Chapter 12
TINY
The first thing I learned as a kid was that when someone you care about flinches from you, you don’t get to pretend you didn’t see it.
And Syvannah flinched. Not big. Not obvious.
Just the smallest jerk backward when my fingers brushed her arm after Church that afternoon.
Anyone else would’ve missed it. I didn’t.
Now it’s hours later, close to two a.m., and I’m hiding in the garage like a coward.
All the spectators for the dance recital that the Royal Dancers put on have left, and the brothers are spread thin across the compound.
Capone running recon plans, Trigger muttering calculations over his ledger, and Dagger sharpening a blade with the patience of a saint with murder in his heart.
Blayze, Law Dog, Torch, Derange, Aftermath, and Red are all at their homes spread across the compound, getting in much needed family time.
The prospects, along with Bones and Pretty Playboy, are in the clubhouse either nursing a beer or getting laid.
Me? I’m pacing the oil-stained concrete, pretending I’m just working.
Pretending her eyes didn’t look at me like she was measuring the distance between who I am and who I was.
The lie I fed the club earlier still tastes like metal. Hellhounds didn’t just tag that warehouse, they were claiming it, and I covered it. I covered them.
I told myself it was to protect the club. Truth is, I did it because I’m terrified they’ll look at me and see what I used to be.
Footsteps crunch outside, soft but certain, and my chest tightens. She’s here.
Syvannah steps into the garage, framed by the open door and the wash of moonlight behind her.
She’s wearing leggings and a loose top, charcoal smudged along her wrist like she’d been drawing again.
Her long, soft hair glows in the low light.
But her eyes look like she came here to set something down or burn something up. I can’t tell which.
“Hey,” I say quietly.
She doesn’t answer. She just closes the door behind her, like she wants the world shut out before this conversation kills us both.
Her voice comes out tight. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Hook, line, and sinker. My heart drops into my boots. “Tell you what?” I ask, even though I know exactly what the hell she means.
She steps closer, fists trembling. “Don’t play dumb, Tiny. Not with me. All day, you’ve been pulling back. You won’t look at me. You won’t talk. And then Pearl.”
Fury sparks up my spine. “Pearl said something to you?”
“More than said.” Syvannah laughs, bitter. “She practically gift-wrapped the truth, or what she thinks is the truth.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That you’re still loyal to another patch,” Syvannah whispers.
The words hit harder than any fist ever has. It takes everything in me not to smash something, preferably Pearl’s skull.
Instead, I breathe slowly. Controlled. “She’s lying.”
Syvannah shakes her head. “Then why won’t you tell me what’s going on? Why do you look at me like I’m made of glass one second, and like I’m going to break you the next?” She closes the distance between us, standing toe to toe. “Do you still have ties to them? The Hellhounds?”
The past slams into me. Creed’s hand on my shoulder, the smoke, the oath burned into the back of my skull.
I swallow hard. “It’s not that simple.”
“Then make it simple,” she whispers. “For me.”
I look away. Which is the wrong move.
“That’s what I thought,” she says softly. Brokenly. Her voice is a cut I can’t dodge.
“Syvannah.” I plead, wishing to God or any superhuman being to help me make this right without putting her in danger.
“Do you love them more than you trust me?” Her throat works. “Do you love them more than you trust yourself?”
That one lands straight in the old scar tissue. I drag a hand through my hair. “You don’t understand the kind of men they are.”
Her chin trembles, but her voice stays steady. “Then tell me.”
I don’t answer.
Syvannah inhales sharply, like my quiet is confirmation. “You know what?” Her voice cracks on the edges. “I survived men like that. Men who break you down so slowly you think the pieces are your fault.”
“And now,” she continues, “I’m looking at you and seeing the same secrets. The same shadows. The same silence.”
My chest caves in around her words. “I’m trying to keep you safe,” I choke.
“From what?” she fires back. “The truth?”
“From me.” The second the words leave my mouth, she goes still.
“Why would I need protection from you?”
I finally meet her eyes. And it’s all there. The fear, the hope, and the desperate need for the right answer. A tear slips down her cheek.
“Tell me who you are, Ethan,” she pleads. “Not who you pretend to be. Not who you think I want. Just… you.”
Something inside me snaps. I grab her face gently but firmly, my thumb brushing away the tear. My forehead presses to hers.
“I ran from the first family I ever had. I walked away from men who called me brother. And I lied today because I didn’t want the second one to throw me out.” I take a sharp breath. “I’m the man who’s so fucking scared of losing you that I can barely breathe,” I whisper.
Syvannah’s breath stutters.
“And I’m the man,” I rasp, “who doesn’t know how to tell you the truth without burning everything down.”
Her eyes soften, pain shifting into something sharper, fiercer. “Then risk it.” Those two words steal the strength from my legs. “Or risk losing me, Tiny.”
The choice hangs between us. Lose her, or lose everything fast.
“Screw that,” I growl, and make my choice.
When I pull Syvannah toward me, she doesn’t pull away. She surges into me like she’s been waiting for the dam to break.
Our mouths crash together in a desperate, starving need. Her hands fist my shirt. Mine grabs her hips, hauling her against me until I feel every inch of her heat.
She breaks the kiss just enough to gasp, “Don’t lie to me again.”
“Then don’t run from me again,” I growl, pinning her back against the workbench, tools rattling. “I can’t lose you, Syv. Not to them. Not to fear. Not to myself.”
She grabs my hair, yanks me down to her mouth again. Her kiss is anger and forgiveness and hunger.
“Tiny…” she breathes, like a warning.
I slide my hands under her thighs and lift. She wraps around me instantly, gasping when my erection drags friction through the thin barrier of her leggings.
“You want honesty?” I murmur against her throat. “Here it is. I’ve wanted you every damn second since the day you walked into our compound shaking and stubborn and alive.” Syvanna moans, nails digging into my shoulders. “And I’m done pretending otherwise.”
Her eyes are wild and wet. “Don’t stop.”
“I’m not sure I can.”
“Then don’t.”
I tug Syvannah’s shirt over her head and toss it behind us. My shirt is next, landing on the same pile. We’re a heaving mess by the time her leggings are yanked off, and mine are at my ankles.
Clothes fall away. Every motion is a confession we can’t say out loud. The sound of her breathing fills the space between the heartbeats, the rhythm syncing to mine. It’s slow, then desperate, then something gentler, like the silence after a storm.
We move like we’ve both been drowning for too long and finally found air in the same breath. Her body presses against mine, warm, alive, defiant. I trace the lines of her spine, the curve of her shoulder, memorizing proof she’s real. Every scar feels like a map back to the person I thought I lost.
She whispers something I almost don’t catch. “I hate how much I need you.”
I rest my forehead against hers. “Then we’re even.”
When her fingers slide into my hair, the fight goes out of both of us. It’s not about claiming or control anymore. It’s survival. The need to feel human in a world that’s tried to strip that from us.
I blindly lead us to the workbench and settle her onto my lap. She pulls away from our kiss, her lips swollen from my kisses.
“Are you sure?” I ask again. I know I broke her trust, but fuck, I don’t want to break her heart too.
Syvannah nods, then grips my shaft and plunges onto me. I gasp as her tight, hot heat wraps around me. Syvannah moans my name as she moves her hips up and down, gyrating on top of me.
“Fuck.” I groan, pressing my mouth to her neck.
“Ethan,” Syvannah moans my name, and I know she’s close. I can feel it in the swell of her chest, in the breathy words that leave her lips. I can feel it in her body as it turns rigid. She shifts her hips back and forth. My palms grip her, halting her momentum.
I stare into her golden eyes and lose myself in the woman above me. I move inside of her until we’re both balanced on the edge. “You wreck me in the best possible way.”
“I hate that I love you,” Syvannah whispers.
“I love you, Baby girl.” I breathe, the words escaping before I can catch them.
“Jesus, Syv…” I brace my forearm beside her head as her warmth clamps around me. “You’re perfect.”
I thrust into her, deep, steady, losing myself in every gasp she gives me.
She clings to me, thighs locked around my waist, pulling me closer, deeper.
Her lips crash to mine in a frantic kiss.
“Harder,” she begs.
I give her harder. I give her everything.
Her cries echo off metal and concrete, muffled when I swallow them with my mouth.
Syvannah breaks first, body trembling, nails clawing down my back as she comes undone around me.
I follow a heartbeat later, groaning her name into her neck as I spill inside her.
For a moment, nothing exists but the shaking breaths we share. I pull back just enough to look at her.
She touches my cheek, voice soft. “I still trust you… even if I’m scared.”
My eyes burn. “I’ll earn the rest.”
The world is quiet. Gentle. Almost peaceful.
When we’re finally still, Syvanna’s head rests against my shoulder, our bodies slick with sweat, the air around us humming with leftover electricity. I can feel her heartbeat against my chest. Fast, uneven, but alive.
She exhales shakily. “This doesn’t fix anything.”
“No,” I murmur into her hair. “But it means we’re still trying.”
Her fingers find the scar over my ribs, tracing it like punctuation on a story we’re still writing. I kiss the crown of her head, and for the first time in a long time, the world feels quiet.
We stay tangled together, breathing the same air, sharing the same thoughts, until the night breaks apart again.
A scream cuts through the night. Syvannah jerks upright. My pulse stops. Another scream. Closer this time.
Then the thick smoke hits. I’m on my feet before I can think, yanking on my jeans. Syvannah’s already moving, fear etched in her face.
Heat slams into us as smoke curls under the door. I grab Syvannah’s hand and help her with her clothes. Flames roar along the back wall.
“Move!” I shout, grabbing Syvannah’s wrist and dragging her toward the exit.
The garage wall explodes behind us in a burst of fire. Syvannah screams. I throw my body over hers as burning metal rains down.
The world becomes smoke and heat and panic. Just before everything goes black with firelight, I know one thing with absolute clarity.
Someone set this blaze. And they wanted us inside when it caught.