Page 108 of Beautiful Ruins
“I know you need to do whatever you need to, to keep Sadie safe, son.” He looked at me then, eyes red-rimmed and hollowed out as though his soul was on its way out. “I’m done fighting. I’m too old, too sick, and there’s not enough time in the world for me to make up for all the shit I’ve done.” He lifted the bottle to his cracked lips and took a long swig, wincing. He swiped a hand over his mouth. “I owe you one—for Logan. So I get it. You’ll need to take Nicky from me. For the part he’s played in all of this bullshit.”
My eyebrows shot up, my disbelief over his callousness warring with my need for vengeance. “You can’t mean that.” Even as the words left my mouth, I knew he did. “He’s?—”
Iron held up a hand, stopping me and my thoughts from spinning out of control. “Let me finish. I’ve never been a good father. Being a criminal, that’s what I’m good at. Love, not so much. That boy of mine doesn’t know when to stop. Don’t know if it’s the fact he didn’t get enough love as a child or whatever, but he should be locked up. Dead would be best for everyone else around him. You hear what I’m saying, son?”
I swallowed hard. Iron was giving me permission to murder his own flesh and blood. Seemed to be a lot of that going around at that moment. Family meant nothing to the men I’d grown up around.
For me, family was everything. Especially when you’ve crawled your way out of the fucking black hole to make one your own.
“I hear you.” My jaw clenched, but I didn’t look away.
I wanted to. I wanted to run, but the weight of what he was giving me pinned me in place.
“Good.” Iron stood, and shrugged off his cut, the action was slow, deliberate. He was shedding the skin he’d worn for too long. It was now as wrinkled and stained as he was, but those stains could be cleaned, unlike the ones marking his insides.
He gripped onto it for a moment, his gnarled fingers sinking into the worn leather as he stared at the Ridge Riders patch on the back. After all those years of fighting and clawing his way to the top, Iron was fucking done.
Then he held it out to me, hand shaking. A peace offering—the only way Iron knew how. “This should have been yours years ago.” He sniffed, like he had nothing left to give, and patted me on the shoulder. “Take care, Rowan.”
Whiskey bottle dangling from his fingers, he shuffled towards the door. It creaked on its hinges, then slammed shut behind him, the echo hanging in the silence he left behind.
I stared after his invisible shadow, its scent still lingering in the walls, in the floors. That part of the broken old man who’d taught me everything I never wanted to be would always be a mark on this place. And yet . . . a part of me still wished he’d turned back.
I hadn’t wanted the patch. But now? I didn’t just want it. I needed it—if only to carry Sadie out of the wreckage myself.
A bike engine revved just outside, the rumble vibrating through the thin walls of what was still standing of the clubhouse. There wasn’t much left but the brick and mortar when the soul of the place had already died and was now rotting beneath our boots.
My grip tightened around Iron’s cut, the scent of his cologne and years of destruction clinging to it with the bloodthat had seeped into the leather. I’d never thought Iron would give up the club. Never thought he’d give it up to me, not in a million fucking years.
Bear rushed in, pausing as his eyes dropped to the vest in my hand. He nodded as if he knew exactly what had transpired. “We’re packed. You ready?”
“Yep.” I dumped Iron’s cut on the bar and stalked out of the clubhouse after Bear, duffel bag in hand once again.
My desperation was a throbbing pulse in my chest. If Snake or Nicky had hurt Sadie, had touched a single hair on her head, I was going to do whatever it took to make their deaths slow and painful.
Jasmine stood in the yard beside Scout as he waited on his bike, arms crossed over his chest.
She swiped at the tears tracking down her pink cheeks. “Make sure you bring her back, Ro. I mean it.”
I tilted my chin down. “You have my word.”
My word meant more now than it ever had. If I failed Sadie, I’d have to carry that weight every day I walked this earth. And I wasn’t sure I could.
I swung a leg over my bike and kicked the engine to life. Bear pulled up beside me just as Jasmine stepped up to Scout and grabbed his face in her hands, pressing her lips to his. He gripped the back of her head with a desperation that echoed my own. The image of them, of their rawness, burned into me.
“Come back to me,” she said, pulling away slightly, her hands still cupping his face.
He nodded, the most serious I’d ever seen him.
I glanced between the two of them—his arms still wrapped around her, her eyes clenched like she couldn’t bear to let him go—and the weight of it hit harder than I expected.
Sadie was important to them, too. I wasn’t the only onewho’d lose something if Snake and Nicky finished what they thought they’d started.
“You ready?” I said, dragging my gaze from the yard. The wind had died. The only sound was our engines ticking and gravel crunching under boots. “Because this ends bloody.”
Bear and Scout nodded in unison, no words needed.
Chapter Thirty-Six
