Chapter 2
Boomer had seen a lot of ugly things in his life. War zones. Dead brothers. His best friend bleeding out under his hands. Hell, he’d even seen himself at his worst, half-drunk, grief-stupid, punching at shadows and calling it coping.
But he had never, not once, seen Kelly Gatlin like this.
This was… someone else. Someone Boomer didn’t recognize. Someone who terrified him in a way he hadn’t felt since Mike died.
Breakneck staggered backward, chest heaving, eyes blown wide and empty in the same breath, like whatever part of him that made him Kelly had slipped its moorings and drifted out to sea.
Christ. Boomer stepped into his space before Break could sway again. He grabbed Breakneck’s vest with both hands, grounding him, forcing eye contact. “Kid,” he said quietly. But the word felt wrong. Break wasn’t a kid. Not tonight. He was a weapon with the safety off.
Boomer felt the tremor in him, small, violent, uncontrolled. Like adrenaline gone toxic.
Like the body still fighting even after the mind had tapped out.
“Break,” Boomer murmured, tightening his grip. “Hey. Look at me.”
Those gray eyes flicked up, unfocused. Pain lived there. Behind it was fear.
Boomer’s stomach turned. He’d worn that look once. The night he’d walked into a bar with blood on his knuckles and Mike’s name in his throat. The night he’d pushed past every line he swore he’d never cross. He’d walked up to this edge before, and Breakneck had been the one to haul him back.
Boomer swallowed hard.
“Come on,” he said, lowering his voice even more. “We’re done here.” Breakneck didn’t argue. Didn’t curse. Didn’t even look at the wheezing man he’d nearly killed.
He just let Boomer turn him, guide him, steer him through the bar like a man stumbling through the aftermath of his own explosion.
The crowd parted fast, not for him. For Break.
The women stopped whispering. The men stopped breathing. Even the bartender went still.
Boomer kept one hand fisted in Breakneck’s vest the whole way out. Outside, the night hit them, cold, sharp, ruthless. Breakneck sucked in a breath like he’d been underwater too long. Boomer didn’t let go. “You with me?” he asked. Breakneck blinked. Slow. Lost.
His voice came out rough as sandpaper and slurred. “I don’t… I don’t know.”
Boomer’s heart cracked straight down the middle.
“Okay,” he murmured. “That’s okay. I’ve got you.
” He did what Breakneck had done for him once.
He put Break’s arm over his shoulder and took the weight, steady and unapologetic.
Breakneck didn’t fight it. He just sagged.
Like the adrenaline drain had finally caught him.
Like the truth he’d been outrunning had caught him harder.
Boomer opened the truck door, guided him inside, shut it gently like he was handling explosives. Then he walked over to Break’s Harley and pushed it, opened the bed of his truck and ran it up the ramp, strapped it down.
When he rounded to the driver’s side, he paused, hand braced against the metal, breath caught in his throat. He’d never been scared like this for Break. Concerned? Sure. Annoyed? Constantly. Proud? Every damned day. But scared? No.
Boomer slid into the seat and turned to the man beside him. Breakneck stared ahead, eyes fixed, jaw clenched, hands shaking where they rested on his thighs.
Boomer reached across and set a steady hand on his shoulder. “We’re going home,” he said softly. “You’re not going through this alone.”
Breakneck didn’t say a word. But the breath he released was nothing short of broken.
The engine rumbled to life beneath Boomer’s hands, low and steady, but inside the cab the silence was a different kind of noise entirely, tight, suffocating, like the air had gone brittle.
Breakneck sat slumped against the passenger door, head tipped back, eyes fixed on nothing. His chest rose in short, uneven pulls. If Boomer didn’t know better, he’d think the kid had been sucker-punched.
Christ. Maybe he had been.
Boomer flicked a glance over. The streetlight outside strobed across Breakneck’s face, sharp cheekbones, clenched jaw, pupils blown wide. But it was his stillness that twisted something deep inside Boomer. Break wasn’t a still man. He was controlled, focused, precise, but never like this.
This was… hollow. The same hollow Boomer had walked around with after Mike.
That hollow that made the world feel too big and too small at the same time.
He eased the truck forward, steering one-handed while keeping Breakneck in his peripheral vision. “You bleeding anywhere?” Boomer asked quietly.
Breakneck’s gaze didn’t shift. “No.”
“You hit your head?”
“No.”
“You gonna puke in my truck?”
A faint, almost imperceptible twitch of the jaw.
“…maybe.”
Boomer exhaled. Not quite a laugh. “Give me a warning and I’ll pull over.”
Breakneck swallowed hard, the motion slow, tight, like even that hurt.
Seconds passed. Then a minute. Then two.
Streetlight after streetlight washed over the cab in a rhythm that felt like breathing lessons.
Boomer’s hand tightened on the wheel. “Kelly,” he said finally, voice low but steady. “Talk to me.”
Breakneck blinked, once, like the name barely reached him.
“I can’t,” he whispered. It wasn’t defiance. It wasn’t even resistance. It was the sound of someone drowning.
Boomer’s throat thickened. He turned down a side street, one quieter, darker, closer to home. He kept his eyes forward, his voice even.
“Okay,” he said. “Then just…sit. I’m here.”
Breakneck dragged in a breath that didn’t sound like it filled his lungs.
His fingers curled into fists where they rested on his thighs.
Boomer didn’t miss the tremor. He’d been here.
Different bar. Different grief. Same feeling, like the inside of his ribcage had shattered and he was trying to hold it together with his bare goddamn hands.
“You ever…” Breakneck started, then stopped. His jaw flexed. “You ever feel like you’re not you anymore?”
Boomer’s grip tightened on the wheel. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I have.”
“Feels like something’s…wrong with me.” Breakneck’s voice cracked on the last word, barely audible. “Like I’m built wrong.”
Boomer’s heart dropped. Hard. He swallowed.
Forced calm into his voice even though nothing about this felt calm.
“Kid,” he said softly, “there is nothing wrong with you.” Breakneck flinched, a full-body, silent jolt, like the words hurt.
Boomer didn’t let him run from it. “You hear me? There is nothing wrong with you.” He shook his head once, fiercely. “You’re hurting. That’s different.”
Breakneck pressed a shaking hand to his forehead like he was trying to hold his skull together.
Boomer pulled into his driveway. Shifted the truck into park. He turned fully toward Breakneck. The kid looked wrecked. Eyes too bright. Lips pressed tight. Chest rising too fast. Like he was fighting something inside him fists first.
He got out of the truck, but Breakneck didn’t move. Boomer walked back to the passenger side door and opened it.
“Break. Come on.”
He slid out of the seat, stumbled, and Boomer caught him. Suddenly, the kid’s chest was heaving. He wrapped his arms around Boomer, holding on like he was Break’s only lifeline.
“I’ve got you, Kelly.”
Harsh sobs broke from him, and he tightened his arms around Boomer.
For a moment, he stood there and let the wave of pain wash over Break.
“I’m sorry, Boom Boom. Don’t hate me. Don’t think I’m worthless.
I haven’t done that in years…I swear. I fucked her, and it meant nothing.
I didn’t even realize I…almost killed that guy. Fuck.”
Boomer gripped the back of Breakneck’s neck, firm, grounding, the same way Break had steadied him once in a barracks in Lisbon. “You’re coming inside,” Boomer said quietly. “You’re gonna drink water, lie down, and you’re not gonna face this alone.”
Breakneck closed his eyes and breathed, a broken, jagged sound, but he breathed.
Boomer kept his hand where it was, the way a brother did. The way Breakneck had once done for him when he’d spiraled deep enough to forget the shape of his own name.
“Come on,” Boomer murmured. “Let’s go.”
Inside, the alcohol was hitting the kid pretty hard. He could barely stand. Boomer made him drink three glasses of water and take some painkillers.
It might help with the hangover he was going to have tomorrow, but it wasn’t going to do anything for whatever had broken him.
Make no mistake. If Boomer ever learned who had shattered this kid, he would track that son of a bitch down and kick his fucking ass.
Boomer knew what it looked like. He’d worn it once, bone-deep, life-ending, the kind of wound you crawled through alone.
He lifted his head.
Taylor stood in the open doorway, her expression soft, warm, steady. She motioned him inside. She had saved his life. Pulled him through the wreckage. Put him back together.
He thanked God every day for her.
He prayed, quietly, fiercely, that there was a woman out there for Kelly Gatlin…someone with that same kind of light. Someone he would actually let in. Someone who’d see the man beneath the beauty, the discipline, the danger.
God help them all if this deadly boy ever went off the rails again. Boomer would be there, and he’d stop him. Even if it broke him a second time.
Breakneck surfaced to pain. The dull, punishing, nauseous kind that came from whiskey, self-loathing, and decisions he couldn’t justify even to himself. His skull throbbed. His mouth tasted like regret, and something inside his chest felt hollowed out, scraped raw.
He blinked. Where the hell—
Boomer’s guest room. Sheets rumpled. A bucket beside the bed. He looked at the leather vest thrown over a chair, the tightest jeans he owned, and the boots. He groaned softly.
Christ.
He pushed up on his elbows, stomach rolling hard enough to make the room tilt. A soft creak sounded from the doorway.
“Are you sick?”
Breakneck froze.