I reach into my jacket and pull out the jewelry box.
It's still clean, somehow.
Untouched by all the blood on my hands.
"This needs to go back to Leah," I say. "But I want Vanna to be the one to give it to her. When she's ready. When she's strong enough."
Ruger nods. "That's right. That's how it should be."
I tuck the box away again, close to my heart.
"The body," I say. "The cleanup?—"
"Already handled." Ruger pulls out his phone. "Boys are outside. This place will be nothing but ashes by morning. No body. No evidence. Virgil just disappears. Like he never existed."
"His men?"
"Dead or running. Maddox and the prospects handled it before he left with Vanna. It's done, Garrett. All of it."
I look around the cabin one last time.
At the mattress. The syringes. The blood.
At the body of the man who thought he could take my wife from me.
"Burn it," I say. "Burn it all."
"Already planned." Coin moves past me, already pulling out a lighter. "Go. We've got this. Go be with your woman."
I follow Ruger out through the hole in the wall, stepping over debris and broken glass.
Outside, the night air hits my face like a blessing—cool and clean, smelling of pine and earth instead of blood and death.
Motorcycles are lined up in the gravel, engines idling.
Prospects are dragging bodies toward a pile.
Someone's already got gas cans, preparing to erase this place from the earth.
I stop at my bike and turn back, watching as flames begin to lick at the cabin's windows.
By morning, there'll be nothing left.
Just ash and memory.
And the memory will fade too, eventually.
That's what time does.
But I'll remember.
I'll carry this night with me forever.
I climb onto my Harley and follow Ruger into the darkness.
Toward Ruby Memorial.
Toward Vanna.
