Chapter 39
Ikill the engine. The morning air’s sharp enough to sting my lungs as I head for the back entrance of Ruin's End. Just the one missed call. No texts. That alone would be enough to set me on edge… but not hearing from either of them the rest of the night?
That’s a problem.
The bar should’ve closed out around two. They knew damn well I didn’t show up to fight. I told Will. Told JT. And still—nothing?
Unlocking the steel door, I step into the quiet hush of the bar.
The whole place holds the echo of someone who walked off mid-close out.
Chairs are up. Bar top’s been wiped down but there’s no reflection in the grain, the way Will gets it. The bottles are all in their places behind the counter, but not aligned by label and height.
I track around the bar. No prepped limes in the fridge. No folded clean bar towels in the bin under the register. Half-assed rinsed mats.
By the time my eyes track the mop bucket near the entrance, the handle leaning against the counter, I’m sprinting toward the loft.
Not Will clean.
Something's wrong.
I move fast, sneakers heavy on the stairs. If I’m not here, JT’s usually crashing up top.
I push the door open and there he is.
JT—sitting at the kitchen counter, elbows on the cold stone, face in his hands. He looks up when he hears me and damn near jumps out of his skin.
“Hex,” he says, voice hoarse. “Shit.”
“Where’s Will?”
The bathroom door creaks behind me, and I whirl around.
Will steps out.
And I stop breathing.
His lip is split and swollen, dried blood tracing the corner of his mouth.
His left eye is black and puffed near shut.
Bruising creeps from his jaw down his neck, the shape of fingerprints stamped in deep red ink.
One side of his shirt is ripped, exposing scrapes and swelling along his ribs.
His knuckles are busted open—barely scabbed and raw—and he’s limping.
Will—tall and lean, normally a goddamn pretty boy with those light brown waves and bright blue eyes—is wrecked.
I don’t even realize I’m moving until I’m in front of him.
“Man,” I breathe, staring him down, chest splitting. “Did they come after you?”
Will gives me that sideways grin that’s more pain than charm.
“No,” he says. “I went to them.”
“What?”
“I might look like shit, but I won.” He says with a crooked smirk.
My brain stalls. “You what?”
Will limps over to the kitchen, drags a stool out from under the counter with his foot, and drops onto it, wincing like hell but still smug underneath it all.
“Ned let me stand in for you,” he says, glancing at JT. “He agreed. I knew if I told you, you’d never let me. So, we didn’t. We went. Took care of it.”
“You—” I run my hand down my face, heart thudding. “Jesus, Will.”
“I did good,” he says. “Real good. They sent a fucking tank in human skin. He opened wild—tried to break my ribs in the first round. But he was slow. Too heavy. I kept it tight, kept him moving. Let him believe the fight left me. When he charged, I took his knee out from under him and went for the jaw. Spit blood for two rounds but didn’t go down.
Got him flat by the fourth. Broke his orbital.
Won it.” He smiles again, grim satisfaction in it.
“Didn’t bring in what you would’ve, but Stauder accepted it.
On the condition of one clean-up job. Of his choosing. ”
I stare at him. “Will—”
“Our debt is clear,” he says.
“It’s not our debt. And once he sees what you can do, you won’t be free of him,” I warn.
Will shakes his head slowly. “Of course it is our debt, Hex.”
I look between him and JT, my chest cracking wide open. “I left you. I left you both. And you did this alone—”
“We’re never alone,” JT says quietly. “You taught us that.”
“You think we’d let you carry all of it?
” Will leans forward, voice softer now, but firm.
“You think we haven’t learned anything from you?
All that training, all that discipline. We’ve watched you for years.
You don’t get to act like we’re just your shadows.
Sable needed you, man. And you needed us. So we showed up. We handled it.”
“You don’t know what could’ve happened,” I snap, voice cracking at the edges. “You think I don’t want you to fight because I don’t think you’re good enough? I don’t let you go in there because I’m fucking terrified of losing you.”
Silence stretches thick between us.
Will nods. “And Sable? She did what she did because you showed her how, didn’t she? You gave her that strength. That knowledge. She saved her son. You made that possible.”
His voice goes quiet. “Let us do the same for you.”
I fold.
I rub a hand over my jaw, eyes burning. “You’re both still fucking idiots.”
Will grins, lopsided and bloody. “But living idiots.”
I shake my head. “Yeah. And I’m gonna be paying for that clean-up job for the rest of my life.”
“Damn right you are,” JT mutters.
We all laugh. It’s shaky, bitter, but real.
And when the laughter fades, and everything settles again into that heavy kind of silence—the one you only earn after a fight—I glance toward the door. Toward the road that leads back to her. Back to Sable.
Something shifts inside me, a magnetic pull locking into place and swinging home.
Because now more than ever, I know what it means to be surrounded by people who show up when it counts. When the fists are flying, when the blood’s fresh, when the weight feels too damn heavy for one set of shoulders. And somehow—somehow—they still show up for me.
I used to think I had to protect everyone. If I could just take the hits, carry the weight, bleed first, then maybe nobody else would have to. Maybe I could out-suffer the world for all of us.
But that’s not how this works.
I watched Sable put herself between her son and death. She pulled the trigger with no one there to give her permission. I watched her survive something she never asked for and never should’ve had to face.
And she did it because I showed her how.
Because I wanted to be in her life and teach her what to do when a hard decision presented itself.
Show her that she didn’t have to stick around and patch up every broken thing just because she knew how.
Fixing things didn’t make them right. Sometimes the strongest thing she could do was confront it head on before the damage turned permanent.
She didn’t need saving. Just someone to remind her she could save herself.
And Will? JT?
They fought. For me. For us.
They walked into the lion’s den because they believed in what we’ve built. Because they knew I couldn’t be in two places at once, and they decided that they would protect me.
They made a call I’ve never let myself make. And they did it without asking. Without fear.
Because I taught them to.
And that’s what tears me up most. Not that they fought without me.
Not that Will took hits meant for my back.
But that I’ve been too fucking scared to let them show me what they’ve become.
Because I know loss. I know the cold grip of it.
I know what it means to bury people you swore to protect.
And that fear kept me from trusting that they’re not boys anymore.
They’re men. Fighters. Brothers in every way that counts.
And they made sure I didn’t lose the one person I can’t live without.
Sable.
She’s waiting for me now. Probably sitting at that kitchen table, hands wrapped around a mug that’s long gone cold, wondering what comes next. Wondering if I see her differently. If what she did changed the way I look at her.
It didn’t.
If anything, it made me love her more.
Because I know what it costs to make the hard choice. To do what needs doing and carry the weight of it afterward.
She did it anyway.
So yeah, I’m going back to her.
I’m going to walk through that door and wrap my arms around her and let her know, without question, that she’s not alone. Not anymore. Not ever.