Page 24 of Heresy (The Lost Gospels #1)

SEVENTEEN

A CAGE OF PAPER AND FEAR

VERA

F or two days, the chessboard on my table has remained a silent battlefield.

My single, defiant pawn sits advanced on the board, a tiny soldier in a war of nerves.

He has not made a counter-move. The game hangs in a state of suspended animation, a perfect reflection of my own life.

I am a ghost in their machine, a permanent fixture at my corner table, watching the club operate on a low, simmering boil.

The war with the Sin Santos is a fever in the house's bloodstream. The men are coiled springs of aggression, their conversations are low, angry rumbles, and the air is thick with the scent of gun oil and impending violence. I am a forgotten piece in a much larger, bloodier game.

Until today.

The low murmur of the clubhouse dies. Not a gradual fade, but a sudden, surgical cut, as if a switch has been flipped. I don't need to look up to know the cause. I can feel it. The shift in the atmospheric pressure, the sudden, intense focus of every eye in the room. His gravity.

I slowly lift my head. He is walking toward me.

Hex moves through the room with a calm, predatory grace that makes the tense silence even heavier.

He doesn't look at any of his men. His eyes are fixed on me, a dark, unreadable void.

He stops at my table, a mountain of black leather and controlled menace, eclipsing what little light reaches my corner.

He doesn't speak. He just places two objects on the scarred wood of my table.

A heavy, black leather motorcycle jacket, worn and creased in a way that speaks to thousands of miles on the road.

And a sleek, black, full-face helmet. The thud of them hitting the table is a gavel striking wood, a verdict being delivered.

The message is a silent, undeniable command: You're coming with me.

My blood turns to ice water. Pure, animal terror claws at my throat, but the ghost, the survivor, shoves it down. There is no choice here. This is not a request. To refuse is to die.

My hands are shaking, but I force them to move. I stand and slide my arms into the jacket. The leather is heavy, a physical weight on my shoulders. The lining is cool against my skin, and it smells faintly but unmistakably of him—whiskey, motor oil, and that dark, electric scent of a storm.

The act of putting on his jacket, his colors, feels like the most profound violation yet. It is a brand, a public claim that is more intimate and damning than the mark his teeth left on my shoulder. I am no longer just a ghost in his house. I am now wearing his skin.

He turns without a word, and I am expected to follow.

He leads me not toward the front door, but through a heavy, soundproofed door at the back of the clubhouse.

The moment it opens, the muffled, angry rock music is swallowed by a different kind of sound: the professional roar of impact wrenches, the high-pitched whine of a sander, and the sharp hiss of a welding torch.

We step into the workshop of Serpent Cycle Works, and it's like entering a different universe.

This is not the chaotic, beer-soaked den of the clubhouse.

This is a pristine, industrial temple dedicated to the art of the motorcycle.

The air smells of hot metal, clean oil, and money.

The concrete floor is polished to a mirror sheen, and rows of bikes in various states of assembly are mounted on hydraulic lifts like surgical patients.

Several patched members, their faces grimly focused, work with a surgeon's precision, their tattooed hands surprisingly steady as they customize engines and fabricate parts.

This is the legitimate face of the beast, and it is terrifying in its professionalism.

Two men in expensive suits—clients—are perusing a finished motorcycle, a masterpiece of black chrome and intricate, airbrushed silver pinstriping.

They run their hands over the flawless paint job, their faces a mixture of awe and intimidation.

Rook is with them, his voice a low, convincing murmur as he points out the details of the custom engine.

He sees us, and his eyes meet mine for a split second.

I see a flicker of something—pity? warning?

—before his professional mask slides back into place.

Hex ignores them all. He leads me past the gleaming monuments of steel and ambition, his presence cutting a silent path through the controlled chaos.

He doesn't stop at the massive, blacked-out beast I remember from my abduction—his throne. Instead, he stops beside a different machine. It’s leaner, more understated, built for speed and silence rather than pure intimidation.

It's a predator's bike, stripped of all vanity, painted a flat, matte black that seems to drink the light.

He swings his leg over the seat with a fluid grace, the leather creaking under his weight. He starts the engine. It doesn't roar to life like his other bike; it awakens with a low, menacing thrum, a deep vibration I feel in the soles of my feet.

He turns his head, his dark, unreadable eyes fixing on me. He waits.

The memory of the first ride—the raw terror, the brutal violence, the screaming wind—is a fresh wound in my mind.

But this is different. His mood is not the hot, explosive rage of that night.

It is a cold, controlled calm that is infinitely more menacing.

I am not being abducted; I am being escorted.

It’s a subtle but terrifying distinction.

My body is screaming in protest, but I have no choice.

The act of willingly getting on this bike, of settling myself behind the man who brutalized me, is a new and profound surrender.

My hands are shaking as I lift my leg over the seat.

I hesitate for a split second, and then, because the alternative is a bullet, I wrap my arms around his solid, leather-clad waist, forcing a level of intimacy that makes my skin crawl.

His body is a wall of unyielding muscle.

He is the captor, and I am the captive, chained to him for the illusion of safety.

He pulls out of the garage, not with the explosive violence of our first ride, but with a smooth, controlled surge of power that is somehow more intimidating.

The bike glides onto the worn cobblestone streets of Red Hook, the thrum of the engine a deep, steady vibration that resonates through my entire body, a physical extension of the man I’m forced to hold.

The wind is a physical presence, but it’s not the punishing assault I remember.

It’s a cool, insistent rush that whips my hair back and stings my eyes, forcing tears to stream down my temples.

For a terrifying, intoxicating moment, it feels like freedom.

The city is a blur of motion, the sun is warm on my skin, and the salt-and-diesel perfume of the waterfront fills my lungs.

I am moving. After days of being a stationary object, the sensation of speed is a dizzying, seductive lie.

But I am not free. I am chained to my captor, my hands clutching his leather-clad waist for survival, my cheek pressed against the hard plane of his back.

He doesn't speak. He doesn't need to. The tour is the sermon.

He rides with a smooth, terrifying competence, weaving through the wide, empty streets of his kingdom.

My photographer's eye, a part of me that refuses to die, drinks in the scenery. I see the brutal beauty of this place—the crumbling brick facades of 19th-century warehouses, the skeletal remains of forgotten piers reaching into the bay like arthritic fingers, the way the late afternoon sun turns rust into copper fire. It’s a landscape of magnificent decay, a ruin I would have killed to photograph in my old life.

He slows the bike as we pass a sprawling warehouse, its doors freshly painted with a gaudy, unfamiliar logo.

I see two men in colors I don't recognize standing guard out front.

The Sin Santos' territory. He doesn't look at it, but I feel the tension in his shoulders increase.

It's a silent threat assessment, a king surveying his enemy's border.

He guides the bike down a narrow, graffiti-scarred alley and pauses at the end, idling before a nondescript steel door at the back of a closed Irish pub.

He killed someone here once. Or made a deal.

Or lost a brother. I don't know the story, but the air is thick with the ghosts of it, and he is forcing me to bear witness.

Finally, he turns back toward the water, the bike thrumming beneath us.

He brings us to the very pier where he found me, stopping at the end, the engine a low, menacing rumble.

He kills the motor, and the sudden, ringing silence is deafening.

We sit there, surrounded by the sound of water lapping against the pilings and the cry of gulls.

In the distance, the Statue of Liberty is a small, green ghost.

He doesn't have to say a word. I understand now.

This wasn't a joyride. He wasn't showing me places; he was showing me the borders of his world.

The enemies he fights, the deals he makes, the place where he captures his prisoners.

He was showing me the walls of a cage that is so much bigger than my concrete cell.

A cage that encompasses this entire, broken, beautiful slice of the city.

His territory. His board. And I am just a pawn he has chosen to move across it.

The silence on the pier stretches, thick and heavy.

We sit there, surrounded by the ghosts of my capture.

Just when I think the silence might break me, he starts the engine again.

The low, menacing thrum is the only answer to the unspoken questions hanging in the air.

He turns the bike away from the water and guides it down a series of narrow, forgotten streets, the buildings closing in around us.

He stops in a dark, garbage-strewn alley behind a massive, six-story brick warehouse that looks like it's been abandoned for a century. He kills the engine and swings his leg off the bike. "Get off," he commands, his voice a low rumble.

My legs are stiff as I slide off the seat. He leads me to a rusted, groaning freight elevator at the back of the building. The ride up is a slow, clanking ascent in near total darkness, the air thick with the smell of rust and decay. My heart hammers against my ribs. There is nowhere to run.

The elevator shudders to a halt, and he shoves the heavy doors open. We step out onto the roof.

The view is staggering. We are high above Red Hook, the entire harbor spread out before us like a map of jewels on black velvet.

The lights of the distant Manhattan skyline glitter, the Statue of Liberty is a tiny, glowing beacon, and the dark water of the bay churns below.

The wind is stronger up here, a clean, cold thing that whips at my hair and the collar of his jacket.

It’s isolated, beautiful, and the most terrifying place I’ve ever been.

He doesn't look at me. He walks to the edge of the rooftop, a dark silhouette against the glittering city, and stares out at the water. I stay by the elevator, my body coiled, ready for anything.

"Cain is smart," he says, his voice almost carried away by the wind. It’s the first time he's spoken to me about anything real.

"He knows this city. He knows our weaknesses.

He's using the Santos like a blunt instrument, but the strategy.

.. the strategy is his. He's bleeding us slowly, forcing us to make a mistake. "

He turns his head slightly, not looking at me, but acknowledging my presence. "You see decay. You see broken things. It's what you hunt with that camera of yours."

His voice is not accusatory. It's a flat, analytical statement.

"This," he gestures out at the sprawling, chaotic, beautiful and broken city, at his kingdom. "This is broken. It's rotting from the inside out with a war I didn't start but have to finish."

He finally turns to face me, and in the dim glow from the city lights, I see a flicker of raw, weary exhaustion. The torment of a king who is tired of his crown.

"So tell me, photographer," he says, his voice a low, dangerous challenge. "You're the expert on ruins. How would you fix this?"

The question hangs in the cold night air. It's a test. A trap. A genuine question. I meet his gaze, my voice as steady and cold as the wind whipping around us.

"You don't," I say. "You don't fix it. A thing that's rotting from the inside can't be repaired. You have to burn it down and build something new from the ashes."

A long, heavy silence stretches between us. His eyes search my face, and for the first time, I don't see a captor looking at his prisoner. I see a player looking at an opponent who has just made an unexpected, dangerous move on the board. The war is no longer just his. He just invited me to play.

Without another word, he turns and walks back to the groaning freight elevator. The unspoken command is clear. I follow.

The ride down is a clanking, metallic descent into a silence thick with new, unspoken things.

He leads me back to the bike, and the ride back to the clubhouse is different from the tour.

The ease is gone, replaced by a tense, focused energy.

He pushes the bike harder, the engine a more aggressive growl, the lines he takes through the empty streets sharper.

We're only a few blocks from the clubhouse when we stop at a red light. The sudden stillness is jarring after the speed. A low, insistent vibration starts. It's not the bike. I feel it through his leather cut, a harsh buzz coming from a pocket over his heart.

With a barely audible curse, his uninjured hand releases the handlebar and pulls out a cheap burner phone. He flips it open, the screen casting a faint, blueish glow on his face, illuminating the hard lines of his jaw.

I can't see the screen, but I see his reaction. The muscles in his jaw clench so hard a nerve jumps. His eyes narrow to slits. The weary strategist from the rooftop vanishes, replaced by the cold, lethal king. He has just received a piece of news that has shattered the night's strange truce.

The light turns green.

He snaps the burner phone shut, shoves it back into his jacket, and twists the throttle.

The bike doesn't glide forward; it leaps, a raw, aggressive surge of power that throws me hard against his back.

The fragile, dangerous connection we forged on the rooftop is gone, incinerated by the realities of his world.

We are no longer two players on a lonely precipice. We are the captor and the captive once more, hurtling back toward a fortress that is now officially at war.