Cards erupt around me, pulled from the deck strapped to my wrist. With a twist of my free hand, they spin in a cyclone, catching fire mid-air. Sleight of hand? Sure. But with enough flex, enough sweat, and the right lighting, it looks like I conjured flames from my veins.
The last card—the Ace of Clubs—flickers out of the air and lands neatly between my teeth. I flip down, drop into a controlled fall, and land center stage with one knee down, one fist planted on the floor—superhero landing style, and a thud that echoes through the floorboards.
The music cuts.
Silence for one breathtaking beat.
And then the theater explodes.
Every seat filled, every person on their feet, clapping, screaming, hollering like they’ve just been blessed by something unholy. A woman in the second row is openly crying. A guy in the balcony flashes me his tits, which I did not need tonight, but hey—Vegas.
As the curtain begins to close, I saunter forward. When I reach the edge, I hook my thumb under the black fabric that covers the lower part of my face, and lift. With only my mouth exposed, I drag my tongue across my upper teeth, and flash them a wicked grin. And the crowd loses their damn minds.
It’s my signature. My sign off. The little tease I use to end every show. The mask glints in the light—horns, halo, gold etchings. And they eat up every inch of Saint Shade.
They don’t know me. They’ll never know me. But they’ll remember this.
And me? I’ll remember the sound.
The sound of five thousand people worshiping my mask.
The curtain swallows me whole as I step back, and I suck in air like I’ve just outrun death itself. Sweat drips down my spine. My chest heaves. My legs are shaking so hard I almost stumble when I step into the wings.
Back here, it smells like lighter fluid, singed hair, and spilled Gatorade—less glamorous than the firestorm on stage. Stagehands clap me on the shoulder, grinning, shouting congratulations. One of my flyers, a girl with shoulders carved like marble, tosses me a water bottle.
“Fucking killed it, Shade,” Shayla beams.
“Always do,” I say as I pull down the lower half of my mask to guzzle.
The thing is—out there, in the light, I am Saint Shade, Vegas’s dirtiest little secret. Back here? I’m just a guy trying not to throw up from adrenaline overdose.
I tug the mask the rest of the way off, feel the cool air hit my slick skin. My hair sticks to my temples. My lungs are still dragging in breaths like I haven’t been doing this five nights a week for years.
Then Eddie, my lighting guy, waves a hand. “Yo, your phone’s been blowing up the last fifteen minutes. Thought maybe your dick pics finally leaked.”
“I charge for those, nothing you could afford,” I say as I toss him a middle finger and grab my phone from the crate where I left it charging. The screen lights up, and I find sixty-ninenotifications from TikTok.I only have one kind of notification for that app.
My stomach knots before I even open it.
I swipe. And there she is.
Willow Vale. Sitting pretty at her tarot table, her damn velvet cloth making everything look like witchy temptation, those blue eyes glinting like she can see straight through the camera—straight through me.
And my blood runs cold.
Because she’s talking about me again.
Saint Shade.
Her cards spill out one by one, and my whole body tenses. The Fool. The Devil reversed. Death. I never knew much about Tarot until the last few months. But I’ve been obsessively watching Willow’s videos, so I’ve learned. Which means I know it’s fucking bad before she even analyzes the cards.
She talks about running from my past, about reclaiming power, about how I’ve built a before-and-after life.
Holy shit.
Too close. Willow is way, way too fucking close.
I can’t move for a full thirty seconds. I just stare, pulse pounding in my ears, as if the video might morph into something safer if I keep watching.
