His friend cuffs him before I have to look over. “Shut your mouth.”
I ignore both of them, guiding Oisín through the silenced chaos. The public side of the main clubhouse is all rough wood, old smoke, motorcycle oil dragged in on boots, and the kind of half-controlled chaos that keeps outsiders from understanding where the real business begins. That’s the point. Let people see the drinking, the pool tables, the women tucked under arms, the prospects hauling beer and taking shit from patched members. Let them think Obsidian is muscle and noise.
The real rooms sit farther back, past the locked interior hall and the second set of cameras, where the bar gives way to offices, private quarters, and the family wing my father built when he decided a clubhouse wasn’t enough unless it could also function as a fortress.
“You always watch this much?” I ask, low enough that only he hears.
His eyes flick toward me. “I’m in a new place.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the one I’m giving you.”
There’s a little bite in the words. Oisín yields beautifully when the right pressure is applied, but there’s a spine under all that softness. Canon missed it because it didn’t look like his own reflection.
One of the men near the bar mutters, “Thought we were getting the sister.”
Another answers, “Saint doesn’t bring home what people expect.”
As much as I want to put someone through the wall, the night’s already been messy enough, and I need Oisín inside my rooms before I decide which instinct is strategy and which one is just my temper wearing a better coat.
At the locked door, I punch in the code with my free hand. Oisín looks down immediately, a deliberate refusal to see what he could have seen.
Interesting.
“You already caught the first two numbers,” I say.
His mouth tightens. “I looked away.”
“You want credit for that?”
“I want you to know I did.”
Oisín isn’t what I expected at all. The moment I realized who he was, I expected him to fold. This version is way more entertaining.
I push the door inward and guide him through ahead of me, closing it behind us on the bar’s smoke and noise. The lights are warmer here, the floors polished instead of scuffed raw, the walls lined with framed photographs, old charters, ride memorials, and the kind of history men like Sol use to turn violence into legacy. This is the house part of the club, the stretch of rooms reserved for ranking members, the Masters family, and anyone trusted enough to sleep behind locked doors without three guns pointed at them.
Oisín slows despite my hand at his neck, observing everything his eyes can reach. Tomorrow, that mind becomes useful. Tonight, it belongs to me.
“You’ll stay in this wing,” I tell him as we move down the hall. “You don’t sleep in the guest rooms, and you don’t wander through the main bar without me knowing where you are.”
His head turns slightly, enough that I can see the edge of his expression. “That supposed to sound better than a cell?”
“No. A cell has fewer exits.”
“That’s comforting.”
“I’m not trying to comfort you.”
Oisín lets out a small scoff and I almost smile.Almost. Instead, I keep walking, my hand steady at his nape while his steps match mine. “You’ll meet with Moth tomorrow and hand over everything you know about Rogue routes, losses, books, and internal pressure. You’ll answer his questions clearly. If there’s something you think he’s missing, you say it. If you try to hide something because you’re still deciding whether loyalty means bleeding for a man who called you useful, I’ll know.”
He stops so sharply my hand tightens to keep him from stepping out of my grip.
“I was wondering what would make a man like you falter. Your father’s an idiot,” I tell Oisín, digging my thumb into the side of his neck.
His lids flicker in something dangerously close to submission before he blinks and glares at me. “You don’t know him.”
“I know what he overlooks.” I muse, stepping closer until his back nearly touches the wall. “Which is worse than not being seen at all. A man can miss something once and call it a mistake. Canon made a habit out of missing you, and habits are choices people got comfortable making.”
