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CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

I TOLD MYSELF I wasn’t going to think about it. Mystic had his secrets, so did I. But that didn’t mean he was keeping something from me. If he had walls, I understood why. His scars weren’t just on the outside; they were written into the way he moved, the way he sometimes drifted away even when he was standing right next to me. Whatever he was hiding, it wasn’t about me, it was about whatever had broken him long before I came into his life.

I wasn’t going to let doubt creep in like a shadow, poisoning what we had. I couldn’t. I knew what it looked like, how fear could eat you alive from the inside out. I’d lived too many years being afraid of things I couldn't control. I wouldn’t do that to him.

Not to us.

Still, the uneasy feeling sat in my chest, a weight I couldn’t shake. Like standing on a dock, feeling the boards creak under your feet, knowing something was shifting beneath the surface even if you couldn’t see it.

I forced myself to go about the day as usual. Mystic was out handling business, so I went downstairs, keeping my hands busy helping Brenda clean. The clubhouse was quieter than usual, most of the men off running errands or working. The silence left too much space for my thoughts, the shadows crowding in around the edges.

“You’re overthinking somethin’,” Brenda said suddenly, eyeing me from where she swept near the bar.

I stilled, the rag in my hand tightening. “What?”

She smirked, not missing a beat. “You get this little crease right here—” she tapped her forehead with the broom handle, “—whenever you’re worried about somethin’.”

I let out a breath, shaking my head. “It’s nothing.”

“Mhm.” She didn’t believe me for a second. Brenda wasn’t the type to push hard, but she sure as heck didn’t miss a thing either.

“Let me guess. Has to do with a certain brooding biker?”

I hesitated, the rag twisting between my fingers. I didn’t want to talk about it. Saying it out loud would give life to something I wasn’t even sure existed yet. And part of me was scared it would sound too much like the old doubts I’d worked so hard to kill.

Brenda sighed, setting the broom aside and wiping her hands on a towel before leaning against the counter, her gaze steady on me. “Listen, sweetheart. Men like Mystic... they don’t let people in easy. They can’t. Got too many ghosts riding on their shoulders. Some days, those ghosts damn near drive ‘em into the ground.”

Her voice softened, less like advice and more like a memory. “But when they find someone who gives ‘em a reason to keep standin’? They don’t let go easy either.”

My chest ached at that. Because I wanted to believe it. I did believe it.

Brenda smiled, a little sad. “You ain’t gotta know every piece of his past to love him, honey. You just gotta be the place he can breathe.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat, nodding.

Before I could say anything else, the front door swung open, the heavy creak of old hinges filling the room. Boots hit the floorboards in a slow, deliberate rhythm.

His presence filled the room like a thundercloud rolling in—heavy, thick, impossible to ignore. He didn’t have to say a word to pull every damn eye toward him. He just was. And his eyes... those eyes found me instantly, pinning me in place.

Something in my stomach flipped.

Whatever had been pulling him away, whatever storm he was weathering, I knew it wasn’t about me. Had to believe it. Needed to believe it.

“You busy?” he asked, his voice tired, roughened by whatever morning he’d had.

I nodded, offering a small smile. “Yeah. Just helping Brenda.”

He studied me for a long beat, like he could see through the lie, through the stubborn way I was trying to hold it together. Something flickered across his face—something raw and unspoken—but he just nodded.

“Come upstairs when you’re done.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a rope thrown out between us, one I caught without thinking. A part of me wanted to push back, to ask where he’d been, why there was a storm brewing in his life he wouldn’t share. But the bigger part—the part that trusted him—just nodded.

As he moved past me, his fingers brushed against mine. Barely a touch. A whisper of skin against skin. But it stole the breath from my lungs all the same. That tiny touch said more than any words could. It said don’t give up on me.

Warmth curled through my chest, burning away some of the fear trying to sink its claws in.

When Mystic disappeared from sight, I pressed my hand lightly against my heart, and felt it beating.

The words rose to my lips, trembling there like a breath I couldn’t quite let go, "Allahim, onu benden alma."

God, don’t take him from me.

But I swallowed them back down, locking the prayer inside where it was safer. Safer not to say it. Safer to believe. Because whatever Mystic was hiding, whatever storm he was fighting, it wasn’t meant to hurt me.

He would never hurt me.