Chapter 7: Promises
The city lights through the loft’s industrial windows were a smear of gold and white against the black. Kat lay awake, listening to the slow, deep rhythm of Styx’s breathing. The warmth of him was a solid reality against her back, his arm a heavy, possessive weight across her ribs. Her mind, however, wouldn’t quiet. It replayed the feel of his cock in her mouth under the harsh ER lights, the animal terror in the meth-fueled patient’s eyes when Styx had broken him, the absolute finality in his voice: You’re in it.
She shifted slightly. His arm tightened, a subconscious reflex, pulling her closer. Her nurse’s mind, never fully off, began an inventory of the body she was pressed against. The ridge of scar tissue she’d felt under her nails last night. The particular density of muscle, built for violence, not the gym. The stories etched not just in ink, but in damaged flesh.
She turned slowly, careful not to wake him. The faint light from the window caught the planes of his face, softening the hard lines. He looked younger in sleep, the perpetual guarded tension gone from his mouth. Her gaze traveled down. A pale, ropey scar bisected his left pectoral, just missing the nipple. Another, jagged and ugly, peeked from above the waistband of his boxers low on his right side. A knife, probably. Sloppy.
Without thinking, driven by a need to understand the map of him, she leaned in and pressed her lips to the scar on his chest.
His breathing hitched. He was awake.
She didn’t stop. She kissed a trail along the raised, slick tissue, her tongue tracing its path. She moved down, her mouth grazing over the hard plane of his stomach, to the jagged mark on his hip. This one she tasted deeply, as if she could divine its history through salt and skin.
His hand came to rest on her head, fingers sliding into her hair. Not guiding, just resting. “Kat.”
“Tell me,” she murmured against his hip bone, her breath warm on his skin.
“The chest was a bottle. A bar fight. I was twenty.” His voice was a sleep-roughened rumble. “The hip… that was a shiv. County lockup. Twenty-three.”
She closed her eyes, absorbing the cold, simple facts. She kissed lower, nuzzling into the coarse hair at his groin, the heavy shape of him already stirring against her cheek. “And this?” she whispered, her fingers curling into the waistband of his boxers, pulling them down.
He helped her, lifting his hips, kicking the fabric away. He was fully hard now, thick and curving upward against his stomach. She didn’t take him in her mouth. She explored the rest of him. The inside of his thighs, where the skin was surprisingly soft. The complex tapestry of ink on his hips and flank—a serpent, a skull, dates in Roman numerals. She avoided the obvious, making him wait, making him feel the heat of her attention everywhere else.
“Fuck, Kat,” he groaned, his hips giving an involuntary jerk.
“I’m conducting an assessment,” she said, her professional tone a stark, erotic contrast to where her mouth was. She finally took his balls in her hand, rolling the weight of them gently. “Significant scarring. History of trauma.” She leaned down, flicking her tongue over the head of his cock, tasting the pearl of pre-come that had gathered there. “Patient presents with persistent, treatment-resistant rigidity.”
He laughed, a short, surprised bark that dissolved into a groan as she took him deep, her throat opening for him. She established a ruthless rhythm, one hand working his shaft, the other cupping and gently squeezing his balls. She looked up, meeting his gaze in the dim light. His eyes were glazed, his teeth sunk into his lower lip.
“The prognosis?” he managed to grit out.
“Guarded,” she said, pulling off with a wet pop. “Requires aggressive, hands-on therapy. Possibly lifelong.”
She swung a leg over him, straddling his hips. She was already wet, her arousal a slick heat he could feel as she notched the head of his cock at her entrance. She sank down slowly, achingly slowly, taking every inch until she was seated fully, stretched and impossibly full. They both let out a shuddering breath.
She began to move, a slow, rolling grind of her hips. She braced her hands on his scarred chest, feeling his heart hammering under her palms. This wasn’t the frantic, desperate fucking from earlier. This was something else. A claiming. An acceptance.
He let her set the pace, his hands on her waist, his eyes locked on hers. The intensity was unbearable. She leaned forward, her hair falling around their faces, and kissed him. It was deep and searching. He met her tongue with his, his hands sliding up to cup her breasts, his thumbs rubbing over her nipples until they were tight, painful points.
“I want to see all of you,” she breathed against his mouth. “Every scar.”
In answer, he flipped her onto her back with a sudden, effortless strength that stole her breath. He loomed over her, his body a dark silhouette against the city-lit window. He hooked his hands under her knees, pushing her legs back and wide, opening her completely to his gaze and the cool air.
“You want to see?” His voice was dark, rough with need. “Then look.”
He drove into her, a single, deep, penetrating thrust that made her cry out. He set a punishing pace, each snap of his hips a jolt that pushed her up the bed. The headboard slammed against the brick wall with a rhythmic, solid thud. This was the catharsis. The fear from the hospital, the shadow of the message, the weight of his past—all of it was being pounded out in the raw, physical act.
“This is what you’re in for,” he grunted, his breath hot on her neck. “This fucking mess. All of it. Say you understand.”
“I understand!” she gasped, her nails digging into the hard muscle of his ass, trying to pull him deeper.
“They’re coming.” He bit her shoulder, not hard enough to break skin, but a claiming bite. “And when they do, you stay behind me. You let me handle it. You don’t try to be a hero. You’re my fucking heart out in the open now. That makes you a target.”
The words, the brutal pace, the sheer vulnerability of his admission coiled tight in her core. Her orgasm built, a terrifying wave about to break.
“Styx, I’m gonna—”
“Come.” It was an order. “Come all over my cock. Let me feel it.”
He slammed into her one final time, hitting a spot so deep she saw stars. The climax detonated, a silent, screaming rush that clenched around him in violent, endless pulses. She arched off the bed, a choked gasp the only sound she could make. Her spasms triggered his own release. With a raw, guttural shout, he buried himself to the hilt and poured into her, his body shaking with the force of it.
He collapsed on top of her, his weight a welcome anchor. They were both slick with sweat, breathing in ragged, broken unison. Slowly, he softened and slipped out. He rolled to the side, but immediately pulled her against him, her back to his front again, as if he couldn’t bear to not be touching her.
The room was silent except for their slowing breaths and the distant hum of the city. The jukebox in the corner was dark and quiet.
“The old man,” Kat said softly, her fingers tracing the arm wrapped around her. “Who is he?”
Styx was quiet for a long time. “His name is Cyrus. He was the president. My… mentor. Taught me everything. How to fight. How to run the business. How to be loyal.” He swallowed, the sound loud in the dark. “I left. That’s the one sin you can’t come back from. Leaving is a betrayal of the only family they know. The burned cut… it’s a death sentence. He’s telling me I’m dead to them. And dead men don’t get to hide.”
“What business?” she asked, though a cold part of her already knew.
“Guns, mostly. Some protection rackets. Anything that turned a profit and kept the power.” His voice was flat, detached. “I was good at it. Until I wasn’t. Until I saw what it cost. The kids in the crossfire. The women… used and tossed aside. I woke up one day and the club colors felt like a chain.”
She turned in his arms to face him. In the dim light, his eyes were shadows. “So you just walked away?”
“I fought my way out. Made a deal. A one-time payment of everything I’d saved, my bike, my silence. In return, they let me leave the state. The truce. I thought it would hold. Cyrus is getting old. The new blood… they’re hungrier. They see my disappearance as weakness. They want to clean the slate.” He touched her face, his thumb brushing her cheekbone. “And now they know I have something to lose.”
Before she could respond, a sharp, electronic buzz cut through the loft. Not a phone. An intercom from the shop downstairs.
They both froze.
Styx was out of the bed in a fluid, silent motion. He grabbed his sweatpants, pulled them on, and moved to the window, peering down at the street below without exposing his silhouette. Kat sat up, pulling the sheet around her, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs.
He stared down for a full minute. The intercom buzzed again, insistent, angry.
“Is it them?” she whispered, the words barely audible.
He didn’t answer. He walked to a heavy, locked metal cabinet near his tool bench. He keyed it open. Inside, nestled in foam, was a sleek, black pistol. He checked the magazine with a practiced, chilling efficiency and slid it into the waistband of his sweatpants at the small of his back.
“Stay here,” he said, his voice devoid of all emotion. “If you hear anything that isn’t my voice coming up those stairs, you take the fire escape out the back window. You run. You don’t look back.”
“Styx—”
“Promise me.” He was in front of her now, his hands on her shoulders, his gaze burning into hers. “Promise me you’ll run.”
She saw the absolute terror in his eyes, not for himself, but for her. It was the most frightening thing she had ever seen. “I promise.”
He nodded once, a sharp jerk of his chin, and turned. He moved down the internal staircase to the shop below, silent as a ghost.
Kat sat rigid on the bed, the sheet clutched in her fists. She heard the distant sound of the shop door being unlocked. A murmur of voices. Too low to make out. Then silence.
A minute passed. Two.
Every worst-case scenario played out in her head. She calculated the distance to the fire escape window. The drop. Her eyes flicked to the pistol cabinet, still open. She wasn’t a stranger to guns; her father had taught her to shoot. The cold, rational part of her brain, the nurse that could compartmentalize a gushing artery, assessed the weapon as a tool. A last resort.
Footsteps on the stairs. One set. Heavy.
She tensed, poised to spring for the window.
Styx reappeared. He looked… emptied. The pistol was still tucked in his waistband. In his hand, he held a small, flat cardboard box. He walked to the kitchen island and set it down.
“What was it?” Her voice sounded thin.
“A delivery.” He didn’t look at her. He just stared at the box.
“From who?”
“Doesn’t matter.” He took a knife from a block and slit the tape. He opened the flaps. His body went very, very still.
Kat got up, the sheet trailing behind her. She came to stand beside him, and looked down into the box.
Nestled inside wasn’t a threat. It was a gift. A beautiful, horrifying gift.
It was a small, framed photograph. The glass was pristine. The photo showed a younger Styx, maybe in his late twenties, grinning with a reckless, savage joy she had never seen on him. He was shirtless, wearing his cut—a leather vest with the club’s emblem, a coiled serpent struck through with a lightning bolt, the word “REAPERS” arched above it. He had his arm around a beautiful, dark-haired woman who was laughing, her head thrown back. They looked vibrant, alive, invincible.
Beside the photo, resting on a bed of black tissue paper, was a necklace. A delicate silver chain with a pendant—a tiny, exquisitely detailed serpent coiled around a lightning bolt.
And tucked in the corner was a note, handwritten in elegant, slashing script.
For the new girl. So she knows the man she’s warming her bed with. And so she knows the face of the woman who came before. - C.
Styx picked up the photograph. His hand trembled. The woman. His eyes were fixed on her laughing face.
“Lena,” he whispered, the name a shattered thing.
He looked from the photo to the necklace, his expression collapsing into a raw, unvarnished agony. Then, with a sudden, explosive roar of pure rage, he swept the entire box off the island. It smashed against the brick wall, the frame shattering, the glass exploding into a thousand glittering shards that rained down onto the concrete floor.
He stood there, chest heaving, his fists clenched, staring at the wreckage. The violence of the gesture was more terrifying than any shouted threat.
Kat didn’t reach for him. She didn’t speak. She just watched as the man she was falling for stared at the fragments of his past, his shoulders shaking with silent, grief-stricken fury. The message was clear.
Cyrus wasn’t just coming for Styx’s future.
He was digging up his graves.
The shattered glass glittered like malignant stars on the concrete. Styx stood over the wreckage, his breath coming in ragged pulls that shook his entire frame. The photograph of Lena, the woman he’d loved and lost to that life, lay face-down amidst the shards. His knuckles were white, the tendons in his neck stood in stark relief, and the air vibrated with a fury so dense it felt suffocating.
For once, Kat was afraid, having seen his outburst. This wasn’t the controlled, defensive violence from the ER. This was a raw, unspooling rage that seemed to swallow the light in the room. She took an involuntary step back, the sheet snagging around her ankles.
He turned his head slowly. His blue eyes, when they met hers, were unrecognizable—hollow and blazing with a pain so profound it looked like hatred. He took a step toward the mess, his bare foot crunching on glass.
“Don’t,” she said, the word escaping as a whisper.
He froze. He looked at his foot, then at her face, registering her stance, the widened pupils, the slight recoil in her posture. Something crumpled inside him. The fury drained, leaving behind a devastating wreck of shame. He looked from the destruction to his own hands, as if seeing them for the first time.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathed, his voice shattered.
He sank to his knees, right there in the glass. He didn’t seem to feel it. He carefully picked up the photograph, brushing off the fragments. He stared at Lena’s laughing face, his thumb smearing a drop of blood from his finger across the image.
“They killed her,” he said, not to Kat, to the ghost in the picture. “A deal went wrong. They used her as a message. To me. And I left. I fucking left her there.”
The confession hung in the air, ugly and final. Kat’s fear shifted, metabolizing into a sharp, aching comprehension. This was the core of it. The guilt was the engine of his violence. She walked over, the glass crunching softly under her own feet. She knelt in front of him, ignoring the bite of shards, and pried the photo from his trembling hand. She placed it face-down on the floor.
“Look at me,” she said.
He dragged his gaze up. The shame was worse than the rage.
“You are not that man in the picture,” she said, each word deliberate. “And I am not her.”
She reached for the waistband of his sweats, her fingers finding the cold metal of the pistol. She pulled it free and set it aside, out of reach. Then she took his bleeding hand in hers. She brought it to her lips and kissed his split knuckles, tasting iron and salt.
“You’re here,” she whispered against his skin. “With me.”
A broken sound escaped him. He surged forward, his mouth crashing into hers. This kiss was a collision of despair and need, a frantic search for anchor. He kissed her like he was drowning. His hands came up to cradle her face, trembling, impossibly gentle.
“I need you,” he gasped into her mouth, the admission tearing from him. “I need to feel you. Right now.”
“Then feel me,” she answered, pulling her own body against him.
They didn’t make it to the bed. He pushed her back onto the cool concrete floor, clearing a space with a sweep of his arm. The glass bit into her shoulder blades, a sharp, bright pain that mingled with the heat of his mouth on her breasts. He sucked a nipple deep into his mouth, his tongue rough and demanding, while his hand slid between her legs. He found her wet, already open for him.
“So ready,” he muttered, dragging two fingers through her slickness and pushing them inside her. “Always so fucking ready for me.”
“Yes,” she hissed, arching into his hand. The pain from the glass, the emotional carnage, it all fused into a single, white-hot point of sensation. She clawed at his sweatpants, pushing them down over his hips. He freed himself, his cock springing out, thick and ruddy with urgency.
He positioned himself at her entrance. He didn’t push in. He looked down at her, his body trembling with the effort of holding back. “Tell me you’re not scared of me.”
“I’m scared for you,” she corrected, wrapping her legs around his hips. “Now fuck me, Styx. Fuck me until we both forget.”
He drove into her with a single, deep, obliterating thrust. The breath punched out of her. He set a brutal, piston-like rhythm, each slam of his hips driving her skin against the gritty floor. The world narrowed to the slap of flesh, the grating of their bodies on concrete, his choked grunts in her ear.
“You’re mine,” he growled, a desperate incantation. “This cunt is mine. You take all of me. All this fucked-up, broken shit. You take it.”
“I take it,” she chanted back, her nails scoring down his back. “Give it to me.”
He shifted, hooking her legs over his shoulders, folding her nearly in half. The new angle was devastating. He fucked her deeper, harder, his pace losing all rhythm, becoming a frantic, pounding claim. The violence of his movements wasn’t about anger now; it was a raw, physical plea for absolution, for connection, for proof of life.
“I can feel you clenching,” he rasped. “Squeezing my cock like you’ll never let go. Come for me. Come on this filthy floor. Show me.”
The command, the sheer filthy reality of it, tipped her over. Her orgasm ripped through her, a silent, seizing wave that locked her muscles and stole her vision. She pulsed around him, a tight, fluttering rhythm that milked his length.
He cried out, a raw, shattered sound, and followed her. He plunged deep and held, his body convulsing as he emptied himself inside her in hot, endless spurts. He collapsed on top of her, his weight a solid, crushing comfort. They lay there, spent and sticky on the hard floor, surrounded by broken glass.
After a long while, he rolled off, pulling her with him, away from the worst of the debris. They lay on their sides, facing each other. A thin trickle of blood from a glass cut traced a path down her spine. He saw it and flinched.
“Kat, I’m—”
She put her fingers over his lips. “Don’t. You’re here. I’m here.” She traced the old scar on his chest. “We’re both a little broken. It’s okay.”
He gathered her to him, his face buried in her hair. They stayed like that until the dawn began to bleed a pale, gray light through the windows. The ruined photograph lay nearby, a ghost watching from the floor.
His phone buzzed on the kitchen island, a harsh, persistent vibration. They both went still. It wasn’t her phone. He untangled himself and stood, moving with a weary stiffness. He picked up the device, looked at the screen, and his expression closed down completely.
“Who is it?”
“Unknown number.” He answered, putting it on speaker. “Yeah.”
A voice, digitally distorted but chillingly polite, filled the loft. “Good morning, James. Did you get our care package? We wanted the nurse to have a proper welcome.”
Styx’s jaw tightened. “You touch her, and I will burn your whole world down. Slowly.”
“We don’t want to touch her, James. We want you to remember. The anniversary is next week. Lena’s anniversary.” The voice paused. “We’re having a little memorial service. Up at the old quarry. You should come. Pay your respects. Show the new girl where your loyalties really lie.”
The line went dead.
Styx looked at Kat, the message hanging between them. It wasn’t a threat of direct violence. It was a summons. A test. And they both knew he had to go.