“I need to think about whether this is who you really are.” She met my eyes, and I saw something I hadn’t expected—notjust anger, but grief. “I need to know if your change is real, or if it only works when life is easy. When there’s no pressure, no stakes, no reason to fall back on old patterns.”
“Please don’t do this.”
“I’m not doing anything except asking for time.” She walked toward the door and opened it. “Don’t contact me until you figure out what you want, Jacob. A partner you can trust with the truth—even when it’s hard—or someone you can control while pretending it’s love.”
I stood in her living room, frozen, the leather box forgotten on the coffee table.
“Indira, I love you.”
“I know you do.” Her voice cracked. “That’s what makes this so hard. Because I love you too, and I want to believe you’ve changed. But I can’t be with someone who decides what I can and can’t know about my own life. I won’t go back to being the woman who’s always the last to know.”
“I’ll figure this out. I’ll find a way—”
“Then go, figure it out.” She gestured toward the door. “I’m done explaining it to you.”
I walked past her, stopping at the threshold. I wanted to touch her, to pull her into my arms and promise her everything would be okay. But I knew she wouldn’t be okay with that. My woman would probably kick me in the balls, and I’d deserve it. Didn’t fancy that though, so I kept my distance.
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“I know.” She closed the door.
I sat on my bike outside her building for a long time.
My hands were shaking. I gripped the handlebars until the trembling stopped, but it just moved somewhere deeper: my chest, my gut, somewhere I couldn’t hold still.
She was right. She was fucking right.
And I couldn’t move.
I pulled out my phone and stared at it, wanting to text her.I’m sorry. I’ll fix this. Please give me another chance.
But she’d asked for space. She’d set a boundary. And if I violated that—if I pushed when she’d explicitly told me not to—I would be proving her point all over again.
So I put the phone away and started my bike.
The clubhouse was quiet when I arrived. Sunday morning, most of the brothers sleeping off Saturday night’s drama. I walked through the empty main room and into my office, closing the door behind me.
The desk was empty. The walls were bare. Nothing remained from my old life—nothing that should remind me of who I used to be.
But the problem wasn’t the desk. It wasn’t the room or the mattress or any of the physical relics I’d destroyed.
The problem was me.
I slumped into my chair and buried my face in my hands.
Chapter 25
?
— Dutch —
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I’d tried gripping the armrests, pressing my palms flat against my desk, even lacing my fingers together—nothing worked. The tremor just moved somewhere else, settling into my jaw, my shoulders, the hollow pit in my chest. When Holden’s name lit up my phone, I grabbed it like a lifeline.
“We’ve got a problem in Louisville.” His voice was tense. “The Wolves situation is spooking our contacts. They’re threatening to back out of the expansion deal if we don’t send someone to reassure them personally.”
“Send Colt.”
“They want you. The president. They want to know the Venom Riders can handle their business without dragging them into a war.”
