I step toward the board. “Not the main lane. Canon wants Obsidian looking at the obvious pressure point. He’ll hit where the corridor narrows operationally, not geographically.” I tap a junction marked in blue. “Here. This looks like a secondary support pass, but if the timing windows stay as written, it carries the response team overlap for both the false Maverick adjustment and the actual product movement. He won’t know everything, but he’ll know enough from old escort patterns to guess this is where confusion hurts most.”
Moth’s eyes sharpen. “He would need timing.”
“He has old Rogue schedules and enough arrogance to think Obsidian hasn’t improved them.”
Bricks mutters, “That tracks.”
Saint studies the board, then looks at Moth. “Move response overlap off the junction. Quietly. Put a visible adjustment near the main lane to make it look like we’re reacting to Maverick pressure. Bricks, pull two crews we trust and stage them cold. Demo, find Pike and tell him I want north gate cameras reviewed for any Rogue scouts in the last seventy-two hours.”
Demo straightens. “Yes, VP.”
He starts for the door, then stops when Saint speaks again.
“Demo.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t talk to anyone else on the way.”
Demo nods, visibly sealing his mouth with effort, and leaves.
Bricks follows a second later after giving me a look I can’t quite read. Moth remains long enough to photograph the adjusted board and issue three clipped calls, then he leaves too, already speaking in that flat, precise tone that makes people move faster without knowing why.
Saint turns his attention fully on me, folding his arms across his chest. “You didn’t sit on that information. Why?”
Because I chose you, I think, but the words are too exposed, and Saint is still learning how not to flinch at gentler weapons. I look down at my ring instead, twisting it once around my finger. “Because it was bad,” I say. “And because waiting would have made it worse.”
Saint’s hand lifts to the side of my head, fingers sliding carefully into my hair. “You saved us time,” he says. His eyes are dark, stripped of the careless possession he uses when he wants the world to understand a claim. “Maybe more than time.”
I step closer before I can talk myself out of it, and Saint meets me halfway. The kiss starts softly, almost uncertain by his standards. His hand stays at the side of my head, fingersthreaded into my hair, while the other settles at my waist with careful pressure.
His mouth opens mine with a slow heat that makes my knees weaken, but his hands stay careful, reverent in a way he would probably deny if I named it. I lift my hand to his chest, feeling the steady beat beneath my palm. For once, he doesn’t cover the contact with motion.
When we separate, his forehead rests briefly against mine. “My sweet, sweet, Sín.”
I thought this moment might have felt a lot more like betrayal.
It feels like coming home.
Saint
Thefirsttwelvehoursafter Oisín brings me Canon’s plan are clean. Men move because I tell them to move, and the ones smart enough to understand why move faster. The eastern corridor gets stripped down to its bones and rebuilt in layers Canon won’t see until he’s already stepped wrong.
Visible routes stay just unsettled enough to make the Reapers pressure look like the reason. Internal response windows shift quietly. Support teams move off the junction Oisín identified. Two trusted crews stage cold outside the obvious hit zone. Pike pulls camera footage from the last seventy-two hours, and by midnight, Moth has three blurry stills of Rogue scouts sitting where they shouldn’t have been.
Canon is moving.
That part is no longer theory.
Usually, this is where everything in me sharpens into something useful. A threat, a route, a weak point, a name. I can build around those. I can lock a system down, bait a man into showing his hand, and break a crew so thoroughly the next three think twice before breathing near my product. Canon has given me exactly what men like him always give when pride makes them stupid: a pattern to exploit and a timeline too arrogant to hide.
For once, the work doesn’t quiet me all the way.
Oisín gave me the plan without hesitation. He chose Obsidian, and every part of the club is moving because of him now. The problem is that Oisín doesn’t look like a man who wants to be rewarded.
He starts pulling away the next morning. He simply stops reaching.
His hand no longer drifts toward mine when we stand close at the board. He doesn’t linger in my office after delivering a folder. Last night, he came to bed and let me pull him close, but the fierceness in him I’ve seen recently has almost changed into indifference.
