Two years of running came with certain rules.Get close to nobody.Matter to nobody.Leave before anyone paid the price for knowing me.Lori from the diner.Mr.Henderson.Now Ace,The Broken Spoke, and every member of the Savage Raptors.Names changed, locations changed, timing changed.I remained the common denominator.
Leaving stood as the only answer.Removing myself from the equation would redirect James’s focus.Bryson Corners would slip off his radar.Ace and his brothers would shift from targets to nothing worth pursuing.The cycle of running would begin again, only this time no one else would bleed for me.
The decision locked into bone and muscle.I knew from the first glimpse of flames.Reality only solidified once I watched Ace stand inside the wreckage of everything he’d built.His life deserved stability, loyalty, peace.None of those came from staying near me.None of those survived under James’s obsession.
An insurance adjuster approached Ace, clipboard tucked under his arm.Ace turned to handle damage numbers and coverage details, his back to me.His focus stayed on the stranger in a suit.I took three slow steps backward.Then three more.Deliberate movements from someone who had vanished from crowds before.Firefighters ignored me.Just another bystander drifting away.
I reached the far edge of the lot unseen.
The walk back to Ace’s house took fifteen to twenty minutes.Early sunlight painted houses and storefronts in warm gold, soft and peaceful in a way that felt cruel.My sneakers barely whispered on the sidewalk, and I kept my head down.Nobody looked twice.
The house was exactly as we’d left it.Unmade bed.Clothes tossed on the chair.Coffee mugs still in the sink from before the phone call.Normal details hit harder than the fire.Proof of the life I wanted stood in front of me.A future I’d believed possible.Comfort.Safety.Belonging.
I crossed the room fast.Muscle memory guided my movements.Backpack from the closet.Spare clothes.Toothbrush.Bathroom essentials.The small roll of cash saved over weeks.My hands shook through every task.Practical action happened automatically while my heart broke behind the motion.
The auxiliary jacket waited on the couch.It drew my eye.Property of Ace.My fingers brushed the patch, and a tremor shot through my chest.I turned away before tears started.Leaving while wearing that claim would destroy me.That jacket belonged to the version of myself who believed safety had finally come.
That woman never existed.Survival stayed my only truth.A runner.Alone.Always hunted.
I sat at the edge of the bed and held a pen over blank paper.Words refused to come at first.How could I explain the one action Ace begged me not to take?I wrote three notes before settling on the simplest version I could manage:
I won’t let him destroy everything you love.This fight belongs to me, not you.I’m sorry.
The sentence carried only a fraction of everything I wanted to say.Nothing on the page showed real gratitude.Nothing hinted at how deeply I cared.Nothing admitted I had fallen in love and walked away because loving him demanded sacrifice.
I set the note on a pillow.My hands smoothed the paper so he would see the message first thing.
Standing took effort.My backpack felt heavier than anything I’d ever carried.I walked toward the door, paused on the threshold, and looked back.
Unmade bed.Dresser drawer cleared of my clothes.The bathroom mirror where Ace stood behind me once and whispered I was safe.The kitchen where we made coffee shoulder to shoulder in quiet comfort.
No place ever felt like home before this one.
I left because love demanded protection, even when protection meant breaking myself.
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I closed the door.The lock clicked loud enough to echo in my bones.Cool morning air hit my face and carried a faint trace of smoke from the bar.I kept moving.Fast.Head lowered.I got into my car and hoped no one would try to stop me from leaving.I didn’t need questions or obstacles.
The motel on the outskirts of town came into view under full sunlight.My face had dried, although pain still carved itself deep under my ribs.I paid cash, gave a false name, and locked the door once I entered the room.A plain bed waited across bland carpet.I sat and let grief swallow me whole.
* * *
I found her jacket on my couch.Auxiliary leather folded sharp, my name stitched across the back as if she wanted the threat printed right between my ribs.I moved through the house and looked into the bedroom.On top of my pillow sat a sheet of notebook paper, torn from one of her little grocery lists.Four sentences written in her tight handwriting:
I won’t let him destroy everything you love.This fight belongs to me, not you.I’m sorry.
Nothing else.No signature.No promise.Just goodbye.
Cold hit first.Then heat.Then something sharp and hollow that didn’t feel like rage or grief, but something worse -- helplessness.My house felt wrong without her.Too quiet.Too still.The air held the memory of her breathing, and her absence punched through me harder than any fist I’d ever taken.
She’d slipped away without anyone noticing.I checked the bathroom anyway.Then the kitchen.Then the laundry room.Each step drove the point deeper until my chest hurt.
My bike sat outside, but her car was gone.She hadn’t taken anything of mine for the road.No protection.The cash I’d left on the counter was still there.I picked up the jacket, and her scent -- vanilla lotion, my damn soap -- hit so hard I grabbed the back of the couch before I fell.
I didn’t think.I called Atilla.
“She’s gone,” I said.“She left a note.”
He didn’t ask questions.Didn’t tell me to calm down.Promised he was coming and hung up.Five minutes later the rumble of his bike rolled down the drive, steady and familiar.I stepped outside before he even killed the engine.His gaze locked on the jacket in my hand, then the paper I’d brought with me and dropped on the table.
