"I told you. Leave. Never come back. Never contact them again."
"And my daughter? I have rights—"
I slam him against the wall again, harder this time. "You lost any rights to that little girl when you put bruises on her arm. When you made her afraid of her own father."
His face crumples, and for a moment, I almost see genuine remorse. But it's quickly replaced by calculation, the wheels turning behind his eyes as he looks for an angle, a way out.
"How do I know you'll keep your word? That you won't send that evidence anyway once I'm gone?"
"You don't," I say simply. "You'll have to trust me. Just like Amelia had to trust you when you promised you'd never hurt her again. How did that work out for her?"
The comparison hits home, his face twisting with something like shame before hardening into resentment.
"Fine," he spits. "They're not worth this shit anyway. The bitch and her brat can rot in this backwards town with you and your biker trash."
The casual cruelty of his words, the dismissal of the woman and child he claimed to love just minutes ago, confirms everything I needed to know about Derek Mitchell. He doesn't love Amelia or Anna. He never did. They were possessions to him, nothing more.
I release him, stepping back. "You have one hour to get out of Blackwater Falls. If you're still here after that, all bets are off."
He straightens his shirt, trying to reclaim some dignity. "This isn't over. You think you've won, but you have no idea who you're fucking with."
"No, Mitchell. You have no idea who you're fucking with. One more thing."
Before he can react, I turn and drive my fist into his face with every ounce of strength I possess. There's a satisfying crunch as his nose breaks, blood spraying across the cheap motel bedspread.
"That's for Amelia," I tell him as he howls in pain, hands clutching his face. "Consider yourself lucky it's all you're getting."
I leave him bleeding and cursing, stepping back into the pre-dawn chill. Rage and Shadow are waiting exactly where I left them, tension visible in their stances.
"It's handled," I tell them, my voice calmer than I feel. "He'll be gone within the hour."
"You sure about that?" Rage asks skeptically. "Guys like him don't usually give up so easily."
"He's a coward at heart," I say. "And cowards always choose self-preservation when it comes down to it."
Shadow notices my bruised knuckles. "You good, VP?"
"Better than I've been in a long time," I answer honestly. And it's true. The confrontation with Mitchell has cleared something in me, resolved a tension I didn't even know I was carrying.
"I'm heading back to the cabin," I tell them. "You two stay here, make sure he leaves town. Then go back to the clubhouse, get some rest."
They nod, and I start toward the SUV, eager to return to Amelia, to tell her it's over, to see the relief on her face when she realizes she's truly free.
As I drive through the awakening town, the first rays of sunrise painting the sky in shades of pink and gold, I find myself thinking about what happens next. About the future, a concept I haven't given much thought to in years, living as I have from one day to the next, one fight to the next.
But now, suddenly, I'm thinking about tomorrow. And the day after. And all the days that might follow with Amelia and Anna in them.
It should terrify me, this sudden shift in perspective. This vulnerability. But instead, it feels like waking up after a long, dark night. Like coming home after years of wandering.
Maybe we are rescuing each other, just like she said. Maybe that's what love is supposed to be. Not the twisted control Mitchell called love, but this. Two broken people finding the missing pieces of themselves in each other.
The thought should send me running for the hills. Instead, I press harder on the accelerator, eager to get back to the cabin, to the woman who's somehow managed to crack through the ice around my heart in less than a day.
To the future I never thought I'd want but now can't imagine living without.
Epilogue - Amelia
Two Years Later
