His breath is hot against my skin, his voice low and broken when he says my name, like it’s a prayer he’s afraid to say wrong.My hands roam over his shoulders, his back, feeling the tension there finally start to give, like he’s letting go of something he’s carried too long.
“I love you,” he says again, like he needs to hear it echo back.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I whisper.
He presses his forehead to mine, breathing hard, and the world narrows to the sound of our hearts, the heat between us, the way my body responds to him like it always has—like it always will.
Time blurs.There’s no fear here.No past.No what-ifs.No more reserve.No need to hold back.
Now we are holding each other.Him holding me up, holding me together, kissing me like this is the moment everything finally lines up.
When it crests, it’s not explosive—it’s overwhelming.A rush of relief and want and love all tangled together, leaving me clinging to him, breathless, my face buried in his neck as he groans softly, arms locked around me like he’ll never let go.
We stay there long after, pressed together, breathing each other in.
His hand slides up my back, slow and delicate, like he’s memorizing the feel of me now that he knows he gets to keep it.
“Still here?”he murmurs.
I smile against his skin, heart full, body warm, finally whole.
“Always.”
Twenty-Five
Ledger
Some ghosts stay buried.Some find their way out of the dark.Some you carry like a shrapnel wound.
Iawake after a night of sleep like I haven’t experienced since childhood.The peace of not holding back with Kelly is something I can’t describe.
She’s here, in my arms, not going anywhere.Jonas drugged her causing the memory loss and she is indeed getting the pieces back little bits at a time.
Chux text and it’s time I make my way to the holding cell.As the full Alabama Kings are ready to descend to support if needed, it is time to get to the bottom of the threat posed by Jonas Greene and make decisions.We have ten chapters in Alabama alone and hundreds worldwide with Kings of Anarchy in every single state of the United States.We are a band of brothers who will rise together and fall together.
But I don’t want to drag anyone else into this if we can clean it up on our own.I’ve already been to two different chapters compounds, clubhouse, or safehouses during this time with Kelly.I’m ready to finish this bullshit with Jonas, my past, and get back to life in Freedom Falls.
I always thought the illegal shit we run through the port would be my undoing not a situation from my past that I do not regret.
That is the thing.I know what Jonas is angry about.I know why he’s here.I thought he had enough sense to understand why I did what I did all those years ago.
Because the fact of the matter is, I would do it all again in a heartbeat.Only now, I would put him in the ground beside his brother rather than give him an opportunity to even breathe on the same planet as me.
I walk into the basement room where the man who has turned my world upside down sits tied to a chair on a concrete floor, blood dried all over his face and arms.His clothes sticking to him from the wounds he sustained.One eye is swollen shut and his lip is busted where a tooth came through just under the bottom lip.
I had a shower with Kelly.One where she washed the sins of who I am down the drain and we gave ourselves to each other over and over before finally falling asleep in the safety of each other.
The man in front of me used to matter.He was someone I would have taken a bullet for.Now he is nothing but a problem in need of a solution.
I have the answer.
The look in his eyes is unique.Not fear.Not pain.Pure hatred.
Rage.
Jonas Greene’s voice cuts like a knife straight to my soul.“You can kill me,” he says.“But she’s marked now.You know how this works, Ledger.”
Every muscle tightens.
