Biker's Temptation:Owned by Knox Vance

Year One

The door didn't open for three days.

Not that I counted the cracks in the concrete. Not that I traced the Rusted Saints skull spray-painted on the wall with my eyes until I could see it in the dark. Not that I memorized the sound of engines at night, trying to pick his Ducati out of the pack.

Home, he'd called it.

This cell that smelled like oil, leather, and him.

The barred window let in slivers of Railways Godown light. Morning was dust motes dancing in Kamiti silence. Afternoon was heat pressing against my skin like his hands had in the boardroom. Night was engines. Rusted Saints coming home. Every rumble a heartbeat. Every idle a threat.

Food came through a slot in the steel. Water. No names. No faces. Just hands wrapped in leather, Rusted Saints rings glinting, orders burned into them: Don't speak to her.

The Saints protect their own.

But protection felt a lot like Kamiti. Except in Kamiti, I was the one with the key.

On day four, the deadbolt turned.

And my heart forgot how to beat quiet.

Knox.

No helmet. No cut. Just a black tee stretched tight over the chest I'd caged with my thighs on the Ducati. Jeans riding low enough to show the V of muscle and the edge of ink. The skull wearing a crown of thorns. The Rusted Saints mark. The one my palms had memorized at 120km/h.

He held a bundle of black leather. Not mine. Never mine. Too small. Too dangerous. Too much like a second skin.

"Get dressed." His voice was Kamiti gravel and midnight sin. No Counselor. No Ms. Mwaura. No softness. Just an order from the man who owned the Godown and the five years I owed him.

"Why?" My voice cracked. Three days of silence and Time to start paying echoing off concrete would do that to a prosecutor. Three days of wondering if ruin felt like this. Or if this was the absolution part.

His eyes did that thing. The thing that made me forget I had a law degree. Ruin and absolution in the same breath. Hell and heaven in the same stare.

"Because Year One starts today."

He tossed the leathers on the bed. The bed he'd kicked the door open to reveal. The bed that looked too much like Kamiti and not enough like mercy.

"Church is in ten." He stepped closer. The room shrank. The air thickened. "You're riding."

Church. I'd read the files. Rusted Saints meetings where they voted on blood. Where they sentenced brothers. Where they decided who lived and who bled out in the Godown.

"I'm not a Saint," I said. Standing. Shaking. But standing. Bare feet on cold concrete. Torn skirt from the courthouse still on my body. A flag of surrender I refused to lower.

He closed the distance in one step. Same move as the boardroom. Same move as when he said Welcome home. Backing me until my calves hit the bed frame. Until I had to tip my head up, up, up to hold his eyes. Until I was breathing him instead of air.

"You are now," he said. His thumb brushed the bruise on my jaw. The one he put there. Yellow-green now. Fading. But his. A badge. A brand. "My bruises are your colors. My cut is your protection. My name is your sentence."

His hand dropped. Slow. Deliberate. From my jaw to my throat to my hip. To the torn waistband of the skirt I'd been wearing for four days. Four days of his scent on my skin. Four days of Kamiti without the bars.

"You owe me five years, Wanjiru."

He used my name. First time since he stood in my courtroom and said Not guilty with blood in his teeth.

My knees almost gave.

"Year One," he murmured, leaning in until his lips were at my ear. Until his breath was coffee and sin and five years of rage. "You learn to ride."

The door opened behind him. The VP. Scar splitting his face from brow to jaw like a signature. He didn't look at me. Men like him didn't look at property. They looked at the owner.

"They're ready," he said. Voice like broken glass.

Knox didn't move. Didn't blink. Didn't look away from me. Like I was the only thing in the Godown. Like I was the only sentence he cared about passing.

"She rides with me," Knox said. Low. Final. A law being written. "In front. Where everyone sees. Where everyone knows."

The VP's eyes flicked to me for half a second. Assessing. Weighing. Then he nodded to Knox.

"Understood. Prez."

Prez.

President.

The word hit my ribs harder than his bike had hit the courthouse steps.

Knox Vance wasn't just a King. Wasn't just Kamiti-made. Wasn't just the man I prosecuted.

He was the President of the Rusted Saints.

And I was his Old Lady.

He stepped back. The cold rushed in where his heat had been. He picked up the leathers from the bed. Thrust them against my chest. The material was soft. Broken in. It smelled like him.

"Ten minutes, Counselor."

The name was mockery now. A memory.

Then he was gone. Door slamming. Deadbolt turning. Locked.

I stood there. Leathers clutched to my chest. Barred window above me. Five years stretched in front of me like an open road at midnight.

Year One: Learn to ride.

Year Two: Learn to bleed.

Year Three: Learn to rule.

Year Four: Learn to burn.

Year Five: Learn to stay.

I started laughing. Quiet. Hysterical. Kamiti-made. The sound bounced off concrete and came back broken.

He'd given me my sentence.

And I was going to make him count every damn second of it.

I dropped the torn skirt. Let it pool at my feet with my old life. With the prosecutor. With the woman who thought courtrooms were power.

Then I pulled on the leathers.

They fit like sin.

Like a second skin.

Like home.