Page 64 of Ravaged and Ruined
“You done?” I ask, my voice rough.
“Not even close,” he growls. “I don’t know what the hell kind of grip you’ve got on my fucking sister, but she fucking loves you. So listen carefully, if you ever make her cry like that again, I won’t stop at one punch.”
“I wouldn’t blame you,” I say quietly. Something shifts in his expression. I grip the pregnancy test tighter in my pocket, the plastic creaking under my fingers. “I need to see her. Now.”
He doesn’t invite me in, but he steps aside just enough to let me pass. That’s all I need.
I storm through the clubhouse like something feral, my boots thudding hard against the concrete floor, each step fueled by days of rage and regret.
The KDMC guys don’t say a word—maybe they see the fire in my eyes, maybe they’re just smart enough to stay out of the way. A couple sit sprawled on a worn leather couch, half-watching something on a massive flat screen mounted to the far wall. The volume’s low, but the tension isn’t.
To my left, a pair of battered recliners sit like thrones in front of the screen, one of them creaking as a guy shifts and quickly looks away. Behind them, a pool table stretches across the center of the room, green felt faded and scarred from a thousand games. Dartboards hang crooked on the wall, a few darts still embedded like warnings. A sound system lines the far wall, tall black towers, six feet high. It’s silent now, but built to shake this whole damn place if someone cranked the dial.
I feel her before I see her, like my heart knows she’s near.
“Aero?” Lacey’s soft voice fills my ears. I pivot my movement and find her standing near the staircase in a pair of leggings and one of my oversized shirts.
Damn is she a sight for sore eyes.
Her hair is in a messy knot, her arms crossed tight under her chest. Her eyes hit me like a punch straight to the throat. But it’s not softness I see, it’s ice. It’s fury. And she’s not trying to hide it.
We lock eyes. Everything inside me wants to go to her, to grab her, to drop to my knees and bury my face in her stomach and swear I’ll never fuck it up again.
But her voice stops me cold. “What the hell are you doing here?.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lacey
I don’t know what I expected after days of silence. Maybe a phone call. A warning from Emery that he was coming. But it sure as hell wasn’t this.
Not the roar of his engine tearing through the gate like he owns the damn world. Not the sight of him squaring off with Cobra like he came to fight for something that still belongs to him. Not the look in his eyes when they landed on me, like nothing else in this world mattered. And not for my heart to forget, even for a second, what he did. What he said.
For the first time in days, my body forgets the ache. I step forward, my arms crossed against the shiver shuttering through me. The clubhouse behind me buzzes faintly with voices, a door swinging somewhere, someone laughing in the rec room. But all I see is Aero.
My throat tightens at the sound of his voice. “I came to bring you home.”
I want to run to him. I want to touch him so badly my fingers twitch. He looks like hell. His jaw red, his lip split, no doubtCobra’s doing, but it’s the pain in his eyes that wrecks me most. It’s Raw. It’s Real.
Instead, I stand there, letting the silence stretch until it starts to hurt.
He takes a step toward me. And I take one back.
“Don’t,” I say flatly. He freezes. That small flicker of hope dying behind his eyes. “You don’t get to come here and act like I should fall into your arms just because you finally figured out what you lost. I’m not your prize. I’m not your fucking afterthought.”
His hands flex at his sides, and that muscle in his jaw ticks. He swallows hard. “I know I fucked up.”
I laugh, bitter and short. “Fucked up? You sent me away. You said you didn’t love me.”
“I lied,” He rasps, his voice lower than I ever heard it before.
“Yeah,” I snap, my eyes narrowing. “I know. But that doesn’t mean you get to walk in here like it didn’t gut me. Like you didn’t make me carry all of this alone.”
My hand moves instinctually to my belly, barely a gesture, but he notices. I quickly move it away, not ready to have this conversation yet.
“Lacey I…”
I cut him off, desperately fighting my urge to go to him and giving myself permission to hold on to my anger a bit longer. I wasn’t going to let him think I’m a pushover. If I don’t make him see my strength now, nothing will ever change.
