Page 47 of Shadow's Edge

Preacher moved slowly, sinking down into a chair like his own body was too heavy to carry. “Your mother—” his voice cracked, and he had to clear his throat before continuing. “She was…difficult. She used drugs and it made it impossible to be reasonable with her. She tried to start a war between us and another MC.” His voice faltered as he realized he was getting off track. “I didn’t know what she was doing to you.” His eyes lifted to hers, pleading. “If I had, I would have stopped it. I would have made sure she never touched you again. I swear it.”

Kyle’s eyes flicked back to me, and this time, I saw something I never wanted to see in them. Betrayal.

Fuck.

I had broken her trust. I could feel it.

Preacher kept talking, his voice rough, but I barely heard it. Because for the first time since meeting Kyle, I realized something, I might have just lost her.

“The day she killed herself, she told me she was going to kill you.”

Kyle didn’t flinch but I fucking did.

“I told her that if she touched you, I’d make sure she disappeared. And then… she did it anyway.” Preacher exhaled shakily, rubbing a hand over his jaw, his voice raw with something that sounded like regret. “You were my world, Kyle. You still are. I would have never let anyone—anything—hurt you.”

Silence settled over the room, stretching too long, pressing down like a weight. Kyle’s expression was unreadable, her face carefully composed, revealing nothing. And that was what scared the shit out of me.

I waited and I hoped. I begged in my own fucking head for her to say anything that would tell me we hadn’t just lost her.

Then, she finally spoke, but it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “Don’t contact me.” Her voice was even, controlled. “Don’t come near me.” She looked at all three of us—me, Duke, Preacher—her gaze unwavering, final. “And for all of your sakes, heed me on this.”

Flat. Unyielding.

She turned and slammed the door behind her.

For a second, I couldn’t move. The sound of the door closing echoed in my head, a finality I wasn’t ready to accept. Then instinct kicked in, and I went to go after her, but before myfingers could wrap around the handle, Duke caught my arm, his grip like iron.

“Give her time.” His voice was hard, but his eyes held the same pain I felt in my chest, the same ache I knew was clawing at both of us, Kyle was his family. He had been the one to keep her safe all these years. And now, he had lost her trust too.

I swallowed, my throat tight, my voice barely above a rasp. “I love her.”

Duke nodded, his expression grim. “Yeah. That’s why you’re gonna do what she asks.”

He gave me a quick, hard shake, then let go, stepping back as I turned toward Preacher.

The man who had always been our fearless leader wasn’t pacing anymore. He wasn’t shouting. He wasn’t anything. He just sat at the table, his shoulders sagging, his hands limp in his lap, his eyes staring blankly ahead. The fight was gone. The weight of what had just happened had crushed him completely.

I knew that look because I felt the same fucking way.

Kyle was gone, and I had just lost the only world that mattered to me.

Six weeks later….

I was going crazy not knowing how she was. I knew from Duke that shortly after leaving here, she’d gone out to the Middle Eastto do something with the military. Since then, he said there had been radio silence from her. His exact words.

I was struggling to sleep at night and had found myself going into her room just to feel close to her so that I could get a couple of hours. I spent most of my time helping fix up the Compound again after the attack, the first area being where she had been and where they’d focused their attention. Every time I saw the damage and thought of what could have happened, I felt sick. Preacher wasn’t doing much better, and Duke was a foul tempered son of a bitch.

I’d just rolled out of her bed and was headed toward my room when Duke came running up to me with Preacher behind him. “Get your shit together, we’re leaving in five,” Duke barked as he ran past me in the direction of his room.

“What the fuck?”

It was Preacher who stopped, and I noticed that his hands were shaking. “Kyle’s hurt!”

Those two words made the bottom drop out of my world. What the fuck had happened?

KYLE

There are moments in life that burn themselves into your soul, searing into your memory so deeply that no amount of time or distance can fade them. Some are good—ones you cling to when everything else falls apart. But then there are moments like this. The kind thathaunts you and that turn into living nightmares.

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