He is the most terrifying stranger I’ve ever seen, and the only one my body seems to trust anyway.
Five
Ledger
Shattered
There are a lot of ways a man can get gutted.Steel.A bullet.A fist.A betrayal.But nothing—absolutely nothing—cuts as deep as when Kelly looks me dead in the eyes and asks a question she’s never asked me before.
Do I know you?
My breath stops.My heart stops.The whole damn world stops.
The nurse is still talking, explaining shit I can’t process—concussion, swelling, head trauma—but all I can hear is the echo of her voice, soft and confused and scared,“I don’t remember.”
My hands curl at my sides, leather creaking under my palms as I fight the instinct to close the distance between us.To touch her.To reassure myself that she’s alive and breathing and here.
But she doesn’t know me.Not anymore.I take a slow step forward, and the nurse immediately lifts a hand like she’s handling a dangerous animal.
“Sir, give us a little space?—”
“Her name is Kelly Ringle,” I say, voice low, steady, cracking at the edges despite everything in me trying to hold it together.“She’s—” I stop.The word gets trapped behind my teeth.
Mine.
She’s mine.
But that isn’t true anymore.Maybe it never was.
My throat feels tight enough to choke on.I swallow hard and finish weaker than I started trying to explain, “…she’s under my protection.”
Kelly’s eyes flicker at that.Recognition?Fear?I can’t tell.God, I used to be able to read every tiny shift in her expression.I used to know when she was overwhelmed, or spiraling, or when she was trying to hide that she cared too much.
Now there’s nothing familiar in her face.
Just confusion.Just pain.Just distance.
“Riot,” the nurse says more gently, her voice shifting as she puts together that I’m not just some biker barging in.“She needs calm.”
Calm.Right.I’m the last man who should be in this room.I drag in a breath, chest burning, and force my hands to loosen.My knuckles ache.My jaw aches.Every muscle in my body feels like it’s about to snap.
But I move back half a step.
Just one.
Close enough to protect.Far enough not to scare.
Kelly’s eyes track the movement like she’s watching a wild animal pace a cage.
She doesn’t know me.She doesn’t remember the nights she fell asleep on my chest with her curls falling in my face.She doesn’t remember how she used to get nervous before big orders and I’d stand behind her in the bakery’s kitchen, rubbing slow circles on her back.She doesn’t remember how I pulled her into my lap on her couch and she whispered don’t fall in love with me like it wasn’t already too late.
She doesn’t remember any of it.
The nurse checks her pupils again, humming under her breath.“Memory loss after head trauma is common.It usually comes back with rest and time.”
Time.That’s the one thing I lost when we ended things this morning.My chest tightens.
“Can I talk to her?”I ask quietly.
