Saints and Secrets
STEEL
Two years is a long time to live with a ghost. Long enough for wounds to scar, long enough for snowstorms to repeat themselves. Long enough for a man to pretend he’s moved on.
Saint Motors stands the same as it always has. Made of brick bones, steel ribs, the heart of everything I’ve built and ruined.
Dust gathers thick along the high shelves. Tools left untouched line the walls like relics of a life paused. The same damn Harley sits on the lift, the job I never finished.
I unlock the door and step inside. The silence welcomes me like an old brother. I don’t come here often anymore. Only when I can’t stay away. Only today.
Valentine’s Day.
The night she walked in. The night she walked out. The night everything in me split open. Every February 14th, I walk back into this shop like a man honoring a grave. And every year, the weight in my chest doesn’t get any lighter.
I reach the workbench. Our workbench.
The wood still has faint marks from where she braced her palms. There’s a scratch from the night I lifted her onto it and lost myself in every inch of her. Some memories don’t fade, they sharpen.
I pull a small, white as snow, unscented, glass candle from my pocket. I strike a match. The flame jumps alive. Soft. Warm. Steady.
I set the candle on the bench.
The light glows against the metal like a heartbeat in the dark. My hand lifts to the chain under my shirt. Tama’s ring. Hanging beneath my cut. Hidden from the brothers. Hidden from the world, but never forgotten.
I keep it close for two reasons. Because it reminds me of the man I refuse to become. And because the woman who gave it back to me loved the man I could’ve been.
I curl my fingers around the ring and whisper into the empty shop. “Every Saint has a secret.” My voice cracks. “You were mine.”
Silence answers. The same faithful silence that’s held me together and pulled me apart for two years.
Aria disappeared like smoke. Never returned. Never called. Never walked back into my world. And I never went after her.
Love isn’t always a pursuit. Sometimes it’s surrender. Sometimes it’s choosing someone else’s safety over your own breaking.
Sometimes it’s carrying a ring no one sees and lighting a candle no one knows the meaning of, because the memory matters more than the man it made you.
I walk into the storm. Ahead of me, the future. Behind me, the flame. The opening beats of Crusher’s story pull me forward, but part of me stays in the now, in the quiet, in the memory of a girl who taught a Saint how to break. And how to love.
I blow out a shaky breath and release the ring. The chain falls warm against my chest. I turn off the lights and lock the shop behind me and step into the snow. I realize the world doesn’t stop breaking just because I do.
I might be carrying my own ghosts, but the club is full of men trying to outrun theirs.
Crusher most of all. And as I walk into the storm, feeling the weight of Tama’s ring against my chest, I know the next chapter of this brotherhood won’t start with me.
It’ll start with him. With blood on his hands, guilt in his ribs, and a night he’ll never stop reliving.