Page 106 of Beautiful Ruins
My hand shook as I uncurled my fist and slammed it into the side of Sadie’s car. The skin on my knuckles split open, blood leaking down my fingers, and dropping into the dirt beneath my feet. The pain was immediate—white-hot and sharp. I welcomed it, something real to cut through the fear eating me alive.
“Fuck!” The sound was vicious, wild, and out of control.
Everything I hated being.
Losing her wasn’t an option. Not again. Not when the sound of her laugh still echoed louder than the roar in my head.
But I’d been a goddamn fool for thinking I could keep her safe. I should have seen it coming a mile away. I couldn’t think. My worst nightmare was closing in around me.
I sucked in a breath, trying to drag some sense of control back into my body—anything to stop the world from spinning.
Bear. Scout. We had to strike first. It was my only chance. I latched onto that thought, clung to it like a lifeline. I had to use my head. Move fast. Act before Cooper andSnake took Sadie so far out of my reach that I’d never see her again.
“Rowan?” Bear’s voice echoed down the phone, grounding me just enough to bring me back from the ledge. “VP? What the fuck is going on?”
I was already moving, putting one foot in front of the other like that was the only way I could keep breathing. The wind hit my face as I swung my leg over my bike and kicked the engine to life. My chest pounded harder with each passing second. I had one shot. And if I missed, I’d lose her forever.
There was no time to overthink it. Just enough to act. Or die trying.
I sniffed, a newfound sense of urgency raging through me. “Meet me at the clubhouse in thirty. We take out Chief Cooper. And the fucking snake who has my girl.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
ROWAN
Bear placed a hand on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze, the weight of it grounding me for the briefest of seconds. The room reeked of motor oil, leather, and the scent of a thousand bad decisions. His concern washed over me, his presence meant to comfort me, but all it did was pull me deeper into my own dark void.
Scout had spent the last six hours attempting to hack into John’s phone to track their location. It had been a useless effort—as useless as me.
Now he was attempting to track down Snake’s location.
All I could do was stare at Sadie’s phone on my desk, the screen blank, as if mocking my helplessness. I needed it to ring, to beep, to give me a goddamn sign that wherever she was, she was alive. Still fucking breathing the same air as me.
The emptiness in the room pressed against my chest, squeezing my ribs, until the only thing left to choke on was the rot that had become my life. Even the dim glow of the desk lamp couldn’t touch the darkness crawling inside me.
The hours had slipped by, and the sickening realisation had crept in that without Sadie Cooper, I was nothing but a hollow wreck.
She’d torn her way back into my life, upending everything. Before her, I never thought much about what kind of man I was, or even the kind I wanted to be. I didn’t need to. The club owned me, and that had been enough.
Before Sadie, I’d been rolling through each reckless day, never minding who I left broken in my wake. The ink on my skin and the roar of my bike were all I had to immerse myself in this world. But then she was back, storming in and trampling over the shitty foundation I’d laid down, and suddenly I was alive again. Every second with her was like breathing fresh air into my stagnant lungs.
Now she was missing, and the thought of losing the air I breathed was gutting me from the inside out. Even Bear could see I was practically bleeding all over the stained carpet.
Maybe I wasn’t enough for her. Maybe I’d never be. What the fuck could I offer her besides the broken parts of myself? All I’d ever known was war. She deserved something cleaner, and I didn’t have that in me.
But I knew one thing. I was going to do whatever it took to keep her. I’d chase her to the edge of hell and back if that’s what it took to prove I was all in. I was willing to give her everything I had, even if that meant giving up the only life I’d ever known. For her, I’d have handed my patch in right then. Left for good. I’d have walked into the desert with no water if she asked me to.
Logan got to love her as her best friend, but I was going to love her like she was the last fucking woman on earth—how a manshouldlove his woman.
“We’ll find her,” Bear said, his voice low,but sure. Like he could speak it into being. He dropped into the leather chair opposite my desk and leaned back with a confidence I wished I had. “Scout’s going to come up with the location soon.”
“You don’t know that,” I muttered, my voice hoarse.
But I needed to believe him, needed something to hold on to.
I dragged a hand down my face. Even that felt too much. My mind was spiralling out of control, dragging me to places I didn’t want to go. It was bubbling up inside me, all the pain, all the shit I thought I’d buried for good. Instead, it had just been festering for years.
I’d kept the pain of my brother’s death shoved so deep down. That way I didn’t have to admit what was too fucking obvious—he hadn’t wanted to be here any longer. He’d gotten in so deep within the club, and I didn’t even know it. My old man had hidden it from me, Logan had hidden it from me, and now Sadie was paying the price for my ignorance.
