Page 49 of Steel's Secret
The third man bolts, running full speed down the alley like panic has hijacked every muscle in his body.
I imagine Steel watching him for half a second. Half a second is enough. He catches him by the back of his hood, jerks him backward so violently the man’s feet fly out from under him, and drags him through the snow and dirt, ignoring thewild kicks, the choked pleas, the desperate scrabble of fingers against concrete.
Steel hauls him upright, slams him into the dumpster, and hits him once in the ribs.
The man wheezes.
Steel hits him again in his ribs, jaw, and ribs again. Each impact is a punctuation mark. Each hit a word. Each word is a message.
This wasn’t a fight. It was punishment. A promise. A warning carved in bone.
The man slumps to the ground. Barely conscious. Barely breathing.
Steel stands over him, chest heaving, snow clinging to his hair, sweat mixing with the blood on his knuckles. His breath fogs in the freezing air, harsh and uneven.
He stares down at the bodies. Not with satisfaction, not with regret, but with the cold calculation of a man who understands exactly what’s required to protect the people he loves.
He wipes the blood from his knuckles on the dead man’s jacket, drops the Syndicate fabric he tore from one of them into the snow, and walks away without looking back.
I imagine, when it’s over, the only sound left in the alley is Steel’s heavy, uneven breaths. Alive. Alive for me. And the syndicate is not.
I’m sitting on the floor of my ruined office when Steel returns. Not my Isaiah, but Steel. I don’t hear footsteps. Just the door opening.
Cold air rushes in with him, sharp enough to sting my eyes. Something metal hits the floor beside the doorway. A dull, heavy clink that sounds too much like a weapon being dropped without care. A dark smear trails down the edge of the doorframe where his hand must’ve caught it on the way in, the red stark against the beige paint.
Steel stands there, not moving, as if he’s afraid that taking one more step toward me might make everything worse. The temperature drops five degrees with him in the room. Or maybe that’s just the blood on his clothes.
He’s covered in snow and sweat and someone else’s blood. Knuckles split. A smear of red drying on his jaw. A torn piece of fabric, Syndicate colors, half-crushed in his fist. Not a single piece of him looks sorry.
But there’s something else there, something raw, brittle, like the violence shook something loose inside him.
He looks at me with a question he already fears the answer to.
“Are you scared?” he asks quietly.
I should say yes. I should because this isn’t normal. This isn’t safe. This isn’t anything I should want.
But when I look at him, all hard lines and shaking breath and furious protection, I see the man who came the second I whispered his name.
“No,” I lie.
Steel crouches in front of me, jaw working, chest rising and falling too fast. I reach up and touch his face, my thumb brushing a smear of blood near his cheekbone. He flinches, not from pain, but from the softness he doesn’t think he deserves.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I whisper.
“Yes,” he murmurs. His forehead presses to mine, breath mixing with mine in the cold. “I always will.”
His hands shake when they cradle my jaw. Mine shakes too. This is the moment I realize the truth. Loving Steel King doesn’t save you. It marks you.
And whoever is coming for him, they’re not stopping at him.
The war just found me.
