I don’t answer. Just stand there and let the name settle in my chest, like it’s always been there waiting. The room holds its breath. Then, one by one, they echo it back.
Not loud. Not shouting. Just reverent, bone deep.
Steel.
And then nothing.
Just the hum of the overhead fan and the quiet creak of old wood, like the club itself just bore witness. But something shifted tonight.
They don’t look at me like a kid anymore.
They look at me likeSteel.
Later, in the chapel, after the brothers echoed my name, Steel, and the silence settles, Aria finds me alone at the edge of the chapel wall.
She doesn’t say anything. Just reaches for my hand, links our fingers. Her skin is warm. Real. And it steadies me more than any patch or praise.
Her voice is soft. “You built something tonight.”
I nod. “Not done yet.”
She leans in, close enough that her lips brush my jaw. “Good. Because I’m not leaving.”
I turn to look at her, really look at her, long dark hair loose down her back, her sharp blue eyes filled with something that burns. Not pity. Not pride. Just us. The quiet truth of it.
“Come with me,” I murmur.
She follows without hesitation, past the chapel doors, through the dark hallway, and into my room. No words, no nerves. Just something simmering, years in the making.
Inside, I press the door shut behind her and lean back against it. My hands are still stained with oil, blood, and ink. She reaches for one and kisses my knuckles like they’re sacred.
“You carry so much,” she says, lifting her eyes to mine. “Let me take some of it tonight.”
My throat tightens. “I don’t want to break you.”
“You won’t.” She steps into me, palms flat against my chest. “I’ve already survived more than most men ever could. But I’m not surviving with you. I’m choosing.”
Her kiss is soft at first. Searching. And then it deepens, catching fire between us like it always threatened to. I lift her by the waist, and she wraps her legs around me like she belongs there, like she always has.
Clothes fall away between touches, between gasps of breath, between all the unsaid things we’ve buried under years offriendship, longing, fear. Her skin is warm and soft and real, and when I lay her down, it's like laying down my guard, too.
She moans my name, quiet and reverent, like a vow. And when I slide into her, the world finally stills.
We move slowly, like we’ve got time. Like we’re writing something new on each other’s skin.
Once we catch our breath, she lies against me, fingers trailing the line of the Saint tattoo on my chest, she whispers, “Whatever comes next... I’m all in.”
I kiss the top of her head. “You’ve always been.”
And in the dark, with her body molded to mine and the weight of the gavel still lingering in my mind, I finally let myself believe that I don’t have to carry it all alone.
Not anymore.
NINE
THE FALL OF A KING
STEEL
