Obsidian doesn’t take nicely to outsiders.
I catch the movement out of the corner of my eye, his right hand reaching forward and sliding into my hair with the same terrifying confidence he brought to everything in that meeting room. His fingers push through the curls at the back of my head and then just sits there.
My whole body reacts, my eyes fluttering halfway closed. A second later, a soft, broken sound pulls from my throat. I clapboth hands over my mouth as if I can shove it back in after it’s already spilled out into the open.
Saint goes still for half a second and then laughs. It rolls through the air and under my skin, and my humiliation becomes something hot enough to sting behind my eyes.
“Oh, I guess you really were telling the truth,” he muses.
I glare at him over my hands, or try to. It probably doesn’t work with my face burning and his fingers still loosely tangled in my hair. “Stop,” I say, muffled.
His thumb drags once against my scalp before he pulls his hand back, and the absence of it is almost worse than the touch. “God, I’m going to love this.”
The words send a shiver through me that has nothing to do with cold. I hate him for noticing that too. Saint’s smile fades slowly into something more calculating, though the heat doesn’t leave his eyes. “Here’s how this is going to work.”
I lower my hands from my mouth, but I keep them close, folded against my chest like that might protect whatever dignity I have left. “You don’t get to decide everything.”
“Yes,” he says. “I do. You belong to Obsidian now. Canon’s people think they’re getting a blood tie, access, reassurance. They think sending you over keeps the alliance clean without weakening Varina’s position. Maybe Canon even thinks he can use you to feed information back home because you’re his son and he’s used to you being useful when called.”
“I’m not spying for him.”
“I know.” He leans gently against his back, his face half-lit by the security lamps outside. “You couldn’t lie to me about why you went to that club. You think you’ll manage espionage?”
My face heats again. “You’re an asshole.”
“Yes, I am and now, you’re mine.” There’s no shame in the admission. No defensiveness. Saint wears it the way other men wear leather. He leans slightly closer, not enough to trap me,just enough to make the air between us disappear. “Whatever Canon’s people think they’re getting from this arrangement, I’m going to use against them. Their routes. Their losses. Their dependence on Obsidian’s product. Their habit of overlooking the quietest man in the room. You’re going to tell me everything you know, and I’m going to decide what matters.”
My pulse beats hard in my throat. “And if I don’t?”
His gaze drops to my lips and then to the pulse in my neck before returning to my eyes. “You will.”
Outside, an Obsidian man opens the clubhouse door, and noise spills into the lot with laughter, music, the low rumble of voices, and a world I don’t know waiting to decide what I am. I look toward it and feel the edge of panic return, sharper now that there are walls ahead of me instead of road.
Saint reaches forward again, but this time he doesn’t touch my hair. He settles his hand at the back of my neck, drawing me into that comfortable space I hate so much.
His mouth curves, almost gentle if I didn’t know better.
“Come on, Sín,” he says. “Let’s show them what Canon gave me.”
And because I’m terrified, furious, ashamed, and apparently much more ruined than I ever understood, I let him guide me inside.
Saint
Ikeepmyhandat the back of Oisín’s neck as I bring him through the side entrance, not hard enough to force him forward, but firm enough that every man watching knows exactly who he’s with. The contact serves more than one purpose. It keeps him close, keeps him moving, and keeps the tremor in his body where I can feel it instead of guessing at it from across the room. It also tells every half-drunk, half-curious bastard in the front bar that the soft-looking Rogue in Saint Masters’ grip isn’t lost, available, or up for interpretation.
His gaze moves quietly over everything as I guide him through the side entrance with my hand at the back of his neck. He notices the reinforced steel door first, then the camera tucked high in the corner, then the hallway that angles toward the barinstead of leading straight in. His eyes flick to the two prospects posted near the inner door, the locked case beneath the wall-mounted fire extinguisher, the mirror positioned to catch the blind spot near the stairwell. He doesn’t stare at anything long enough to look suspicious, but he sees it all. The quiet little thing Canon called support staff has been inside my clubhouse for less than thirty seconds, and he’s already mapping weak points while pretending to be overwhelmed.
Good.
Fear makes most men stupid. It makes Oisín observant.
The two prospects by the dartboard notice first, one elbowing the other hard enough to make him miss his shot. A woman leaning over the pool table straightens with her cue still in hand. Three men at the bar lower their voices without turning around, which tells me they’ve seen me in the mirror behind the liquor bottles. Somebody laughs near the jukebox and then cuts himself off when no one joins him.
Oisín’s throat works beneath my thumb as his shoulders pull in by a fraction before he catches himself and straightens again. Canon called him support staff, like that meant forgettable.
Canon is a fucking idiot.
A man with Cade’s crew looks up from a table near the jukebox, squinting through smoke and neon. “That the Rogue?”
