“No, you’re not.” He moved closer, his presence a wall of heat and concern at my back. I could smell his cologne, that familiar woody scent he always wore, mixed now with the sharp tang of his sweat and anxiety. “You’re thinking with your heart, and that’s going to get you killed.”
“Maybe.” I placed the sweater in the suitcase with deliberate care, smoothing it down so the edges lined up perfectly with the corners. “But it’s my heart. My choice.”
“Your choice?” Gunner’s laugh was bitter, edged with disbelief. The sound of it made something in my chest tighten painfully. “You think you have a choice here? You think staying in New York City, in the middle of a goddamn biker war, with the IRA and the Italian Mafia and God knows who else gunning for you—you think that’s a choice?”
I reached for a shirt, my fingers trembling slightly as I smoothed out the wrinkles. The white cotton felt crisp and clean, untouched by the chaos that had become my reality. “Yes.”
“Jesus H. Christ.” He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture so familiar it made my chest ache. It was the same thing he’d done a thousand times before—when Dadforgotto pay the light bill, or Momforgotto buy groceries, whenever life threw something at him he couldn’t fix. “Melissa, listen to me. Come back to Nebraska. Come back home, where you belong. You’ll be safe there, I promise you. The club can protect you. They’ve got resources and connections. I can protect you.”
“I don’t need protecting,” I said, my voice firmer than I felt.
“The hell you don’t!” His voice rose, frustration bleeding into anger, sharpening his words into weapons. “You’ve lost Travis. You’ve lost Rowen. How many more people have to die before you realize you’re in way over your head? How many more funerals do you need to attend?”
The shirt slipped from my hands. I stood there, frozen, staring down at it, at the way it pooled on the bed like spilled water. Like blood spreading across a pavement.
“I know exactly how many people I’ve lost,” I said quietly, my throat tight. “I don’t need you to remind me, and Rowen isn’t dead. Don’t you dare talk about him like he’s already gone.”
Behind me, I heard him exhale—a long, shaky breath that spoke of exhaustion and fear and love twisted into something painful, something that hurt to hold on to.
“Come home, Mellie,” he said, softer now. Pleading in a way I’d rarely heard from him. “Please, Mel. Just... come home. We’ll figure this out together. You don’t have to do this alone.”
I turned to face him, and the look in his eyes nearly broke me into pieces. My big brother, the man who’d taught me how to ride a bike and throw a punch and stand up for myself when the world tried to knock me down, looked terrified. Not for himself. Never for himself. For me.
“I can’t,” I whispered, and the words tasted like betrayal.
“Why not?” He stepped closer, his hands reaching for mine, gripping them tight. “Give me one good reason why you can’t walk away from this mess. One reason that’s worth your life.”
“Because he’s still here.”
My words hung between us, heavy and undeniable.
Gunner’s jaw clenched. “Rowen.”
“Yes.”
“The man who just took over the IRA. The asshole who wrote you a goodbye letter and walked away.”
Each word was a knife, precise and cutting. I felt them land, felt them slice through the fragile hope I’d been clinging to.
“He didn’t want to walk away,” I said, my voice breaking into jagged pieces. My words came out thick and uneven, like I was choking on them. “He was trying to protect me. That’s all he’s ever tried to do.”
“And you think staying here protects him?” Gunner’s grip tightened around my wrists, his fingers digging into my skin hard enough to leave marks. “Melissa, he made his choice. He chose that life. He chose the IRA over everything else, over you, over any chance at a normal future. You can’t save him from that. You can’t save him from himself.”
“I’m not trying to save him.” I pulled my hands free with a sharp jerk, wrapping my arms around myself as if I could hold all the broken pieces together through sheer force of will. The cold air bit at my skin. “I’m just... I’m not giving up on him. Not yet. Not while there’s still a chance.”
“Not yet?” Gunner’s laugh was harsh, disbelieving, sharp enough to cut. He shook his head, his eyes burning with frustration and something that looked almost like fear. “When, then? When they find your body in an alley somewhere, dumped like trash? When someone uses you to get to him, to hurt him, to manipulate him? When his enemies figure out that you’re his weakness? When exactly do you plan on giving up?”
“I don’t know!” My words tore out of me, raw and desperate, ripping through my chest like they’d been clawed free. My vision blurred with unshed tears. “I don’t know, okay? I don’t have a plan. I don’t have answers. I don’t have anything figured out. I just know I can’t go back to Nebraska and pretend none of this happened, that he doesn’t exist. I can’t go back to my previous life and act like I didn’t fall in love with him. I can’t go back to being the person I was before—that girl doesn’t exist anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s dead!” My voice cracked, tears spilling hot down my cheeks. “That version of me—the one who grew up afraid, who ran from trouble, who wanted so much to live, but was too scared of her own shadow—she’s gone. She died the moment Travis did. Maybe even before that.”
Gunner stared at me, his expression a mixture of pain and understanding, and stubborn refusal to accept what I was saying.
From the doorway, Haizley’s voice cut through the tension. “Gunner.”
He didn’t turn. “Stay out of this, Haiz.”
