Biker's Temptation:Owned by Knox Vance

The Godown

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The Ducati didn't slow for red lights. Or police. Or the past.

It tore through Westlands with sirens fading behind us, the engine screaming like the declaration of war he'd promised. My thighs caged him. My hands locked over his abs, over the skull wearing a crown of thorns. The Rusted Saints mark. It burned against my palms through my torn blouse. Or maybe that was him.

He didn't speak. Didn't have to. The road spoke for him. Every turn away from the courthouse. Every acceleration away from Richard being handcuffed. Every mile toward home.

_His_ home.

Railways Godown rose out of the Nairobi night like a grave. Rust on steel. Graffiti on concrete. Chain-link and floodlights and ghosts.

Five years ago I'd stood here with a warrant, twelve armed officers, and a badge that meant something.

Tonight I arrived on the back of the warrant. Badge gone. Blouse torn. Jurisdiction revoked.

The steel shutters rolled up from the inside. Not for police. For him.

The Ducati rolled into darkness that smelled like oil, leather, and old blood. Then the lights hit.

It wasn't a garage. It was a cathedral.

Bikes lined the walls. Dozens. Blacked-out monsters. Chrome glinting like knives. All idling. All waiting. All his.

And men. Rusted Saints. In cuts. In chains. In silence. Twenty pairs of eyes tracking the Ducati. Tracking me.

They parted for him. For us.

He killed the engine. The silence that followed was heavier than the roar.

"Welcome home, Counselor," he murmured, still not turning. His back was a wall between me and twenty killers. Between me and the world.

I slid off the bike. Legs shaking. Not from law school. From _him_.

A man stepped forward from the line. Older. Scar splitting his face from brow to jaw. Rusted Saints VP, the cut on his back said. He looked at me. At my torn skirt. My bruised jaw. The split in my lip. The evidence of my ruin. Then at Knox.

"You brought her _here_?" His voice was gravel and Kamiti. "After what she did?"

Knox finally turned. Helmet off. Hair wild from the ride. Eyes black with that war I'd seen in the boardroom when he said _Or I buy this law firm_.

"She put me in Kamiti," he said. Low. Deadly. For the room. "So I'm keeping her in the Godown."

The VP stared at him. Then he laughed. Dark. Bitter. Kamiti-made. The same laugh Knox used when Richard got cuffed.

"Five years?"

Knox stepped into me. Back to his men. Chest to mine. Front to me. His thumb brushed the bruise on my jaw he'd put there. Then the split on my lip he'd caused. Then the collar of my ruined blouse he'd torn.

"Make them count," he whispered. Only for me. Only for the dozen Rusted Saints watching the King claim his debt.

Then he turned his head. Looked at his VP. At his kingdom.

"Ms. Wanjiru Mwaura is now under Rusted Saints' personal protection."

Not Westlands Holdings. Not corporate. Not clean.

_Personal. Protection. Possession._

The VP held his gaze for three heartbeats. Then nodded once.

"The Saints protect their own."

_Their own._

I was theirs.

Knox grabbed my hand. Not gentle. Never gentle with me. His calluses scraped my skin. Bike grips. Violence. Five years of Kamiti and Godown concrete.

He walked me past the bikes. Past the men who didn't look away. Past the twenty-foot skull wearing a crown of thorns spray-painted on the back wall. The Rusted Saints mark, watching.

To a steel door. No handle on the outside. No windows.

He kicked it open.

Inside: A bed. Concrete walls. One barred window, high up. A shower head in the corner. No door on the bathroom.

Like a cell.

Like Kamiti.

"You owe me five years," he said, backing me inside. The door slammed behind us. A deadbolt turned. Locked.

"Time to start paying."

His eyes promised ruin and absolution in the same breath.

And for the first time since law school, I understood the difference.

Ruin was Kamiti.

Absolution was this.

In the Godown.

With him.

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