Page 103 of Cold Hard Truth

Mason nods at Sage, knocking on the doorframe once before disappearing.

“What was that about?” I ask when the front door opens and closes.

“He overheard me talking with Kane.”

“Does Mason know about your history with the Twisted Kings?”

“Some,” Sage says, and if I had to guess it’s probably not much. “I have something for you.”

Sage pulls away, climbing to stand while I sit up on my bed. I watch him make his way across the hall to his own.

And when he comes back, he almost looks nervous about whatever he’s going to give me. His hands are tucked in his pockets, and his gaze skims me up and down for a moment before he grabs my hips and pulls me to the edge of the bed.

It’s so swift and sudden that I catch myself from falling by grabbing his shoulders while he kneels between my legs.

Taking my right hand, he holds it up between us.

“This.” He opens his palm, and my heart seizes when I recognize the silver band sitting in the center of his palm.

It’s identical to the one that lives on my pinkie finger, and I haven’t seen it in years.

“Ellie’s ring?”

“Yeah.” He slips it onto my right hand, while mine sits on my left. “I thought you might want it someday, so I saved it for you.”

I hold my hands up and look between the identical bands. Ellie and I got them at a craft fair when we were nine, and at that point they fit better on our thumbs thanpinkies. They were our butterfly wings. Mirror images. And now I wear both of them because she’s gone.

“You kept it?” I blink back my tears, looking at Sage.

“I did.”

“You assumed you’d see me again?” I rest my hands on my thighs as the weight of the realization sinks in.

“Maybe I hoped I would.”

“Mm-hmm.” I wrap my arms up around his shoulders. “So this was all ajust in case?”

Leaning in, I plant a kiss on his mouth, and I’m pretty sure a part of me breaks off and stays with him when I do.

“Thank you,” I whisper against his mouth.

Just like Sage did back then, he finds ways to make me whole. He takes care of the wounds I don’t realize are still bleeding. There is no defining us, and I’ve stopped trying. We’re meant to be and that’s all that matters.

Pulling back, I look Sage in the eyes. “Can you tell me about Ellie’s funeral?”

He must know something—or enough. If he had her ring and knows where she’s buried, then he was around for the aftermath.

His throat moves with his swallow, and it draws out the veins in his neck. There’s a bit of hesitation in his eyes before he nods once and climbs back into my bed.

He’s still shirtless, in his sweats, as he leans against the headboard. He pulls me down to sit between his legs, with my back to his chest.

“What do you want to know?” he asks, rubbing my bare thigh with his thumb, grazing back and forth where his oversized T-shirt rides up my thighs.

“Everything.”

Even if it hurts. Even if it’s salt in old wounds. It doesn’t matter. They haven’t started healing because I left them wide open. Until I face these truths, I’m never going to escape the past I’ve spent years running from.

“Okay.” He takes a deep breath, and I settle in. “It was big. Bikers from chapters across the country came for it. And it was cold. The ground was like digging into iron.”

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