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‘‘Some touches leave imprints on your heart.’’

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Oak Tree | 18 +

WARNING: This is porn. This contains mature and adult content intended for readers 18+. It explores emotional depth, sensual relationships, and realistic portrayals of love, loss, and coping mechanisms in the face of death.

— ✦ THE ROOTS OF ROT

The garden had always been Cassius’s pride and performance—an empire within an empire. Acres upon acres of manicured hedges, marble fountains whispering over imported stones, and flowerbeds curated from the most obscure greenhouses in Belgium, Morocco, and Kyoto. Every petal, every trimmed boxwood, every blade of ornamental grass had been selected with the precision of a sovereign ruler assembling his court. Everything was obsessively symmetrical, obsessively perfect. But like most things Cassius loved, he never really touched it himself. The hands that brought life to it belonged to someone else. Someone older. Someone Valeria noticed.

He bent behind the roses like a ghost, unnoticed by the man who signed his checks. He moved through the estate as if he were part of its original foundation—pre-dating the family name, pre-dating even the roots of the oaks. Valeria watched him. She had, for years. She noticed him for reasons she didn’t always want to admit: he was coarse, silent, unimpressed. The kind of man who said nothing, and by doing so, said far too much. He had no patience for charm or pedigree, and even less for the performance of wealth.

His name was Luca. Sixty, maybe older, with a face worn like an old field hat—discolored, soft at the edges, torn by time and weather. His skin had been cooked to a bark-like brown by decades of sun and toil, his jaw shadowed with persistent stubble like iron filings. His back hunched slightly from years bent over roots and stone, but his gait was sure-footed, animal. And when he did speak, which was rare, his voice scratched like the underside of a boot scraping gravel. Tobacco had taken part of his mouth, but not his eyes—they still burned with that wild, lupine glint of something that should’ve died out long ago.

He lived on the estate, technically, though no one really saw him outside the gardens. His quarters were tucked away behind the eastern orchard—wooden, sagging, cloaked in ivy and silence, and supposedly off-limits to all but staff. No one went there.

Except her.

She found him that morning behind the oldest oak tree, the one with roots like serpents and a crown that scraped the sky. He was shirtless, wrestling with a patch of ivy that had gone rabid overnight. Sweat darkened his chest, rolled into the hollow of his throat. His hands—enormous, cracked, brutal—held the shears like weapons forged in older wars.

"Luca," she called, voice light, taunting, like a young mistress addressing a ghost.

He didn’t turn.

"Luca."

This time, he gave a glance, one eye narrowing under the hard crown of his brow.

"Signora," he muttered, not stopping.

She stepped further into the light, letting it cling to her silk like a second skin. The pale slip she wore was nearly translucent, her nipples dark through the fabric. No bra. No panties. Her hair was loosely knotted, her cheeks bare. She looked like a painting designed to provoke religious men and ruin temples.

"I need to sit," she murmured, touching the tree trunk with a kind of reverence.

Still he said nothing.

She perched herself upon one of the massive roots, leaning back on her palms, stretching her legs like she was bored. The slip caught on her thighs and bunched. She let it. Her legs parted slightly. Not much. Just enough to see him notice.

He went back to his work.

Coward, she thought. The venom curled beneath her ribs.

“I had a dream,” she began, tone syrupy and half-religious. “I was crawling through mud. There was dirt in my teeth, in my hair. I was gagging on it. And there was someone behind me. Not young. Not gentle. Just… solid. Brutal. Ancient."

No response.

She licked her lips.

“I think it was you, Luca. I think I screamed your name before I woke up."

He exhaled, slow and angry. Tossed the shears aside like they insulted him. He didn’t walk to her. He charged. No words. Just a noise—low, guttural, animal.

Valeria smiled with wicked satisfaction and let herself fall back against the roots.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Rip me out like a weed.”

He dropped between her knees, the forest floor crunching beneath his weight. No pretense. No permission. He shoved the slip to her hips and buried his face in her folds like a beast starved of salt. His mouth was greedy, clumsy, desperate. He devoured her with the impatience of decades spent abstaining.

“God,” she hissed. “Yes. Sloppier. Like you hate me.”

He groaned into her, the friction of his beard a brutal blessing. She arched, legs quivering, her hands sliding up his skull to grind him against her cunt. Each thrust of his tongue sent shivers racing up her spine.

“I’m a spoiled fucking slut,” she said, louder now. “My husband’s counting gold bars while I’m fucking the dirt. You like that, Luca?”

A grunt. Maybe a growl.

“You like tasting me before breakfast? Before the sun’s all the way up?”

He pulled back. Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand like she was filth. Then stood and unzipped. His cock hung heavy, veined, and angry-looking, flushed dark with blood.

“Turn over.”

She obeyed, laughing. On her hands and knees, dress bunched to her waist, skin kissed with dirt and dew. She looked over her shoulder, eyes wide and mean, the slip now torn in two places.

“Do it,” she dared. “Make me a hole in the ground.”

He shoved into her hard enough she gasped. Her spine snapped into a brutal curve. The sound she made was half-pain, half-glee.

He fucked like he was uprooting her, like he was trying to bury himself inside her spine. It was not love. It was reckoning. It was punishment for her silk, her soft voice, her knowing smile.

“Harder,” she moaned. “Come on, you old bastard. Harder. Or I’ll scream for my husband Cassius.”

That name broke something.

He yanked her hair, her head snapping back until their eyes met. He growled, nostrils flaring.

“Say it,” she begged.

He slammed into her.

“Say what I am.”

“A rotten bitch,” he spat. “A cunt full of secrets. A wife in name only.”

“Yes,” she groaned. “More.”

She wiggled once, mockingly, as though to tease a response out of him.

“Show me what you do to weeds,” she murmured. “Pluck me. Cut me. Leave me to rot.”

The slap echoed. It landed across one bare cheek, the sting blooming instantly.

“You think this is a game?” he growled, his breath hot over her back. “You think you're some bored duchess playing dirt-whore in her husband’s orchard?”

She smiled, wicked and breathless. “Maybe I’m both.”

His cock pressed against her entrance once again, hot and heavy, and then—without warning—he thrust in. Deep. Brutal.

Valeria’s cry tore out of her like a confession.

“God— yes—”

“You don’t get God,” he snapped. “You get me. You get earth. Mud. Teeth.”

He fucked her without rhythm, without mercy. Each thrust was a reprimand, a judgment, a reminder that she wasn’t kneeling for love—she was begging for punishment.

“You wear silk to the garden,” he snarled. “Spread your legs like it’s your birthright. You know what you are?”

She was panting now, drooling into the roots, her eyes glassy.

“Tell me,” she gasped.

“A mouthful of lies and a cunt full of strangers.”

She moaned so loud it startled a crow from the tree above.

“I’ve seen you,” he went on. “Seen the way you look at every man who doesn’t kneel. The way you ache to be ruined.”

She nodded, wordless.

“Say it.”

“I ache,” she sobbed. “I ache to be ruined. I want it. I want to be nothing.”

He pulled her hair back so their eyes met. His face was red with fury and heat.

“You’re nothing,” he spat. “Not a wife. Not a woman. Just a spoiled little parasite. I’ve fucked better holes in the field.”

And still, she smiled through tears.

“Then fill me like one,” she whispered. “Use me like dirt.”

He grabbed her hips and drove into her like he meant to bury her. The slap of their bodies filled the orchard. Her thighs were slick, shaking. Her mouth hung open, no words now, just breath, just need.

“Cassius wouldn’t survive if he saw you now,” he muttered. “His golden girl on her knees, drooling into the moss, begging the gardener for cock.”

Her laughter turned hysterical—half broken, half victorious.

“He’d die,” she gasped. “He’d kill himself.”

“You want that?”

She nodded. “I want him to smell you on me. I want him to kiss me after. I want him to taste the dirt.”

That broke him.

He growled again. Her body shook as she climaxed—violent, primal, tearing at roots. She howled into the moss, fingernails caked with soil. Still, he didn’t stop. He used her until his hips stuttered, until he came with a noise so low and broken it felt like it rose from the roots themselves.

He came with a savage groan, body shaking, releasing inside her with a force that felt like punishment. She collapsed, barely breathing, the aftermath a blur of sweat, soil, and sin.

When he stood, he didn’t speak. He pulled out with a slap, semen running down her thigh. No goodbye. No praise. He tugged up his trousers, picked up his shears, and walked away like she was never there.

Valeria stayed there, cunt leaking, face pressed to the earth. A smile, slow and reverent, curled her lips.

She belonged to the dirt now.

The oak tree stood tall above her, its ancient limbs whispering judgment—or maybe approval.

The leaves above shook like they’d watched something forbidden. Something holy.

The oak, she thought, will never be clean again.

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JINX | Ashen Saints

CHAPTER ONE — Chapel Dust & Cherry Lipstick

A Hallowed Hounds Tale Rivenstead, Louisiana — Summer 1977

The first time I saw her, I didn’t know she had a daughter.

Didn’t know she wore her wedding ring on a chain around her neck like a cross she couldn’t bear to carry. Didn’t know she’d whisper my name like a sinner praying for more sin. Didn’t know I’d be the one kneeling at the end of it all, like I had anything left to give.

All I knew was her perfume hit me like the first warm drag of a cigarette in winter.

Sweet. Sharp. Familiar in the way someone’s mama’s kitchen used to smell before they stopped coming home.

She was sitting in the second booth at The Cross Café, her elbows resting on the sticky red vinyl, one heel slipped out of her shoe. It was a slow Tuesday. Heat clung to the windows like guilt. I’d just ridden back into town, dust still on my jacket, knuckles split from a fight I barely remembered.

“Bless me,” she said when I walked in.

Didn’t sound like a greeting. More like a dare.

Her name was Evelyn Grace Mayweather. Pastor’s wife. Thirty-nine. Married since she was nineteen to a man who couldn’t kiss without quoting scripture. Church’s darling. Town’s porcelain ghost.

And that day, she ordered cherry pie and sweet tea like she wasn’t starving for something else entirely.

I don’t remember what I said first. Something stupid, probably. I was twenty and new blood in the Hallowed Hounds—too pretty to be taken seriously, too fucked up to care.

What I do remember is the way her eyes looked when she leaned across the booth and said:

“You ever sin with a preacher’s wife, boy?”

We didn’t go far.

Behind the café, the gravel lot smelled of gasoline and summer sweat. I had her pressed against the side of an old church van, palm between her shoulder blades, her mouth on my neck like she could taste every bad thing I’d ever done.

“Tell me your name,” she panted.

“Jinx,” I whispered.

“Real name.”

“Nico.”

She moaned like it was a gospel.

Three days later, I met Salem.

Her daughter.

The girl with a Walkman strapped to her hip and a dead tooth she painted gold with nail polish. The girl who didn’t look anything like her mother except for the way she looked at me—like I was either going to ruin her or save her, and she was hoping for both.

I was leaning against my bike outside St. Jude’s Chapel, lighting a cigarette with busted fingers when she walked up.

“You’re not allowed to smoke here,” she said.

I didn’t even look up. “And yet.”

She stepped closer. Close enough that I saw her eyes were two different shades of brown. One almost green. Like something wasn’t finished in her.

She held out a strawberry lollipop. “Better than the cigarette.”

I took it. Popped it in my mouth. Still didn’t say thanks.

“You’re Jinx,” she said.

I raised an eyebrow. “Who’s asking?”

She didn’t smile. “My mom talks in her sleep.”

I should’ve left then.

Should’ve gotten on my bike and burned down the highway like hell was chasing me. Because maybe it was.

But Salem sat beside me on the chapel steps, and we watched the sun cut across the stained-glass windows like it was painting sins.

And then she said:

“You think people get what they deserve?”

And I said:

“Nah. I think they get what they touch.”

Salem wasn’t like her mother. She wasn’t fragile or careful. She asked questions you weren’t supposed to answer. She kissed me with her eyes open and her heart closed. Her mouth tasted like cherry Kool-Aid and secrets. She had calluses on her fingertips from playing guitar and a scar on her thigh shaped like a broken wishbone.

We kissed in the chapel’s basement.

She was wearing my leather cut.

I was shaking.

Not because I was scared. But because it felt like the first time someone touched me without trying to take something.

I didn’t sleep with Salem that week. Not yet. We stayed up till 3 a.m. talking about ghosts and hell and where bruises go when they heal. She asked about the club. I asked about her guitar.

We didn’t touch much.

We didn’t need to.

When she kissed me, it wasn’t soft. It wasn’t sweet.

It was like she wanted to eat the part of me her mama had already claimed.

One night, Evelyn found us.

We were sitting on the chapel roof, Salem’s legs over mine, a flask between us.

Evelyn stood below, white dress blowing in the summer wind, looking up like a widow at a grave she buried alive.

“Salem,” she called. “Inside. Now.”

Salem didn’t move.

Evelyn’s eyes turned to me. “You stay away from my daughter.”

I smiled, slow and cruel. “Should’ve thought of that before you fucked me against a church van.”

She slapped me two days later. In the grocery aisle, between the canned peaches and instant grits.

I didn’t flinch.

That night, Salem came to my room above the bar. Said nothing. Just stripped off her hoodie, climbed into bed with me, and tucked her cold toes between my thighs.

We didn’t speak.

She fell asleep like I was a pillow.

I didn’t sleep at all.

There’s no punchline here.

No twist.

I loved her. I loved the way she talked to her goldfish. The way she bit her thumbnail when she lied. The way she played sad songs faster, like speed could hide sorrow.

I loved her even when the club warned me. Even when her mother cried in the back pew like she was the victim. Even when the preacher asked if I believed in forgiveness, and I said:

“Only if it comes with her.”

I was Jinx.

The rookie. The sinner. The boy with bruised knuckles and cherry lip gloss on his jaw.

And I think maybe—just maybe—she was my only accident worth keeping.

CHAPTER TWO — The Girl in My Cut

A Hallowed Hounds Tale Rivenstead, Louisiana — Summer 1977

They say when you wear someone’s jacket, you wear their name.

So when I saw Salem strut across the gravel lot behind The Rusty Nail in my leather cut, her boots stomping dust and defiance, I knew she wasn’t just starting a war.

She was naming it.

The jukebox inside howled something about freedom and sin. Bottles clinked. Laughter flared. But the sound of her steps cut through it all. Measured. Sharp. Like she was walking toward judgment day and didn’t care whose god she pissed off getting there.

"You look like trouble," Hyde muttered beside me, eyes tracking her like she was a fuse already lit.

"She is," I said.

He took a long drag off his cigarette and gave me that sideways look all patched members save for rookies. The kind that says don’t catch feelings louder than words ever could. I didn’t reply. I was too busy watching her swing that pool cue onto her shoulder like a rifle.

The bar was alive. Snake was halfway through a story about a girl in Tupelo who thought his patch meant he knew God. Razor was collecting bills off a game he didn’t play fair. Someone was carving initials into the bathroom door, and someone else was crying into their whiskey. But I only saw her.

Salem.

She was wearing my cut like she’d earned it. Like she bled for it. Like she knew it would make someone mad.

Maybe everyone.

She didn’t look at me until she was at the pool table. Cue in hand, hips cocked like a warning shot. My jacket hung over her shoulders too big, sleeves falling over her fingertips. And still—it fit her better than it ever fit me.

"You staring, Jinx?"

"Always."

She smirked. Bent over the table. Broke the rack like she was breaking bones.

We didn’t talk about her mom.

Not after that night.

The slap still echoed in my bones, but Salem never asked why Evelyn cried in church or left roses on her pillow like apologies. All she said was:

"You still smell like her perfume."

And I answered:

"You wear my name now."

We talked about other things.

What it felt like to die without dying. The way the chapel sounded at midnight. Her favorite song. My worst memory. We lit matches just to watch them burn. We played chicken with every red flag we had.

She told me she wanted to leave Rivenstead someday. Head west. Steal someone’s car. Watch the desert swallow the sky. She didn’t want forever, she said. Just a little time where the air didn’t feel like a sermon.

I said I’d go with her.

She didn’t believe me. But she smiled anyway.

The club didn’t like it. Snake said I was poking a hornet's nest. Razor just laughed like he’d seen this story before and knew it never ended with a wedding ring. Doc warned me once, quiet and kind: “Don’t let pretty kill you, boy.”

But they didn’t stop me.

Because Salem didn’t belong to the church. Didn’t belong to her mama. Didn’t belong to anyone but the parts of herself she hadn’t burned down yet.

She belonged to the part of Rivenstead that never made it to the postcards. The dirt roads and bar fights. The bruised knuckles and motel lies. The place I came from.

She kissed me in the back of my pickup, in between smoke breaks and bad ideas. And every time she said my name, I forgot who her mama was.

I remembered who she was.

And who I was when I was with her.

One night, she asked me, "Would you burn it all for me?"

I said yes.

And she smiled like a girl who never believed in promises.

They found out, eventually.

Not the club. Not her mother.

The preacher.

He came to the bar in his Sunday best on a Thursday night. Smelled like Old Spice and hellfire. Put his hand on my shoulder like he was laying down a blessing and said,

"My daughter’s seventeen."

And I said nothing.

Because I knew. And he knew. And Salem knew.

She wasn’t a child. Not in the way the law counted. Not in the way that mattered.

She was a girl with a blade in her mouth and my jacket on her back. And we’d already chosen each other.

That night, Salem broke into the chapel with a crowbar and a curse word. We sat in the front pew and watched candlelight flicker across our faces. She lit a joint from the altar.

“Still believe in redemption?” she asked.

“I believe in you.”

She laughed. But it sounded like crying.

I kissed her like it was the last time.

And it might've been.

Because someone slashed my tires. Because Evelyn stopped looking at me in church. Because Razor said, "You better choose soon, rookie."

But Salem didn’t flinch. She said:

"If you run, I won’t follow."

"But if you stay..."

She didn’t finish.

She didn’t need to.

So I did what anyone with nothing to lose and something to love would do.

I kissed her in front of the whole damn town.

Right there on the sidewalk outside the gas station. In front of her mother. In front of her father. In front of God and the ghosts that followed me home every night.

And let the ashes fall where they may.

CHAPTER THREE — Ashes & Baptisms

A Hallowed Hounds Tale Rivenstead, Louisiana — Summer 1977

It started with silence.

Not the quiet kind, but the kind that pressed its hand over your mouth and dared you to breathe. Rivenstead had gone still, and in that stillness, everyone looked at me different. Not like a rookie. Not even like a sinner.

Like a fire someone forgot to put out.

It was the kind of quiet that made you question whether the sins you tasted were real or just a fever dream. But I remembered the way Salem’s lips felt on mine. The kind of kiss that peeled paint off chapel walls. I remembered the heat of her skin, the scrape of her voice, the way she laughed like she’d already made peace with hell.

Now, she was gone.

Salem didn’t call for three days. Didn’t show up at The Rusty Nail. Her boots didn’t echo on gravel. Her hands didn’t sneak under my shirt. She just disappeared—like she was never mine at all.

And it burned.

I spent those days doing shit that made no sense. Rode my bike until my hands blistered. Fought a guy at the gas station over a pack of smokes. Walked past the preacher’s house three times before I realized what I was doing. Went to the chapel, just to sit in the back pew where she kissed me once with ashes on her tongue.

I watched the wax drip from half-melted candles, listened to the old wooden walls breathe, and tried to remember who I was before Salem put her teeth in my story.

Everyone knew. They didn’t say it, but they knew.

Razor stopped laughing. Doc stopped warning. Hyde looked at me like I was already gone.

Snake said, "She’s a preacher’s daughter, Jinx. You think they don’t have ways of making a girl disappear?"

I didn’t answer.

Because maybe she disappeared on purpose. Maybe I’d driven her to it. Maybe she’d lit the match and I was just the nearest damn building.

The next time I saw her, she wasn’t wearing my cut.

She was wearing white.

Standing next to her mama outside the chapel, holding a basket of hymn books like she hadn’t set fire to the place inside me. Like we hadn’t sinned in every room of that damn church.

Her eyes flicked up when she saw me.

Flat. Cold. Controlled.

But her fingers curled.

Like she wanted to reach. Like she remembered.

Like it still hurt.

The service started. People filtered inside. The pews filled with bodies and hollow praise. And I stood in the back, leather cut creaking as I leaned against the wall. The preacher talked about redemption. About sacrifice. About the wages of sin.

He didn’t say my name.

But he looked straight at me when he said temptation.

Salem sang.

Voice pure as Sunday rain. But her hands trembled. Her eyes never found mine. Like if she looked, she’d break. Like if I moved, we’d both be struck down where we stood.

I wanted to drag her out. Onto my bike. Into the sky.

But I didn’t.

I stayed.

After the service, I lingered. Watched her slip out the side door like smoke escaping a bottle. I followed. Didn’t even think. Just moved.

She turned the corner fast, like she knew I was there.

"You shouldn’t be here," she said.

"Neither should you."

She looked at me then. Really looked. Like maybe she missed me. Like maybe missing me was killing her.

"You kissed me in front of my father."

"Yeah. I did."

"You think that makes you brave?"

"No. I think it makes me yours."

She sucked in air like it was her last.

"I told you if you ran, I wouldn’t follow."

"I didn’t run. I waited."

"Well, I’m not coming back."

And that was the lie.

Because an hour later, I found her on my porch.

Barefoot. Drunk. Crying. Laughing.

Wearing my cut again.

Hair wild. Knees bruised. Eyes wild with the kind of fire that only comes from loss.

"You still believe in accidents, Jinx?" "I believe in you."

She collapsed into me. Her weight all bones and need and stories unsaid. And that night, when I held her on the floor of my shitty apartment, listening to sirens fade and a storm roll in, I realized something:

Some girls don’t need saving.

Some girls just need someone to burn with.

And I’d burn again.

Every damn time.

We didn’t sleep. We just laid there, tracing scars. Her mother’s perfume still lingered on her collar. Mine smelled like oil and danger. She whispered things I couldn’t catch. I whispered things I meant.

We listened to the thunder roll.

And when the sun came up, she kissed me like we weren’t doomed.

Like we hadn’t already set fire to the whole damn town.

CHAPTER FOUR — Let the Devil Watch

A Hallowed Hounds Tale Rivenstead, Louisiana — Summer 1977

It was her scent before it was her face.

Jasmine and sin. Sweat and candlewax. Like she’d walked barefoot through heaven and dragged hell behind her.

Salem was in my bed. My floor. My damn skull. But that morning, she was gone again.

Just the faint echo of her laughter.

I woke up alone, with a half-burned cigarette still stuck between my lips and a bruise blooming down my ribs. The room smelled like her—like confessions, bourbon, and regret. She’d left without a word. Again. That was her style—kiss me like she’d never leave, vanish like I was the one who disappeared.

I didn’t chase her.

Not yet.

Instead, I rode. The kind of ride that made your bones hum and your heart forget its own name. I took the long way down to Dead Creek, the one with the broken fence and the swamp that stank like old secrets. I needed noise. Wind. Heat. Something to remind me I was alive, something to drown out the memory of her mouth.

The sky was heavy, sun chewing the edge of the clouds, cicadas screaming like they were warning me. My head buzzed with too many what-ifs and not enough good reasons. That was the thing about Salem—she didn’t just haunt your nights, she rewrote your days.

But when I pulled up to the clubhouse, the silence was worse.

Razor was sitting on the front steps, smoking the end of a joint he wasn’t sharing. Doc leaned against the rusted truck, arms crossed, watching me like he could see straight into my guilt. Hyde was nowhere. Snake didn’t look up from sharpening his blade.

The air was thick. Like we were waiting on judgment day. Like the kind of silence that comes after you realize something sacred’s been spoiled.

"You’re late," Razor said, flicking ash with a flick of attitude.

"Didn’t know there was a roll call," I muttered, boots grinding into gravel.

Doc snorted. "There’s a body."

I froze.

"What kind of body?"

"The preacher’s wife."

The words didn’t hit me right away. It was like hearing thunder without seeing the lightning. Like knowing something terrible just happened but not knowing if you caused it.

Razor flicked his smoke. "They say she slipped. Hit her head on the marble tub."\n "They also say she was drunk," Doc added, his voice flat.

I looked at them both. "You think I had something to do with that?"

"We don’t think," Snake said, still sharpening. "We know you fuck trouble."

Salem didn’t show up for three more days.

And when she did, she wasn’t alone.

She was with Daniel Clayborne. Star quarterback-turned-worship leader. Clean hands. Clean teeth. Clean damn lies. He wore his righteousness like a suit two sizes too tight, all buttons and no soul.

They walked into The Rusty Nail like it was their wedding reception. Salem wore a summer dress with tiny blue roses, and Daniel had a hand on the small of her back like he owned her.

The room split.

Half watched her. The other half watched me.

Razor leaned in. "You gonna make a scene?"

"Only if she asks me to."

Daniel saw me. Smiled. Smug and sweet like the choirboy he was. He whispered something in her ear. She laughed.

That sound used to belong to me.

Now it belonged to him.

But only for a moment.

Because when Salem locked eyes with me across the bar, the laughter died.

And she looked like she was choking on her own smile.

I didn’t wait for her to come to me.

I got up. Walked across the room. Every boot step like a gunshot. My heart in my throat, my fists already aching to ruin something. Or someone.

"You slumming it, Salem?" I asked, voice low, breath tasting of smoke and venom.

She blinked. "Nico—don’t."

Daniel squared up. "She doesn’t want to talk to you."

"She got a mouth. Let her use it."

Her fingers twitched. Just like they did that day at the chapel.

"We’re just here for music," she said, trying to sound casual. Trying to sound clean.

"Then why you look like you’re about to cry?"

Daniel moved. I blocked. He shoved. I didn’t move. I smiled, slow and mean.

Salem stepped between us. Pressed her palm to my chest.

"Please," she whispered. "Not here."

I looked at her. Really looked.

She was shaking.

I backed off.

But I didn’t leave.

Because she didn’t ask me to.

An hour later, I found her outside, behind the bar, smoking one of my cigarettes. She held it like she hated the taste but needed the burn.

"You’re gonna ruin him," I said. "I already did." "Then why play house?"

She turned. Fire in her eyes. "Because you make me want to ruin everything. And I can’t keep doing that."

I stepped close.

"You already did."

She kissed me.

Rough. Desperate. Like a confession. Like she’d been saving it in her throat and needed to spit it out before it killed her.

And in that kiss, I tasted every lie we ever told.

The preacher’s wife was dead. Salem was breaking.

And me?

I was just getting started.

That night I didn’t sleep. I drove the loop twice. Lit a match just to watch it burn down to my fingers. Her name tasted like gasoline in my mouth, and I knew—this wasn’t over.

Not by a long shot.

Because some sins don’t stay buried. Some ghosts don’t leave when you ask.

And love?

Love just makes you easier to haunt.

CHAPTER FIVE — All Saints Bleed

A Hallowed Hounds Tale Rivenstead, Louisiana — Summer 1977

It started with a knock.

Not a loud one. Soft. Almost sweet. The kind of knock that didn’t belong here, not outside the back room of The Rusty Nail where we kept the good whiskey and the bad secrets. It was the sort of knock you felt in your ribs before you heard it with your ears—polite, hesitant, like a sinner asking for absolution.

I opened the door.

Salem.

Eyes glassy. Hair a mess. Like she’d walked out of a fever dream and forgot to wipe the sleep and sin from her skin. She looked like she'd run here barefoot, like she'd outrun the devil himself just to land on my doorstep.

"I can’t go home," she whispered, arms folded like she was keeping herself together with sheer will.

I didn’t ask why.

I just stepped aside.

She didn’t cry. Not right away.

She hovered in the middle of the room like a ghost still deciding whether to haunt or be haunted. Like she didn’t know what to do with her hands, or her pain, or me. Her eyes scanned the worn-out couch, the crooked lamp, the half-empty bottle of bourbon on the dresser, and finally me—sitting on the edge of the bed like a man waiting on his sentence.

I didn’t speak.

I waited. Let the silence work its weight. Let it press against us both, until it cracked.

And then, she moved.

Climbed onto my lap like she belonged there. Like gravity worked different when it came to us. She pressed her face to my neck and breathed out something that wasn’t quite a sob.

"Don’t be gentle tonight."

My heart jerked, kicked like a horse startled.

"Salem..."

"Don’t treat me like I’m fragile," she said, her voice trembling like it was carrying something too big. "I want it to hurt. I want to feel it. I want you to remind me I’m still alive."

I didn’t say a word.

I just kissed her.

Not soft. Not sweet. The kind of kiss that digs its nails in. That leaves teeth marks and questions. Her gasp caught in her throat, but she didn’t pull away. She pulled me in. Tighter. Closer. Like she was daring me to ruin her properly this time.

Clothes fell like ash. Like regrets we didn’t have the time to name. Her skin burned beneath my palms, slick with sweat, heavy with need. I held her like I was drowning, like if I didn’t, I’d disappear completely. I kissed every scar she didn’t show the world, every hollow part she tried to fill with righteousness and rage.

She didn’t make a sound when I slid inside her. Just a soft shudder, a breath caught halfway to a prayer. Her eyes fluttered open and looked at me like I was the last terrible choice she was ever going to make.

We didn’t make love that night.

We made war.

And in the quiet that followed, we surrendered.

After, she curled up in my bed, her back to me, skin cooling against the sheets. The silence between us wasn’t peaceful—it was full of sharp corners and unspoken things.

"You think I’m a monster?" she asked, her voice barely there, like it might fall apart if I answered too quickly.

"No."

"Liar."

I reached for her. Brushed my fingers against the bruises blooming on her thighs, the bite marks on her shoulder like constellations of our wreckage.

"I think you’re running from something."

She turned. Slowly. No mascara. No lipstick. Just Salem, raw and real and tired of pretending.

"I keep waiting for someone to stop me."

I didn’t know how to be that kind of man. I’d never been anyone’s savior—barely kept myself from burning.

So I kissed her again.

Slower. Deeper. Like I was trying to stitch her back together with my mouth.

And she let me.

The morning dragged its fingers through the blinds, golden and cruel. She was gone again.

But this time, she left something behind.

Her necklace.

A tiny silver cross. Tarnished. Bent at the tip like it had been caught in a fistfight with the devil. Like it had seen too much, just like her. Just like me.

I stared at it for a long time, turning it over in my palm until my fingers smelled like rust and memory.

The next time I saw her, it was Sunday. Church bells ringing like they were trying to shake the guilt off the roof.

And there she was.

Salem.

On Daniel Clayborne’s arm.

Front pew. White gloves. Blue dress. That same smile she wore when she lied to herself.

He had a hand on her knee, and she let him.

I stood in the back, hat pulled low, trying to look like I belonged in God’s house.

She looked at me.

Right at me.

Didn’t blink.

Didn’t flinch.

And I saw it, clear as sin:

She wasn’t mine.

Not anymore.

Maybe not ever.

But she’d left her cross.

And that had to mean something.

Didn’t it?

CHAPTER SIX — Mercy Don’t Come Free

A Hallowed Hounds Tale Rivenstead, Louisiana — Summer 1977

The necklace sat on my dresser like it had teeth.

Silver cross. Bent tip. Still smelled like her. Like salt and something sweeter underneath. I hadn’t touched it since that morning. Like if I left it long enough, she’d come back for it. Like it was a thread she’d follow home.

But she didn’t.

Not for three days.

And on the fourth, I heard she was back on Daniel Clayborne’s arm. Wearing white. Laughing pretty. The preacher’s daughter, all haloed up again. And me? I was in the garage, knuckles raw from punching the rust off some old Harley, pretending it didn’t feel like she’d ripped a piece out of me and handed it to the devil with a smile.

Then Vex came in, grinning like he knew something ugly.

"You hear about your little church girl?"

I didn’t look up.

"She and Clayborne got caught behind the altar after service. Handsy. Real holy of them."

I wiped the grease off my palms. Real slow.

"Ain’t none of my business."

"Ain’t it?"

I let the silence answer for me.

But inside, I burned. Not with jealousy. With something meaner. Something that curled tight around my ribs and whispered: She used you.

The next time I saw her was at the diner.

She walked in like nothing had happened. Hair tied up. That same little blue dress. Only difference was the bruises she’d tried to cover up and the way her eyes flinched when she saw me.

I didn’t move.

She came to my booth anyway.

"You left this."

I tossed the necklace on the table. It clinked like a gavel.

She stared at it. Then at me.

"You mad at me?"

I laughed. Not because it was funny.

"You think I’m that soft? That stupid?"

She blinked. Bit her lip. Like she was waiting for me to soften.

I didn’t.

"You think I ain’t heard what you been doing with Clayborne? Or what you said about me? That I was just some game to piss your mama off?"

She opened her mouth. Closed it.

"I didn’t mean it like that."

"You didn’t mean a damn thing, Salem. That’s the problem."

I stood up. Let the booth screech behind me. Threw a few bills on the table, but not for her.

"Keep your cross. You’re gonna need it."

That night, I rode.

No helmet. No lights. Just me, the bike, and the road clawing at my tires. Every mile was a scream. Every turn was a prayer I didn’t believe in. I rode until the trees blurred and my hands felt like they weren’t mine anymore.

I stopped at the old bridge.

Looked down at the black water below. Let the wind whip at my jacket like it was trying to tear it off me.

And I thought about her.

Not the preacher's daughter. Not the good girl in the front pew. But the one who crawled into my lap and begged me not to be gentle. The one who moaned my name like a curse.

That girl.

My girl.

Maybe just for one night, but still.

She had made me believe I could be more than a mistake.

And now?

She didn’t even look back.

When I got back to the clubhouse, the lights were on.

Inside, the boys were drinking. Vex, Razor, Smoke. The usual crew. Music playing low. Some old blues song about heartbreak and whiskey.

I walked past them without a word.

In my room, I found the necklace.

On my pillow.

Back where it started.

Tied with a ribbon.

And a note.

"Don’t give up on me. Not yet."

I stared at it.

And for the first time in days, I felt something real.

Hope.

Or maybe just the echo of it.

But either way, I wasn’t done with her.

Not yet.

CHAPTER SEVEN — Cross My Heart

A Hallowed Hounds Tale Rivenstead, Louisiana — Summer 1977

I wasn't planning on going back to church.

But I did.

Not for God. Not for forgiveness. For her.

The pews were empty when I slipped in through the side doors. Light filtered through stained glass, painting the floors in fractured colors that didn’t feel holy. It was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that makes your sins echo off the walls.

I sat in the back. Hat off. Heart in my throat.

She came in five minutes later. Alone this time. No Daniel Clayborne. No white gloves. No blue dress. Just Salem, in denim and a threadbare tee, hair up like she'd stopped caring again.

She didn’t look at me.

Walked straight to the altar, lit a candle, and sat in the front row. Like she had something to say but wasn’t sure who to say it to.

I waited.

Until the silence felt like it would split me in two.

"Why him?" I asked, voice low, carrying too much weight.

She didn't turn around.

"Because he's safe."

Safe. Not me.

I stood. Walked up the aisle slow. Every step felt like a confession. When I reached her, she finally looked.

Eyes red-rimmed. Not from crying. From trying not to.

"He won’t hurt me."

"I never meant to."

"But you did."

I sat beside her. Close enough to touch. Far enough not to.

"I gave you everything," I said.

She shook her head. "You gave me the broken pieces. Then acted surprised when I bled."

I looked at the altar. At the flame she’d lit.

"You ever pray for something you know you shouldn’t want?"

"Every damn day."

And then she turned.

"Do you love me, Nico?"

"I love the mess of you. The madness. The fire."

"Not what I asked."

I hesitated. Swallowed.

"Yes."

She closed her eyes.

"Then stop making me choose between feeling alive and staying safe."

I reached for her hand.

She let me hold it.

Not tight. Not soft. Just... there.

"You still wearing it?" she asked.

"The cross?"

She nodded.

"Yeah."

"Then cross your heart, Jinx. Tell me you won't break me again."

I brought her hand to my chest.

"Cross my heart," I whispered.

She leaned in.

And for a moment, it felt like maybe we could start over. Like maybe the fire could burn with us instead of through us.

But outside, someone was watching.

And mercy doesn’t come free.

CHAPTER EIGHT — Saint Nothing

A Hallowed Hounds Tale Rivenstead, Louisiana — August 1977

The night Salem floated beside me in the lake, everything changed. Not in the kind of way you feel right away.

More like a fracture. Hairline. Quiet. Until it splinters everything.

She didn’t come back to the club after that.

Didn’t swing by the Rusty Nail. Didn’t call. She ghosted, vanished, like maybe she’d imagined it all too.

I tried not to let it eat me. Did the runs Razor told me to do. Patched up a rookie who got glassed in a bar fight. Shot pool with Widow and Tank.

But everything tasted like nothing.

Every drink went down bitter. Every laugh felt borrowed. Every girl I looked at looked like her shadow.

Sunday came again.

Rivenstead Church sat like a crown of bones at the top of the hill. Salem walked in on Daniel’s arm, like clockwork.

Except this time— There was a ring on her finger.

I didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink.

Just stood in the back, behind the pews, wearing guilt like a second skin.

Widow elbowed me after service. “That your little preacher’s daughter?”

“She’s not mine,” I muttered.

He laughed. “She looks like she knows it.”

That night, I broke my hand on a bathroom mirror.

Didn’t bandage it. Didn’t ice it. Rode through the bayou until the stars bled.

I didn’t go home. I didn’t sleep.

I parked my bike outside her house.

Engine cut. Silence so loud it rang.

Her light flicked on around 2AM.

She stood in the window. White nightgown. Pale face. Bare feet. Like something out of a dream you regret the moment you wake up.

She didn’t open the window. Didn’t wave.

She just stood there.

And I felt it.

The ending.

Crawling up my spine.

Next day, Razor called me into the back room.

“You’re slipping.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re in love with a girl who ain’t yours and never was.”

I lit a smoke. Didn’t answer.

He grabbed my collar. “This club gave you blood. Gave you name. You want to piss it away for a church girl who’s gonna marry the first man her daddy approves of?”

I let the silence answer for me.

He shook his head.

“You’re not built for heartbreak, Nico. You’re built for ruin.”

Salem showed up at the shop the next night.

Tears on her lashes. Dress wrinkled. Heels in her hand.

“I ran,” she said. “I ran straight from the altar.”

“You said yes.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“You still said it.”

She walked toward me like she was walking off a cliff.

“You ruined me.”

“No,” I said. “You let me.”

And then we kissed.

Outside the club. Where anyone could see. Where anyone did.

Inside, Razor was waiting.

“You done?” he asked, voice low, eyes dark.

Salem clung to my arm.

I looked at her. And for the first time, I didn’t have an answer.

CHAPTER NINE — The Devil's Bride

A Hallowed Hounds Tale Rivenstead, Louisiana — Late Summer, 1977

They say you can’t sell your soul if you already gave it away.

That Sunday, I stood at the edge of Rivenstead’s old cemetery with mud on my boots and a cigarette between my teeth. The preacher’s voice rolled across the headstones like thunder—loud, certain, full of verses that didn’t quite land right when you knew what he kept in his bed.

Salem wore black.

Not for mourning. Not even for ceremony. She wore it like armor. A velvet dress clinging like smoke, like a funeral veil stitched from sin. Her heels clicked soft on the gravel path. Her eyes never found mine.

But I found hers. I always did.

“You look like trouble,” I told her, two nights before, when she snuck into my garage after midnight.

“Good,” she whispered, pulling my shirt over her head, “I’m tired of being good.”

I kissed her with engine grease still on my hands. Laid her down on a bed of tools and dust, in between the growl of metal and the clatter of wrenches. She tasted like whiskey and war. Like the last sin a man gets to choose.

She didn’t cry that night either. She didn’t need to.

But she trembled.

And I held her until the shaking stopped.

Back at the cemetery, Clayborne clutched his Bible like it was going to save him from the truth.

I wondered if he knew.

If he really knew what Salem sounded like when she broke. When she begged. When she swore my name like a prayer and a curse, all in the same breath.

She stood beside him now, lips painted red, fingers laced with his, while her eyes burned holes through the sky.

She was beautiful in the way a burning church was beautiful—glorious, damning, unforgettable.

And I couldn’t stop looking.

Later that night, after the last hymn fell flat, and the mourners were gone, I found her again. Out back. Smoking the end of a clove cigarette, arms wrapped tight around herself.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said without turning.

“I never should’ve been.”

She laughed. Bitter. Soft. Like rain hitting a stained-glass window.

“I keep thinking this will get easier,” she said. “Lying.”

I stepped closer. “Then stop.”

She turned, finally. Her eyes rimmed in ash and ache.

“I can’t.”

I wanted to shake her. Kiss her. Burn the whole town down with her name on my tongue.

Instead, I took her hand.

She let me.

And for a moment, beneath the hanging moss and broken stars, I thought maybe we still had a chance.

But love, like ghosts, only lingers when it's unfinished.

And we were nothing if not unfinished.

CHAPTER TEN — The Boy Who Prayed Too Late

A Hallowed Hounds Tale Rivenstead, Louisiana — Late Summer, 1977

I stopped praying the night Salem showed up barefoot on my porch with blood on her elbow and glass in her hair.

She didn’t say a word. Just looked at me like I was the last bad idea she hadn’t ruined yet.

I opened the door anyway.

We didn’t speak for the first twenty minutes. She peeled off her ruined dress and stepped into the shower like a ghost shedding skin. I sat on the edge of the bed, listening to the water run and wondering how many times I was going to let her wreck me before I asked for mercy.

When she came out, she was wearing one of my shirts—nothing else. Her hair dripped down her back. She looked like salvation and damnation rolled into one soft, shaking girl.

"He hit me," she said. Quiet. Unapologetic.

I didn’t ask who.

Because I already knew.

Clayborne. That smug, holy bastard. The kind of man who preached fidelity and practiced fists. He'd raised his voice in the pulpit and his hand at home. And Salem—my Salem—she’d swallowed it like scripture. Until tonight.

"I thought I could fix him," she said, curled against me in the dark, voice trembling with some old grief she never let surface before.

"You can't fix fire," I said. "You either burn with it, or you run."

She looked up at me then. Eyes red. Lip split.

"So run with me."

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to grab her hand and ride until the road gave out.

But love isn’t just want. It’s cost. And Salem was already bleeding.

The next morning, she was gone again.

Left her cross. Again.

Left a note too, scribbled on the back of an old mechanic's receipt:

*"I'm sorry. But this ain't your burden. It's mine. - S"

I punched the wall so hard my knuckles split.

Because it was my burden. Because I loved her. Because I didn't know how to stop.

At the next Hallowed Hounds meeting, I showed up with bruised hands and a heart cracked open.

"Where the hell you been, Jinx?" Vex asked.

"Nowhere good," I muttered.

They laughed, the way men laugh when they sense blood in the water.

But Razor looked at me too long. Like he saw something he recognized.

"You fallin' for the preacher's girl?" he asked, low.

I didn’t answer.

Because I already had.

That night, I rode out past the levee where the air smelled like iron and guilt. I took the cross from my pocket and held it to the moonlight.

"Please," I whispered, even though no one was listening.

"Bring her back. Or let me forget."

But saints don’t answer broken boys.

And I was too late anyway.

CHAPTER ELEVEN — Crossroads Ain't for Lovers

A Hallowed Hounds Tale Rivenstead, Louisiana — Summer's End, 1977

The first time I kissed her, I tasted rebellion. The last time, I tasted blood. Somewhere in between, we forgot how to stop.

I found her by the crossroads just before midnight. The air smelled like cut grass and regret. She wore the same dress from our first time, black lace and bare shoulders, but now it hung on her like a promise half-kept.

"You came," she said.

"You left," I replied.

She nodded, like she knew what that cost me. Like she always did.

"I can’t do it anymore," she whispered. "Running. Hiding. Lying."

"Then don’t."

"And what? Stay here? Let him break me? Let you bleed for it?"

"Let me love you."

She looked at me like I’d offered her fire, not safety.

"You don’t know what loving me will do."

I took a step forward. Close enough to smell the clove smoke still tangled in her hair.

"Baby, loving you already wrecked me. Might as well let it finish the job."

I kissed her like it was the last prayer I'd ever say. Her hands gripped my cut, nails pressing into the patch that marked me as a Hallowed Hound. For once, she didn’t tremble.

For once, she took.

And I gave.

On the hood of my bike, under a sky split with thunder, she gave in like a sinner on her knees. And I held her like a man who knew what it meant to lose.

The next morning, I rode into town with her behind me. Her arms around my waist, chin on my shoulder, like nothing ever hurt us.

The preacher met us on the church steps.

He didn’t get a word out.

I dropped him with one punch. Hard. Final. No sermons, no psalms.

Just silence.

She stood over him with bare feet and a burning stare. Pulled the wedding ring off her finger and let it clatter on the stone.

"You're done preaching at me," she said. "He speaks louder."

I didn’t say anything. I just took her hand and walked away.

We left Rivenstead that afternoon.

No map. No goodbye.

Just two sinners on the run with too many scars and not enough shame.

She leaned into me as the miles unfurled. Whispered in my ear:

"You still believe in accidents?"

I smiled.

"Only the kind that leave bruises and poetry."

Because some stories ain’t about salvation. They’re about survival.

And some love stories? They don’t end in forgiveness.

They end in flame.

FIN.

✦ Author’s Note ✦

To whoever held this story in their hands and heart—

Thank you for riding all the way to the end with me.

JINX was never meant to be clean. He wasn’t supposed to make sense. He wasn’t the kind of boy who came home to a porch light. He was bloodied knuckles, a crooked smile, and bad decisions that feel like silk. And Salem? Salem was every girl told to pray the fire out of her bones—only to set the church alight instead.

This story is about the kind of love that doesn’t ask permission. It bruises. It devours. It chooses you even when it shouldn't.

I wanted it to be aching and unfiltered. A little southern-gothic. A little unholy. I wanted it to feel like something you shouldn't touch, but you still reach for it anyway—just like they did.

To everyone who knows what it means to fall for someone that wrecks you sweet: You’re not alone.

This was my love letter to the brokenhearted. To the wild girls. To the boys who never got told they were worth saving. And to anyone who knows that sometimes, choosing each other means choosing the fall.

We’ll meet again—somewhere between smoke and salvation. Until then…

Stay doomed. Stay divine.

Au revoir, Rolly

[rollyfiles]

Velvet War | 18+

Note: This story contains mature themes, explicit content, emotional conflict, jealousy, and morally grey decisions. Reader discretion is advised.

I wrote this with shaking hands and a messy heart. It’s not just about love—it’s about the parts we hide, the people we ache for, and what it means to belong to no one, and still be wanted by two. I hope it stays with you.

—Rolly

EPISODE ⅼ

...

Los Angeles.

...

A fading sun spills gold over a dusty, glass-framed skyline. The air is thick with dreams and defeat. Inside a run-down loft with character and charm—cracked white walls, thrifted furniture, and a fridge held closed with duct tape—Giselle stands barefoot, pacing in a cotton slip, the hem brushing her thighs.

Giselle quietly says, barely above a whisper, “We’ll lose the house, won’t we?”

Stryker leans back in a creaking chair, sleeves rolled up, a ring of sweat darkening the back of his grey shirt. His jaw clenches around a cigarette he doesn’t light.

He’s not handsome in the traditional way. His face tells stories—crooked nose, faded scars, and eyes that used to shine when he looked at her. They’re dull now. Worn out.

Stryker tries to smile but fails, “I’m gonna fix it, baby. Just one more pitch, and it’s gonna catch.”

She scoffs. Not because she doesn’t believe him—but because she’s tired of believing, “You’ve said that before. Every time it gets darker, you say we’ll find a light.”

He stands, crosses to her slowly, touches her cheek. His palm is calloused, warm. Still hers. Still trying, “I just need a break.”

And then, as if summoned by desperation itself, the break arrives.

──────────────

A glitzy art gallery, downtown. Somewhere Giselle only ever saw from the bus window. Velvet ropes, champagne towers, high ceilings painted black. The event is a charity auction for ‘Emerging Voices’. Stryker scored tickets through an old college friend. They're dressed up, but out of place. Giselle in a backless satin gown she borrowed from her boss, Stryker in a suit that fits his shoulders but not his confidence.

Giselle tugs at her neckline. She hates feeling watched, but tonight—every man stares. Stryker notices. That’s when he sees them.

Silas Duval.

He stands near a sculpture that looks like twisted metal kissed by fire. A glass of red wine lingers near his lips, untouched. He’s older—mid to late 30s.

Black suit, no tie. His hair is slightly tousled like he just got out of someone else’s bed and didn’t care.

He doesn’t smile. He studies her.

She feels it instantly.

Giselle turns to Stryker, uneasily and whispers, “Someone’s looking.”

Stryker upon noticing, frowns, "Yeah. Rich prick with a god complex.”

A woman in a red jumpsuit slides beside them, glossy lips and clinking bangles.

“Mr. Duval requests your presence upstairs. Just you two. Private auction preview.”

──────────────

The space is quiet, intimate. There’s a fireplace that isn’t needed, yet it’s lit. A single bottle of rare wine, already uncorked. Three chairs, one couch, two crystal glasses… and a third, untouched.

Giselle steps in first, barefoot heels clicking, her dress catching the golden glow. Stryker follows, slower—uncertain, protective. They’re both still playing polite.

And then, there he is.

Silas Duval.

He rises to greet them. Doesn’t extend his hand. Just nods, eyes locked on Giselle for one breath longer than acceptable.

His voice like honey over gravel, “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

Stryker speaks up flatly, “We’re curious people.”

Silas raises an eyebrow, “Curious… brave. Or broke.”

His smile is slight. Dangerous. But Giselle’s intrigued. Something in her shifts—her spine straightens, her lips part, her gaze dares back.

“All three.” She says, coolly.

Silas chuckles. Low and real. He gestures for them to sit. Stryker pours himself wine before it’s offered. Silas doesn’t mind.

“You’re a writer, right? Stryker Rhodes? I read your old screenplay—the one about the man who sells his future to save the past.”

Stryker’s jaw twitches.

“No one bought it," Stryker replies.

“I might’ve, had you offered it to the right person,” Silas says.

His meaning is layered. Deliberate. Giselle feels it, hot on her skin.

They talk. Twenty minutes. About ambition, money, love. Silas is charming in a way that makes you hate yourself for liking him. He quotes poetry without warning, talks about pleasure like it’s currency.

But he never touches her.

Then silence.

He leans forward. Eyes only on her, “What would you do to save him?”

She looks at Stryker. His fingers tap the glass like a warning.

Giselle frowns, “What do you mean?”

Silas reclines again, a predator with time.

“Let’s say… a man offers a woman a million dollars. Just one night. Not a marriage. Not a promise. Just one. Wild. Unforgettable. Silent.”

Stryker scoffs. Giselle goes pale. But not for the reason he thinks. Her knees… ache.

“You’re joking.”

“No, Mr. Rhodes. I never joke about things I can afford.”

Beat. The fire crackles.

Silas speaks again but to Giselle, softly. “But it’s not about the money. It’s about… curiosity.”

She swallows. Her pulse is a drumline.

“What if she says yes?” Stryker asks, furiously.

Silas smiles softly while leaning in, “Then I’ll change her life in more ways than money ever could.”

The room stills. No background music. No sound but her breath.

Then—

Silas to Stryker, “You can talk about it. Tonight. Or not at all.”

And he leaves.

──────────────

Their loft, just past midnight. The city outside hums with sirens and late-night laughter, distant and careless. Inside—it’s quiet. Tense. A single lamp spills amber light across the bed, still unmade from the morning. Her heels are already off, her makeup a little smeared. His tie’s undone, but not removed. The silence is thick enough to chew.

Giselle sits at the edge of the bed, her back to Stryker. She doesn't move when he walks in behind her, the door clicking shut like the final chord of a piano piece.

Stryker breaks the silence with a dry, bitter laugh, “Guess that’s what rich men do for fun, huh? Dangle women like meat and call it curiosity.”

Giselle doesn’t answer. Her fingers fidget with the clasp of her earring, but it won’t come off. It’s stuck, like her thoughts.

She hums quietly, “It wasn’t about that.”

Stryker fires sharply, “What was it about then, huh? What did you see in his eyes, Giselle?”

She turns. Finally. And her voice—fragile, but dangerously clear.

“I saw a man who doesn’t beg for life to be fair.”

That silences him.

Stryker's voice cracks after a pause, “You think I beg?"

Giselle shakes her head softly, “No. I think you… wait. You hope. Every time we lose something—you hope it’ll be different next time.”

She stands now. Slowly. The hem of her slip brushes her thighs again. Her bare feet pad across the floor toward him.

“I’m tired of hoping," She adds.

Stryker grits his teeth in disbelief, “So what? You sleep with him and we pay off our debt with your body?”

“It’s our body when it’s love. When it’s rent, it’s mine?” Giselle shoves him angrily.

He flinches like she slapped him. But she’s not yelling. She’s not falling apart. That scares him more.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You didn’t stop him.” Giselle retorts.

“What was I supposed to do? Punch a billionaire in the face?”

“No. But maybe… tell me not to go.”

Silence again. The worst kind. Because in it lives every doubt they’ve both buried.

Stryker's voice breaking, “I shouldn’t have to.”

She looks at him. And for the first time—really looks.

Giselle whispers, “You don’t want to lose me. But you don’t know how to keep me.”

She walks past him. Into the bathroom. The door closes.

But not all the way.

He sits on the bed. Shoulders hunched. And behind the cracked door—she leans against the wall. Heart in her throat. She didn’t say yes. But she didn’t say no.

──────────────

Morning. Pale blue light filters through sheer curtains. The loft is quiet, almost holy in its stillness. Giselle sleeps on her side, curled tight, her cheek against Stryker’s back. He’s awake. Eyes open. Staring at nothing. He hasn’t slept.

A soft sound at the door. A paper slip. Stryker hears it. He untangles from her carefully—his fingers graze her wrist as he slips out of bed. She stirs but doesn’t open her eyes.

He moves to the door, barefoot, silent. When he opens it, no one’s there.

Just a thick ivory envelope, sealed in black wax. No name.

He breaks it.

Inside: — A black card. Minimal lettering. Just an address. — A suite number. — 9PM. Tonight. — And beneath that, a line: “This isn’t a transaction. It’s a revelation.” — S.D.

He stares at it. Eyes narrowing. Hands tightening. He knows she didn’t ask for this. But he also knows she didn’t run from it.

He doesn’t wake her. Not yet.

Cut to: later that morning.

She’s at the kitchen counter in his shirt, stirring cold coffee with a spoon like she’s trying to wake something that won’t come back.

The card’s on the table.

Giselle speaks up, barely a whisper, “You opened it.”

Stryker nods, sitting across from her, “Yeah.”

“Did you read it?”

Stryker scoffs, “I memorized it.”

The silence is sharp. Their fingers don’t touch on the table. Not like they used to.

“Tell me not to go.” Giselle's voice quivered.

Stryker's eyes met hers, “Tell me why you want to.”

She doesn’t speak. Her lips part. Her throat works around the words she doesn’t say. Then—

“Because it’s not about sex."

Stryker frowns, "Then what the hell is it about?"

She stands. Takes the black card in her hand. Runs her thumb over his initials like a secret.

Giselle didn't reply at first but then chose to form her words calmly, “It’s about being wanted. Not needed. Wanted. Do you remember what that feels like?”

He stands. Face close to hers now. A breath apart. His hand cups her jaw like he’s about to kiss her. But he doesn’t.

Stryker's tone grew hoarse, “I still want you.”

“Then why do I feel more alive standing in his shadow than in your arms?” It was heartbreaking to breathe those words out.

And that does it.

He slams his palm on the table—not in violence, but in grief. A man watching his entire world shift in one sentence.

But she doesn’t flinch.

She kisses his cheek. Soft. Final.

And walks away to shower.