Saint keeps finding me between sentences. Each glance lands like a touch from across the room, and the slow certainty forming inside me makes my stomach turn. What’s building isn’t only submission. It isn’t gratitude because he notices what Canon missed, and it isn’t survival because my body has learned the shape of his protection. Those things are tangled through it, but they aren’t the center. The center is softer, uglier, and much harder to escape. I want him even when I’m not on my knees.
Saint finishes with Pike and looks toward me fully for a full moment. Then he approaches with a beer in his hand, throws me a look, and disappears down the hall into his office. I only hesitate a moment before following, closing the door behind us.
Unsure of what to do, I just stand there, waiting for a command or for Saint to guide me. When several seconds pass, and Saint makes no mention to acknowledge me after taking his seat, I turn back toward the door.
“Stay,” he says.
My shoulders fall a little in relief as I move toward him. My first instinct is the chair near the wall. My second is stronger, and I’m tired of pretending I don’t know where it comes from. I lower myself beside his desk, knees meeting the carpet, hands settling on my thighs the way they have before.
His mouth curves as he looks down at me. “Do you like that?”
Heat rises into my face, but I keep my eyes on him. “Do you want me somewhere else?”
He studies me over the rim of his beer, amusement all over his face. “Is that for me, or because you need it?”
“Both.”
Saint’s amusement thins into attention. His hand slides into my hair with controlled pressure, steady enough to make my breath catch and firm enough to remind me I’m exactly where he needs me. I want to look away before he sees how quickly the touch settles me, but looking away would only prove the point.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Tally mentioned some if not all what I found earlier to Saint. He isn’t angry with me and he isn’t asking what task Moth gave me. But now there’s another problem. It isn’t just Obsidian against the Rogues. Obsidian doesn’t know me well enough to deserve that kind of loyalty, and the Rogues stopped seeing me long before Saint ever put his hands on me. It isn’t safety against blood, because neither side is safe and blood has never been gentle with me.
If I tell Saint what I found, I’m not choosing Obsidian.
I’m choosing him.
Saint
Isleepforfourhours with Oisín pressed against my chest and wake up less murderous than usual, which should probably bother me more than it does. Rest is too generous a word for what I get. My body comes awake the way it always does, all at once, taking inventory before my eyes fully open. Door shut. Window locked. Gun in the drawer. Hallway quiet except for the faint knock of old pipes and someone moving down the hall too early for a clubhouse that runs better after noon. Oisín is warm against me, curled close with one hand resting near my ribs like he reached for me in his sleep and didn’t know what to do once he found me.
His hair is tucked under my jaw, soft enough to irritate me, and his breathing moves slowly against my chest. Daylight hasstarted to press around the curtains, but it hasn’t reached us yet. In the dark, he doesn’t look like Canon’s son, the Rogue blood tie, the logistical asset Moth keeps trying to steal for longer briefings, or the quiet little problem Sol keeps circling like he’s deciding where to put a blade. He’s just Oisín, asleep and defenseless in my bed, and the static in my head sits farther back than it usually does in the morning.
The dangerous part is how quiet the world gets after I’ve had him close, how the constant churn of XR3 routes, Sol’s expectations, Canon’s angles, and every weak link in the pipeline dulls around the edges until I can almost mistake it for peace. Oisín shifts in his sleep, his fingers tightening once near my side, and I catch myself adjusting my arm so he doesn’t wake.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand before I can think too hard about that. Oisín frowns at the sound but doesn’t open his eyes. I reach across him carefully, already annoyed by the care, and grab the phone. Moth’s name lights the screen with a message short enough to mean the morning is already fucked.
Complaint from new buyer. XR3 quality issue. Sol’s study. Now.
I read it twice because quality issue and XR3 don’t belong in the same sentence unless someone made a mistake that should have been impossible or someone wants us reacting like we did. Obsidian doesn’t move dirty product. We don’t cut, dilute, mishandle, or let unstable batches anywhere near buyers. Quality is the moat. Quality is why men with money and reputations come to us instead of some gutter chemist pushing glitter poison out of a basement in Jersey.
One complaint from one new buyer won’t break anything by itself, but the wrong whisper in the wrong circles can do damage faster than a bullet if the market starts wondering whether Obsidian’s clean miracle is slipping.
I slide out of bed without waking Oisín, though his hand curls faintly into the sheet where my body had been. I ignore the desire to crawl back in and dress quickly. At the door, I look back to see he’s rolled onto his side, the fading mark under his jaw shadowed by the pillow. He looks younger asleep, less guarded, like the whole world hasn’t taught him to brace before a voice gets too sharp.
Resisting the growing urge to stay, I stalk down to Sol’s office. I can’t even muster up a laugh when I step inside and see that he’s already smoking.It’s barely nine am,I mutter to myself.
My father leans against the front edge of his desk with a cigar between two fingers. Moth is just off to his right with his tablet tucked against his side, expression composed into the kind of stillness that means the situation has offended his sense of order. Bricks occupies the lounge near the window, one arm thrown along the back, ankle hooked over his knee, face loose enough to look casual if someone doesn’t know him.
Moth starts before Sol can turn the room into theater. “New buyer out of Buffalo claims six vials from the Friday handoff produced inconsistent onset, visual distortion, and neurological tremor within ninety minutes. No hospitalization, no law enforcement, and no direct contact. Complaint came through Harlan’s brokerage line at 6:12 this morning.”
“Batch number?”
“Fourteen-C.”
My jaw tightens. “Fourteen-C cleared twice.”
“Yes.”
“Warehouse transfer?” I ask.
