I yank my phone from my pocket.
Click.
The sound of the camera shutter slices through the silence, sharp as the daggers still cooling in their hiding place on the underside of my tarot table. His face freezes on the screen, crystal clear. Saint Shade, maskless. Blond. Green-eyed. Caught.
Before he can even blink, my thumbs are moving as I start a text. I attach the photo and fire it off to Iris with two words:
For safekeeping.
Sent.
Done.
Leverage secured.
His whole body jerks. “What the hell are you doing?”
I shrug like it’s nothing, but my hands are slick with adrenaline sweat. “What does it look like? Insurance. You saw me, I saw you. Now we’re both fucked if anyone talks.”
His jaw tightens, those perfect cheekbones going hard as marble. “Delete it.”
“Not a chance.” My voice comes out impressively steady. He’ll never know my knees are about to give. “I’ve got your face now. You breathe a word about what you saw, and Saint Shade goes viral without his mask.”
His eyes narrow, and for the first time, I see the dangerous edge beneath all that polished acrobat-smolder.
He takes a slow step closer, voice low and sharp. “You know, I came here to get you to stop posting about me. You’re two inches from shouting my damn name into the web. Stop, and I won’t drop an anonymous tip to the cops about the body cooling in your truck.”
The air between us is electric. Standoff. Predator vs predator. My heart thuds so loud I can hear it in my ears, but I refuse to blink first.
His glare is sharp, honed. Mine is all bite, all claws.
“You delete that picture,” he says again, slower this time, like maybe I didn’t hear him.
I tilt my chin, smirk painted on like war paint. “Not a chance,” I say coldly. “You saw me. I saw you. Now it’s mutual assured destruction, babe.”
His nostrils flare, and for a second, I think he’s going to snap. What’s he capable of? Could he hurt me? I have to be pretty sure he can. He knows how to clean up blood, and he didn’t freak the hell out at the sight of a dead body. Saint Shade, whatever his actual name is, is dangerous. But instead of exploding on me, like he probably should, he reins it in, smooths his tone into something silkier, colder. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”
“Welcome to Las Vegas,” I snap, extending my hands out, indicating the city around us. “Games are kind of the thing here. You want to test me? I’ll post your little blond mug to TikTok right now. Front page of For You. You’ll be Saint Shade for about two more minutes before the world makes you Saint Exposed.”
He doesn’t flinch. If anything, he leans in closer, voice dropping to a knife’s edge. “And you, Dagger Kitten, are one slip away from prison orange. So, let’s be clear: you stop making videos about me, and I don’t let the authorities know about your extracurriculars. Think of it as… balance.”
The nickname slams into me—Dagger Kitten—and lord help me, it sparks something hot under my skin. But I don’t let it show. I just arch a brow. “Balance,” I echo, like the word tastes foreign.
The silence stretches, humming between us. Neither of us blinking. Both holding cards we can’t afford to play.
And then slow but steady, something changes. In his eyes, in his expression. It totally throws me when his voice shifts, softer than I expect. Almost raw. “Please don’t expose me.”
The words sucker-punch me harder than any threat could have.
He swallows, takes a breath, and for the first time, Saint Shade looks less like a Vegas god and more like a man caught inthe floodlight. “It would ruin everything. Everything I’ve built. It would turn my whole world upside down.”
I blink at him, thrown off balance. This isn’t menace. It isn’t bravado. It’s something that sounds an awful lot like desperation. I think back to my last tarot reading on him. The starting over. The before and the after. This life, Saint Shade, it means everything to him, and it has a gravity that I can’t understand.
I should laugh. I should tell him that’s the whole point of leverage. But instead, I study him. Really study him. The tension in his jaw. The honesty bleeding through his eyes. He’s not bluffing. He’s not scheming.
He’s begging.
I lean back, folding my arms. “You’re serious.”
