Page 155 of Traitor

Ghost suddenly sobers. The humor evaporates. His expression darkens.

"At least your women are talking." His voice is steel. "Even if they're screaming or drawing blood. Try apologizing to a statue. Looking right through you. Like you don't even exist."

His fingers tighten around his glass. "Adora turned me into a real fucking ghost." His jaw flexes. "I'd get any dick piercing or tattoo she wanted, if only she'd speak to me. React. Say or do anything. I'd cut off an arm. A leg. Just to make her see me again."

I exhale, leaning back in my chair. Stare into the darkness.

"I still don't understand why the fuck you did what you did." My voice is rough. "If you're so in love with her. If you forgave her — which I still think is fucking stupid, by the way — why the fuck would you burn it all down when you had her? You fucking had her."

Ghost doesn't even flinch.

"It doesn't matter anymore."

Silence.

Luca swirls the whiskey in his glass. "Theresa doesn't talk to me either." His voice is quiet. "It doesn't matter that I'm leaving the famiglia. Trying to fix shit." He sighs, then turns his gaze to me. To my throat.

"I honestly thought Temperance would give you a chance after that tattoo, Bones. I'm sorry it didn't work out."

I don't respond. Just keep staring into the empty night. I didn't get the tattoo for a chance. I got it because I deserved it. Everyone should see who the real traitor was. And it wasn't her.

Boots crunch against the gravel, and a voice cuts through the air.

"You're all pathetic."

I turn my head.

Tank stands there, arms crossed, judging.

I lift a brow. "Brave of you to talk shit when I have a whiskey bottle in my hand. It could end up breaking your skull."

Tank sighs. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"We're drowning in self-pity and liquor. What does it look like?" Luca slurs, pouring himself another drink. "Sometimes you just need to throw a pity party."

Tank ignores him. He looks straight at me.

"Bones. She hasn't left her house all week. At all. Ria's been checking on her constantly." He swallows. "Maybe... maybe you should go to her."

Something in me shatters.

But I shake my head. No.

"She doesn't need me." My voice is rough, raw. "I'm her past. Her ugly past. She'll get back to herself, she's strong enough. Stronger, even." I swallow. "She won't be fine if I keep following her around. Reminding her of all the shit."

Tank sighs, shaking his head.

Then Joker suddenly roars, staring at his phone like it just delivered his death sentence, one hand fisting his hair in sheer terror.

"It goes straight through my dick?! From side to side?! What the actual fuck!"

And we lose it again.

I ditch the whiskey a few days later. I can't keep drowning myself in a bottle when I have a club to run, brothers who depend on me, an Italian pain in the ass to deal with, a VP unraveling before my fucking eyes, and a Road Captain who might not be able to ride for months. It's a fucking disaster. A mess I don't have time to wallow in. But even though I stopped getting blackout drunk, the darkness inside me doesn't ease. It grows. Expands. Fills every fucking inch of me like a sickness.

I can feel it, this slow descent. A creeping weight in my chest, a whisper in my ear that one day, I won't outrun it anymore. It will consume me. And that will be my end. I just have to make sure I don't leave a mess behind when it happens.

The snow started falling, but I still take my bike out every night, cutting through the cold, riding until I can't feel anything but the sting of the wind against my skin. Until the roar of the engine drowns out the thoughts clawing at the edges of my mind. I'll stop when the ice comes, when the road is too slick to keep from losing control. But for now, the open road is the only place I can breathe.

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