I couldn’t stand hate in those eyes once again. Love means pain, I know that, but this pain? It might just wreck me this time. I survived loss before with my mother, but this feels so much worse.
She’s awake early. I hear her moving around, and I can’t help but smile. She’s like us, always ready to face the day, dressed and made up, only letting her guard down around us. Ryder is frozen next to me, but I see his hands curled into fists under the table, so I do something I haven’t done since we were kids—I reach over and grip one. “Whatever happens, you will never lose me,” I tell him without looking. It’s something I should have said a long time ago. I know his fears. That he thinks he will become our father. “You will never be him. This is the right thing to do, brother.”
“I know, but it feels so wrong,” he whispers brokenly.
“I know,” I whisper back, throat clogged. “But her life is not ours to take. It never was. She was never a debt, never a business deal, she was always our destiny, but sometimes it comes at the wrong time.”
“What do we do now?” he queries, and I turn my head to meet his lost eyes. In his suit and those dark eyes, I see the kid he once was, the one who lost his mum too young, who lost his innocence at the hands of a cruel father. The man who always knows what to do is lost right now, same as me. Our perfect life and plan are broken because of one woman.
His greatest fear realised.
“We keep living, like always. One breath after another. Let me protect you this time, brother, let me do this,” I tell him, being the strong one for once. He needs it. He needs to lean on people, even if he doesn’t know it. Roxy taught me that.
I hear her door open, and her feet coming our way. He clenches my hand tightly and cools his expression, and we both turn to see her as she enters. There are bags under her eyes, and she’s tired. She probably didn’t sleep either. She glances between us, and Ryder stands.
“I won’t repeat my father’s life, love,” Ryder snarls. “I couldn’t bear you hating me, everyone else? Fine, but not you. Not ever.”
Then he leaves, letting me deal with it like I said I would. He’s not running away, he’s not hiding, he’s learning that sometimes it’s okay to let others help.
“Ry?” she calls, as he storms upstairs, but he freezes, his hand on the bannister.
“I love you with all the broken, blood-stained pieces of me,” he murmurs, and then he’s gone. She gasps, stumbling back, and looks at me in shock.
I stand and step towards her, but I can’t close the distance between us. If I do, I might hold her and never let her go. I need Ryder’s cool confidence now, and I need Garrett’s strength and Diesel’s conviction. I need them all, and they are here, all of them, in my heart. With her.
“Roxy, I need you to listen for once and keep that pretty mouth of yours shut until I’m done. You’re the love of my life, darling. Someone I didn’t even know I was searching for all these years. But you’re here, and I love you more than words, which is why I’m giving you these keys. I know you can never love me the way I love you when you’re not free. I’m hoping, I’m fucking hoping, that even though you can leave, that you’re free, and I promise you are. We won’t chase you, we won’t hunt you. You are truly free…I’m hoping that you will still want to stay. With us. Love us, Roxy. I know I’m not asking for something easy or simple, I’m asking for everything, but I can’t not. You’re our heart, Rox, our living, beating heart. The piece we were missing from our family. You turned our world upside down. We aren’t good men, we aren’t soft or loving, we are hard and our hands are stained with blood. But I swear, I swear if you stay, you will never want for anything, and no one will ever hurt you again…well, apart from us.”
I smirk, and tears fill her eyes as she stares at me, speechless.
“We will love you effortlessly, always, even when it’s hard or hurts, when we are hateful and dark, even when we scare everyone else but you.” I step closer and pass her the keys to her car. “So I’m here, begging you not to leave, even though you can. I will lose all sense of dignity and pride for you. I’ll do what they can’t.” I swallow, the words hard as I look into those eyes I know better than my own. “Stay, be ours. Keep Ryder sane, melt that ice and give him the love he never had but deserved. Love Garrett, even though he struggles to love himself. Love Diesel, even though it might kill you…and love me, even though I don’t deserve it. Be my greatest win.”
She blinks and glances away for a second, so I turn her to face me, my hand lingering on her cheek.
“I have no gifts, no jewels or expensive clothes or…or anything to offer. Just me and my heart.” I smash my fist into my chest. “The one my father tried to carve out of me. It’s broken, damaged, and dark like the rest of us, but it’s yours. Along with my gun and my loyalty. Forever. Stay, darling, please stay.”
She swallows, not letting those tears fall, she’s too strong, our girl. “I’m really free?” she asks.
I nod. “Free, you can go back to your life, if that’s what you want.”
She stares wordlessly into my eyes. My heart is slamming against my chest so loudly, she must hear it. My legs feel weak, my stomach torn, and when she steps back, letting my hand drop from her face, it all breaks.
My chest cracks open, my stomach drops, and my legs nearly buckle. I watch her silently turn and run to the door. She rips it open, hesitates, and for a moment, I have hope, hope that she will stay, but then she’s gone, the doorframe empty.
I fall to my knees, my heart splintering into a million pieces as I watch the empty space where she stood. My home is cold and empty. I’m alone.
And I just had my heart broken.
She left.
She left us.
A noise has my head jerking up to the balcony. I see Ryder’s retreating form, and then hear his door slam. She broke more than one heart today, but we will keep our promise.
Her freedom.
But-but what if I can’t?
Because as the seconds tick by, it gets harder and harder to breathe the farther I know she gets away from us. What if, without her, there is no us?
What if I can’t let her go?
What if I’m not strong enough?
What if I’m too much of a Viper to release our prey?
Chapter Thirty-Eight
ROXY
My heart is hammering and my lungs ache, but I outrun it. I grip the keys so hard, they cut into my hand, even that pain doesn’t register. It doesn’t compete with the sick feeling in my stomach or my screaming heart.
He begged.
He laid it all out for me and asked me to stay.
And I left.
I run faster, throwing myself down the stairs until I reach the garage. I put my hand on the scanner and it flashes green, letting me through. With hurried steps, I reach my car and throw myself into the driver’s seat, but with nowhere else to run to, it all hits me.
The pain in his voice. The love in his eyes. The desperation I saw in the set of his shoulders. They have given me everything I ever wanted since they first walked into my bar…but what if what I want has changed? What if this snake has shed her skin and became something new?
No, don’t let them get to you.
This is what you wanted, I remind myself. I grip the wheel and turn on the engine. I’m free. I’m not theirs anymore.
But sitting in the car, I can’t move. My old life is filled with ghosts, an empty, lonely shell. Do I really want to go back to that? Is there anything to even go back to?
The Vipers aren’t a walk away situation, they are for life. If I choose them, I’m choosing them forever and everything their life entails.
Because somewhere along the way, ‘I hate you’ became our ‘I love yous.’
I do, I hate them so much, it scares me. That’s really why I’m walking away, but I can’t let fear hold me back. Not with so much on the line. Not with four hearts. It’s simple. I want them, they want me.
Freedom, family, work, none of it matters. Only them.
The Vipers.
My Vipers.
I’m their girl.
So why am I running? Because I’m scared, that’s why. Scared how much I want them, how much they have consumed me. How right I feel in their arms, in their life. The cold, controlling alpha. The damaged enforced with a heart of gold. The romantic, charming gambler. The insane killer with an obsessive heart.
What does that make me?
Their captive?
No, not anymore. It makes me theirs, a Viper. It makes this home.
As soon as I realise it, I know. I know I didn’t want to leave, haven’t for a long time. That fight and hate was aimed at myself, because I knew if I didn’t, if I gave in, I would have seen the truth all along. From the first kiss, wink, and smile. I was theirs.
But you can’t take and not give.
They took me, but they gave me themselves.