Page 41 of Obsession
Tally goes quiet beside me and I trace the number again, already knowing what I’ll find.
“This isn’t a mistake,” I say. “It’s a feeler. I think someone wants to know whether Obsidian watches the little numbers or only the big ones.”
“And you know this because?”
“Because I watched Canon’s people do it when I was nineteen.” I look down at the file again, throat tight with the old, ugly memory of that meeting room and the men arguing over a tactic I’d already understood before anyone thought to ask me. “They ignored me afterward, so I read the notes while they congratulated each other.”
Tally is quiet long enough that I look up.
“What?” I ask.
She folds her arms, studying me with a gentleness that makes me want to retreat into the file. “Just wondering how many rooms you were invisible in before invisibility started paying rent.”
I turn back to the manifest and align the pages because straightening paper is easier than letting my face answer. “I’m not stupid.”
Tally laughs softly, though there’s no mockery in her voice. “Sweetheart, I didn’t say you were. I’m saying this might feel like a little vacation from MC life because no one here is yelling your name every five minutes, but it isn’t. You’re sitting on the right hand of the most dangerous person I know, reading files that could start a war if you misread them or keep them too long.”
I think of Sol at the head of the meeting table, power moving through the room without needing volume. “What about Sol?”
“Sol has control.” Tally’s voice loses every trace of humor. “Saint has discipline. Those are different things. Sol decided a long time ago which pieces of himself mattered and which ones he could cut away. He can do terrible things and sleep afterward because he believes in the shape of what he built. Saint keeps the worst parts of himself locked down because he thinks locks are the same as peace.”
“They aren’t,” I say quietly.
“No, they aren’t.” She glances toward the closed door, as if the hallway itself might carry the warning to him. “A locked thing still knows it’s caged. When Saint loses control, he doesn’t break a little. You’ve seen his temper, his hands, the part of him that wants to own whatever calms him. But you haven’t seen the monster this club knows not to wake.”
I stare at her, the file forgotten under my fingers. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re smart enough to see everything except the thing happening to you.” She pushes the plate closer with two fingers, gentling the gesture without softening the warning. “You’ve only been here a week, and it’s the first week Saint hasn’t ripped someone to shreds in the main clubhouse over a look, a delay, or a mistake. I’m not saying things are sweet. They aren’t. I’m saying he’s been keeping that part of himself locked down, and whether he knows it or not, you’re part of why.”
“I’m fine.”
Tally gives me a look so warm and unimpressed it makes me want to hide under the desk. “Sure you are genius. If Saint only wanted control, he could control you from any room in this clubhouse.” She starts toward the door, then pauses with one hand on the frame. “He doesn’t need to take you to bed to get that.”
She leaves before I can answer.
For a while, I sit with the supply file open beneath my hands and my lunch going cold beside it. Now, I just have to tell Saint the words I didn’t mention to Tally. That I think my father is trying to worm his way into Obsidian, even without my help. But that means giving up everything I grew up around, betraying the last scraps of a family that raised me badly but still raised me. It means choosing what to do with the information before I’m ready to admit that having the information is already a choice.
I put the file back exactly where I found it, then leave the office with the unease still moving under my skin. I stop at the edge of the hall before I’m ready to be seen, Saint standing near the center of the bar with Bricks on one side and Moth on the other, a glass in his hand, his cut hanging open over a black shirt. Pike is explaining something about camera blind spots near the north gate, and Saint listens with his head slightly turned, gaze fixed on the speaker until the exact moment I appear.
His eyes find me without his head moving. No one else catches it because Saint doesn’t interrupt Pike. He doesn’t summon me, gesture, or even smile. He looks just long enough for my pulse to stumble, then returns his attention to the problem in front of him.
Pike keeps talking. “The feed goes soft for eleven seconds between the outer fence and the loading bay. Could be weather interference, but it’s happened twice this week.”
Moth says, “It isn’t weather. The pattern’s too clean.”
Bricks leans against the bar. “Everything is a pattern to you.”
“That’s why you’re still alive.”
“Pretty sure that’s because I’m charming.”
Saint takes a slow drink, eyes on Pike. “Fix the camera and put a body on the blind spot until it’s done. I don’t want a prospect there. I want somebody who won’t get bored and wander off because his phone buzzed.”
Demo, passing behind him with a crate, says, “That happenedonetime.”
Saint doesn’t look at him. “It happened once because there wasn’t a second.”
Demo changes direction without another word, carrying the crate like it might save his life if he handles it correctly. Now seems like the wrong time to interrupt so I just watch him command the room, finding peace in his voice.
