Divorced by the Devil Rider

CHAPTER 16 — Public Violence

“Get off the bike.”

The command wasn’t shouted. It cut through the street anyway, sharp as broken glass against asphalt.

The rival laughed — a short, sharp sound that bounced off café awnings and car windows. Midday traffic hummed around us, open sky stretching pale and bright overhead. People watched from tables and sidewalk edges like we were actors on a stage they’d paid to see.

I was still standing outside the bakery, stupidly holding the paper bag warm against my palm, the change from my purchase heavy in my jeans pocket.

The Iron Wraith who’d cornered me earlier stepped closer now, his shoulder brushing mine as he crowded my space. Deliberate. Calculating.

“You think he’s always watching?” he murmured near my ear, his breath carrying the bitter tang of cigarettes and gasoline.

My stomach tightened into a hard knot. My pulse jumped so hard I could feel it in my throat.

“I don’t belong to anyone,” I said, but the words came out too fast, too high. Defensive in a way that made the lie obvious.

He smiled faintly, his eyes sliding over my face like he was cataloging every weakness.

“You belong to whoever can keep you breathing.”

Then — engines.

Low. Heavy. Familiar enough to make every nerve in my body sing before I even registered the sound.

The rival’s smile faltered.

Hellhounds.

Three bikes rolled in slow, controlled formation through the scattered traffic. Not chaotic. Not rushed. Calculated, like water moving around rocks.

Kade stopped directly in front of us. He didn’t rev the engine dramatically or peel out in a spray of gravel. He cut it clean, key turning with a soft click that seemed to echo across the silent street.

Silence hit harder than noise would have. Even the traffic seemed to hold its breath.

The rival straightened slightly but didn’t step back. Bad decision.

Kade removed his helmet slowly, fingers working the buckle with steady precision. His gaze moved from the rival to me, passing over my face like he was taking inventory of every detail.

My breath caught in my chest. There was no question in his eyes. No warmth. Only assessment.

“You touched her,” he said.

It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. The words carried across the street like a physical force.

The rival scoffed, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets. “We were talking.”

His hand brushed my arm again as he spoke — light, casual, deliberate. Testing.

My skin crawled. Every muscle tensed.

Before I could react — before I could even draw breath to step away — Kade moved.

No warning. No buildup. Just motion, smooth and fast as a snake striking.

He grabbed the rival’s wrist. Twisted.

A crack split through the air — loud, sharp, impossibly real. The sound seemed to hang in the sunlit space forever.

The rival’s scream followed half a second later, raw and guttural.

My heart slammed violently against my ribs, hard enough to make me dizzy. The street froze solid. No one moved. No one intervened. Even the people filming on their phones held still, hands steady on their screens.

Kade didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t rush. He held the broken wrist calmly, fingers wrapped tight, forcing the rival down onto one knee without breaking eye contact.

“You touched her,” he repeated, the words exactly the same as before but carrying a weight that pressed down on my shoulders.

The rival gasped, clutching uselessly at his bent arm, face gone pale as paper.

“This is a public street,” someone whispered nearby — a woman from the café, her voice thin with fear.

Kade glanced briefly at the small crowd gathering at the edges of the scene. His expression didn’t change. No anger. No satisfaction. Just focus.

He tightened his grip slightly. Another sickening crunch, softer this time but no less brutal.

I flinched hard, turning my face away even as my eyes stayed locked on the scene. My stomach twisted so violently I had to swallow against the taste of bile rising in my throat.

“Stop,” I said automatically.

Not because I cared about the rival. Not because I thought he didn’t deserve it. Because I couldn’t process this in daylight, in front of everyone I passed on my way to buy bread every morning.

Kade looked at me then. Just a glance — his eyes meeting mine for less than a second — but that glance changed something in my chest, warm and sharp all at once.

He wasn’t out of control. He wasn’t wild. He was precise. Measured. Like he’d calculated every possible outcome before he moved a muscle.

The rival choked out, his voice ragged with pain, “You don’t own her.”

Wrong words.

Kade released the broken arm only to grab the rival by the collar, fingers fisting in the thick fabric of his leather jacket. He pulled him up close enough that their foreheads almost touched, their breath mixing in the space between them.

“She breathes,” Kade said quietly, his voice low enough that only we could hear it clearly, “because I allow it.”

The words settled over the street like smoke, thick and suffocating. My lungs stopped working properly, air catching in my throat. Heat climbed up my neck and cheeks.

Not embarrassment. Not pride. Something worse. Exposure.

Everyone heard it. Everyone understood it. This wasn’t romance. This wasn’t protection. This was a declaration. A structural one, like laying a foundation for something no one could walk away from.

The rival spat at his feet, saliva dark against the gray pavement.

“You think this ends here?”

Kade tilted his head slightly, studying him like he was examining a broken tool.

“It ends when I say it ends.”

He shoved the rival backward. The man stumbled, catching himself against a parked car, still clutching his arm, face twisted with shock and pain and fury.

No one stepped in to help him. Not even his own men — two other Iron Wraiths who’d been standing at the edge of the sidewalk, their hands now hanging loose at their sides. They were watching Kade now. Not me. Not the broken bone. Him.

My breathing felt shallow, thin as paper. I hadn’t moved. I hadn’t spoken. I’d just stood there holding my bag of pastries like nothing was happening. And yet my life had just shifted publicly. Again.

Kade stepped closer to me. Not touching — there was still space between us, enough to breathe — but close enough that the air between us felt charged, crackling like static.

“Go home,” he said.

A command. Not a suggestion. Not a request.

I should argue. I should refuse. I should tell him I don’t take orders from anyone, least of all a man who just broke someone’s arm in front of half the neighborhood. I should assert something. Anything.

But my hands were shaking, the paper bag crinkling under my fingers. The street no longer felt neutral — every surface seemed to hold eyes, every shadow a potential threat. Phones were out. Cameras clicking. Screens recording every second.

If I walked away alone now — they’d know. They’d follow. They’d see exactly where I lived.

If I stayed — they’d know. They’d see exactly who I belonged to.

Everything led back to him.

“I don’t need—” I started, my voice barely audible.

He cut me off without looking at me, his attention already shifting back to the rival and his men.

“Yes,” he said.

My throat tightened, a hot knot forming behind my tongue. Not because he was loud. Not because he was cruel. Because he was certain. Unshakably, unarguably certain.

I hated that certainty. Hated that it made my hands stop shaking just a little. Hated that I felt safer inside it.

I took one step back. Then another. He didn’t touch me. Didn’t guide me with a hand on my arm or shoulder. But I felt guided anyway, like an invisible thread was pulling me toward my building.

I turned. Walked away from the scene, from the bikes, from the broken man on the pavement. My pulse still racing, blood thrumming in my ears so loud I could barely hear the traffic starting up again around me.

Halfway across the street, I heard him speak again. To the rival. To the crowd. To anyone watching who thought this was over.

“To your club,” Kade said calmly, his voice carrying clearly now that the noise was fading, “send whoever you want next.”

Silence. Then —

“I don’t miss.”

I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. Because something inside my chest had just shifted in a way I couldn’t undo, like a bone setting wrong after a break.

This wasn’t protection anymore. Protection was quiet. Hidden. This was ownership declared in public, carved into the air for everyone to see.

When I reached my apartment building, my hands were still trembling as I fumbled with my keys, dropping them once on the concrete steps. The lock clicked open with a sound that felt too loud in the quiet hallway.

My phone buzzed instantly as I pushed the door closed behind me. Unknown number. Video attachment.

I hesitated, my finger hovering over the screen. Then opened it anyway.

It was the street. From across the road, a clear angle that caught every moment in sharp focus. The break. The words. “She breathes because I allow it.”

My stomach dropped like I’d stepped off a cliff.

Caption below the video:

You’re not untouchable. You’re leverage.

My breathing stuttered, each inhale feeling like glass in my lungs. Another message followed, popping up before I could close the screen.

Iron Wraiths don’t forget humiliation.

I looked toward the window instinctively, pulling back the curtain just enough to see the street below. Paranoia tightened my chest, making it hard to breathe.

He’d protected me. Yes. There was no question about that — the rival would have kept pushing, kept taking pieces of my space until there was nothing left.

But he’d also marked me. Publicly. Structurally. Like a brand.

The world now knew. Not that I was free. Not that I was someone to be left alone. But that I was under him. Connected to him. A part of whatever war he was fighting.

My phone buzzed again. This time from Kade. Just three words.

Stay inside.

Not a question. Not concern. Instruction.

And I realized something that made my hands go cold, so cold I had to rub them together just to feel anything —

Today, I didn’t just lose anonymity. I lost the illusion that I could stand between factions untouched. That I could walk through this city and be invisible. That I could choose my own side.

The doorbell rang.

My heart stopped. I froze mid-breath, my hand still on the curtain, eyes locked on the peephole like it might show me something I didn’t want to see.

Three knocks. Slow, even intervals. Not Iron Wraith rhythm — they hit twice fast, once slow. Not Hellhound rhythm — three sharp, hard strikes. Unfamiliar.

Slow. Deliberate.

A voice followed, soft enough that I almost didn’t hear it through the wood.

Male. Smooth. Calm.

“You look smaller on camera.”

My pulse crashed violently against my ribs, so hard I thought I might pass out.

New threat. Already here.

And Kade wasn’t standing in front of it.