FIFTEEN
BEFORE SHE LEFT
ARIA
The storm follows me home. Not the real one, the one outside is just snow and wind and another Michigan winter trying to claw its way through the trees.
I’m talking about the one inside of me. The one that starts the moment I pull away from Steel’s garage and see him standing in the doorway, framed in yellow light and shadow, holding the Saint ring in his hand like it weighs more than the past, more than the Club, more than the truth between us.
The one that breaks something I didn’t know could break again.
I drive with shaky hands, swollen eyes, with his taste still on my lips and his heartbeat still echoing under my skin.
I don’t remember the turns. I don’t remember the stop signs. I don’t remember the last few miles. I only remember the sound of my own uneven, desperate breathing.
And the silence. Oh God, the silence. It settles heavy in the car like a confession neither of us had the courage to speak.
When I reach my house, I kill the engine and sit there in the dark, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles ache.The porch light flickers again. A warning I should have taken seriously days ago.
But tonight, it just feels like mockery. A reminder that nothing is stable. Nothing is safe. Nothing lasts. Least of all love.
I get out and lock the door behind me, boots crunching in the snow, breath fogging into the frosty night like smoke from something burning down.
Inside, everything looks the same as I left it. My dress coat is on the hook. My coffee mug is in the sink. My half-read book is on the couch. My blanket is still rumpled.
But I feel different. Like the woman who walked into Steel’s garage is not the one walking into this living room.
I drop onto the couch, exhaling a breath that feels like it’s been trapped behind my ribs for hours. Then the tears start.
Slow at first. Then sharp. Then unstoppable. I cry until the storm outside quiets. Until the house feels too empty to breathe in. Until the memory of Steel’s hands, gentle, reverent, trembling, hurts more than the danger we’re pretending isn’t chasing us.
When the tears finally dry, I stare at my hands. They’re shaking. Not from fear, not exactly. From his absence. From the knowledge that every choice he makes now will push us farther apart.
From the truth he spoke in the dim light of the garage.“If the Syndicate ever realizes what you mean to me…”
I swallow hard. He wasn’t wrong.
My hands ball into fists. I stand before I know what I’m doing, pacing the living room like a caged animal because something is building in my chest. Something hot, sharp, and rising. It’s not grief. It’s anger.
Steel thinks he gets to decide. Steel thinks he gets to break us apart to keep me safe. Steel thinks his enemies can be held at bay with distance. But he doesn’t understand something. I’m alreadyin this. I’m already marked. I’m already part of a war I didn’t choose, but one I’m damn sure not running from.
And I’m already watching the man I love drown in the same darkness that swallowed his father.
The storm has iced the world into a quiet, glittering bruise. The sky is pale and bruised at the edges, a kind of dawn that feels like holding your breath. My house is cold, too cold for what last night was, too cold for the pieces of me still warm from Steel’s touch.
I wrap myself in a blanket and move on autopilot toward the kitchen. The floor is freezing against my bare feet. The kettle hums. My hands tremble.
I turn on the TV just for noise. Just for distraction. Just for anything that isn’t the echo of his voice in my head. But the universe isn’t subtle.
The headline slams across the bottom of the screen in bold red letters:
GANG VIOLENCE IN ALLEY: THREE SUSPECTED SYNDICATE MEMBERS FOUND DEAD
I go absolutely still.
The reporter’s voice fades, turns to static behind the roar in my ears. The camera pans to a cordoned-off alley, police tape snapping in the wind, fresh snow stained with something dark beneath it.
My blood runs cold. My tea kettle clicks off, but I don’t move. Because I know. I know the posture of that shadow in the corner of the news clip. I know the angle of those boot prints in the slush. I know the violence that leaves bruises on brick and bodies in the snow.
