Page 13 of Diesel
The room is empty.
The blanket she pulled around herself is pooled at the end of the couch, and the front door is open.
A cold wind sweeps through, settling deep in my bones, but it’s nothing compared to the fire licking along my veins.
She ran. Again.
My heart lurches into my throat, my feet moving before I even think about it.
No, no,no.
It feels like someone has a hand wrapped around my throat as I stumble out into the darkness, ready to chase her down.
And then I stop.
Makenna’s sitting against the low wall in front of the house, her knees drawn to her chest, her head resting ontop. Even with half her face in shadow, I can see how sad she looks.
But she’s still here, and that says everything.
She lifts her gaze as I try to calm the racing beat inside my chest.
“I thought you’d —”
“Run?” Her expression is wry. “I think we’ve established I’m not very good at that. Besides, you’d find me in five minutes out here. You really went all out with the kidnapping plot, babe. Remote house, didn’t leave my car keys somewhere I could snag them.” Her head drops back against her knees. “I’m not running. I didn’t want to run in the first place.” That admission lets that knot in my belly unfurl just a fraction. “I was too hot, and everything in that place smells funny. Whose house is this anyway?”
It’s not warm tonight. There’s a bite in the air, so it worries me that she’s warm. “You sick?”
“Of this shit? Yeah, Zane.” Sarcasm drips from every word.
I don’t feed that fire. Instead, I answer her original question. “It’s a club safe house.”
Makenna’s dry laugh reverberates around the dark hills surrounding the house. “Of course it is. The elusive Untamed Sons. The ‘other woman’ in our marriage.”
Those words sit in my chest like a weight. The resentment doesn’t surprise me, but it burns a path through my veins. Every step I’ve made has been to make the club safe for her—for us.
“That’s what kept us alive, Kenna. Kept us breathing easy all these years.”
“It ruined our relationship too.”
“It gave us a home, security,” I press on, ignoring her barbs. “It’s not the other woman. It never has been.”
It doesn’t soften that simmering frustration in her. If anything, she retreats further into herself, somewhere I can’t reach.
I fidget, swaying side to side on my feet, watching as she stands slowly, using the wall to lever herself off the ground. She makes a show of brushing the dirt off her jeans, and my fingers twitch to reach for her.
“I don’t know what to do, Zane.” She cracks on my name, her chin wobbling and when she folds her arms around herself, like she’s protecting her body from me, I feel like I’ve been cut open.
“We find a way to make this right,” I say, firm and sure.
“How? This thing between us is so broken there’s not enough pieces to glue back together.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I ignore it. Right now, the only thing I need to reach is her.
“So you want to just throw this away? Give up?”
“No.” Relief washes away the tightness in my throat, just for a second because she delivers another blow with her next words. “I wanted to fix this months ago, but Zane and Diesel are different people, existing in different worlds and I don’t know how to reach you when you’re in theirs. When you’re…Diesel.” She waves a hand at my kutte, at the colours I didn’t feel worthy to pull on when I first prospected for the club.
Colours I’m not sure if half the members in my chapter are worthy to wear even now.
