don’t give them a look, don’t give them a word. If I do, the truth might be written all over my face.
I pass Draft as he pretends to be checking a clipboard, but he watches me from the corner of his eye. Nova nudges Caine, whispering something I can’t hear. Honor stands in the doorway of the rec room, arms crossed, expression unreadable. The world feels tighter with every step.
I make it ten steps down the hall before City catches me before I make it to my office.
He plants a hand on the doorframe, blocking my way like he has a right to. Which, annoyingly, he does. He’s my brother, my Secretary, my second brain when mine’s too clouded by grief or anger or, apparently, Aria Brennan’s skin.
“You got a minute?” he asks.
“No.”
He closes the office door behind us anyway. “Good. I’ll talk fast.”
I glare, but he doesn’t flinch. “You can’t look that soft and expect them not to notice.”
My jaw tightens. “I don’t know what the fuck you think.”
“Cut the shit.” His voice drops, firm, cutting me off. Brother-to-brother, not officer-to-President. “You’re different. The past few days? You’ve been walking around like there’s something you’re protecting more than us.” Fuck, if he isn’t close.
He steps closer, lowering his voice. “You can’t afford distractions, brother. Not right now. Not with everything brewing.”
Everything. The enemies in the dark. The shifting alliances. Tama’s unfinished wars.
Aria.
“I’m not distracted,” I lie.
City’s eyes narrow. “Then why aren’t you wearing your ring?”
My breath stops. I glance down at my hand, bare knuckles, pale skin where the Saint ring should sit. He noticed. Of course he did.
“It’s being cleaned,” I say flatly.
“Bullshit.” He leans in, voice softening but somehow cutting deeper. “Prez… whoever she is… she’s making you soft.”
“Get out,” I rasp.
He holds my stare for three long seconds. Then he nods once and slips out the door, leaving me with a truth I don’t want and a reflection I can’t ignore.
I stand there alone for a long minute. The office feels too small. Too quiet. Like the walls remember Tama’s voice better than mine.
I look out Tama’s office window, my office window now, the glass catching my silhouette. I look older. Meaner. But the mark where my ring should be looks like a bruise.
Like proof. Like guilt carved into skin.
Would my father have seen weakness, or the same love that ruined him? I don’t know which answer terrifies me more.
His voice echoes in my head, unwelcome and sharp. “Love is leverage, boy. And leverage gets you killed.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I know who it is without looking at the screen. I feel it like a pulse under my skin.
Aria.
I pull it out just enough to see her name.
Aria: Made it to work. Are you okay?
Another message comes seconds later.
Aria: You left fast. Just… let me know you’re alright.
My thumb twitches over the screen.
Behind me, voices echo down the hallway. Brothers moving, talking, listening. Always listening.
I shove the phone back into my pocket like it’s contraband.
President first. Man second. Because if they ever know the truth, she becomes a target. And I become a liability.
By late afternoon, the walls feel too tight. The air is too thick. My brothers’ eyes are too damn sharp.
I grab my keys, nod at no one, and walk straight out the side door into the cold.
The sky’s bruising into dusk. The wind tastes like snow. My SUV sits under a thin sheet of frost, headlights catching the dying light.
I pull the door open and climb in, the leather of my cut creaking as I settle behind the wheel. The engine rumbles to life, deep and steady, vibrating through the cabin, grounding me in a way nothing else does. Not even her.
Windshield wipers screech across the ice, loud in the quiet. The heater coughs before warm air finally spills out. My breath fogs the glass. My fingers tighten on the wheel. White knuckles, red skin, ring mark burning.
I drive until the clubhouse fades into trees, until the world narrows to headlights and frost and the steady thrum of the engine.
The SUV’s cabin is freezing, the wheel biting into my palms, the cold snapping my thoughts back into something that almost feels like control. But it can’t clear her. It never does.
The trees blur past in streaks of black and white. Every shadow looks like something waiting. Someone waiting. Tama’s voice haunts me again. “Something’s always coming, boy. Don’t you forget it.”
I pull onto an empty stretch of road outside town, kill the engine, and sit there in the silence. Snow drifts lazily across the asphalt, pale in the fading light.
Something presses against my ribs. It’s not fear, but a warning. The same feeling I used to get right before a fight went bad. Right before a bullet was meant for me.
I take a breath.
Then another.
Then I whisper into the empty Michigan winter. “I’m already soft, she’s the proof.”
The words frost in the air, hang there, then disappear. Just like she will. If I’m not careful. If I don’t choose. If I don’t break something first.