Page 63 of Where We Ended

Starting my bike up, I headed in the opposite direction toward Richland, letting my best friend’s words soak into my heart. Maybe he was right.

Perhaps it was time to just stay…

My mind threw up images of a time I felt the same and had ignored it, knowing something deeper was going on.

Knowing, she was slipping through my fingers but going regardless.

SIXTEEN

SILAS

AGE TWENTY-TWO

The men in my father’s club all looked at me differently now. When I was a kid, they’d sneer at me, even push me around, always trying to toughen me up. Either they didn’t know the purpose of Alec and me being there, or they just didn’t care.

Their cruelty only pushed me harder. Now as an adult, being here of my own volition, and not simply because a custody agreement said I had to be, they seemed to look at me in a new light. Their glares would linger, and a few would drop down to my hands, but most of them had fear hardening their stares. My reputation as The Roman had spread, even to surrounding clubs, and now when we had opposition, it was a whispered plea that I wasn’t the one to dole out punishment.

I was tired of this though.

Exhausted really, but every time I thought I might be getting somewhere with dismantling this club, or my father’s role here, something else would happen that would draw it out. Most recently it was the arrival of his brothers, who offered extra protection, and by extension, stepped in to take on new roles within the club, which helped reinforce the various ways I had weakened it.

For years, I had systematically been sabotaging my father’s plans, his runs, and different connections. Inventory of new weapons would arrive, and I made sure they were destroyed in a freak accident. When negotiations were supposed to go down for a meet up with members from the cartel, I made sure to tip them off so they were able to steal the product my father planned to leverage.

He had no idea it was me, neither did Alec, but my efforts were working. I just needed to keep at it.

The problem was consistently trying to tear down his club meant I was away from my wife.

Shutting the door to my room in the club, I pulled out my phone and navigated to the text thread with her.

Me: I miss you

A few minutes passed before she saw the message, then the dots bounced around for nearly another minute before she replied.

Natty: I miss you too…a lot actually. Any way you can cut your trip short and come back to me?

I felt her words like a punch to the gut. Come back to me.

Me: I will do everything within my power to return to you as soon as I possibly can.

She didn’t message me back for a while. I lay down and rested my eyes, thinking of her. My mind constantly threw back the images of her from our wedding.

Lance took us out to the dock in our grove, carrying a lantern and a Bible.

He had hung the lantern with the swinging rope we’d tied to a tree, then, under a sky full of stars he married Natty and me. She had on a white dress with pink roses printed all over in little patterns. Her hair was braided into a crown around her head, and her smile couldn’t be rivaled. I’d never seen her so happy.

Originally I’d had plans to ask her when things had settled down a bit, and when we married, I wanted it to be a big affair. But Natty didn’t have friends, unless she’d made a few at work…otherwise it was just Mom and me.

So, this was better. We’d driven into town after our vows and had a man named Jackhammer ink two similar tattoos under our ring fingers.

“This will likely fade,” he’d warned. Natty and I just smiled and welcomed the challenge.

Natty: You’ve been gone for almost four months, Silas. Please come home.

I stared at her text, feeling nervous and worried. That gut feeling that there was something she wasn’t telling me surfaced.

Me: Is everything okay?

She took her time responding again, and it was enough to get me moving. I wasn’t sure what the fuck was going on back home, but I knew she needed me. I hated being away from her, and for her to ask me twice…nearly begging me, meant something was off.

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