Chapter 45
FORTY-FIVE
Ruin
PRESENT DAY - ONE WEEK LATER
I don’t remember walking over to church. Don’t remember hesitating near the chair I always use.
But somehow, I’m here at the head of the table. In his seat.
Every pair of eyes in the room is on me. Grim and waiting.
My fingers curl against the worn wooden table, tracing grooves that don’t belong to me. This place—this position—was never supposed to be mine.
I was his VP.
Dane was supposed to sit here. And he did, for years. While I was supposed to stand by him on his right. Not replace him.
A sharp breath cuts through my chest, but I swallow it down. Now that the war is over, I don’t get to break. Especially when my brothers are looking to me for direction.
As you say, Prez.
I desperately hope I’m doing the right thing.
Then I straighten slowly, forcing my shoulders back. Forcing my voice to work. Forcing myself into a role I was never meant to play.
“Alright, church is in session,” I say, the words rough and unfamiliar in my own mouth.
But there’s no room for anything else, only an unwilling push to move forward. Not grief. Not even the thought that maybe he’s still out there, waiting for us to bring him home.
“Mihai is adamant about not releasing his sister into our custody,” Hound says, jolting me back from my thoughts. He doesn’t look at me. Just stares at a random spot on the armrest of Wolf’s chair.
I nod and shift my attention to Ryder. “Any word from Blaze?”
He swallows, throat bobbing, but pulls himself together fast. “The Nomads lost two men. They want Hellfire.” His jaw tightens. “They want to negotiate who gets to gut the bastard.” His gaze darkens further. “I told them no.”
“It’s not an unfair ask,” I mutter. “They lost their VP—sure. But we…” My voice trails off, the words sticking somewhere deep in my chest where they’ve been lodged for a week now. I force myself to move on. “Spike? Any update on him?”
Healer sniffs before answering. “No change. Brain activity is strong. I’ll keep him under an induced coma for another week.”
A heavy silence settles before Hound cuts in. “We need to increase security at his clinic, Ruin. I’ve been fending him off for days. He’s not backing down.”
I frown. “Tudor?”
Hound nods, scowling.
I already learned the story once I was conscious enough to retain information. What happened the night Charlotte was taken. How Tudor used Shane and twisted something that was never supposed to happen.
Wolf and I had been clear. Charlotte was not to be used as bait, no matter how easy it made things for us.
Didn’t matter in the end.
“Keep him out,” I say flatly. “Mihai’s men aren’t needed anymore. Most have already cleared out of the compound. I’ll talk to him, but I’d rather they stay the hell away.”
No one argues.
I lean back slightly, ignoring the dull ache in my bruised ribs. “How are our guests settling in?”
Bulldog smirks, dark and humorless. “Poorly. The miserable fuckers have been swimming in their own piss and shit for days.”
Hound chuckles under his breath. “And as you requested, Ruin. Hands chained above their heads for…” He pretends to think. “Six days and eighteen hours so far?”
A cold, ugly satisfaction settles in my chest.
Good.
Scar and Hellfire deserve worse. They’re the reason all of this happened. The reason our clubs were torn apart. Why the Reapers paid the price. As did we.
We couldn’t save all of them. Some, yeah. But not nearly enough.
That abandoned hospital still haunts me. They still haunt me. The ones we didn’t find. The ones who were already gone.
And that’s why I know the hospital wasn’t their only base of operations.
So far, the bastards haven’t said a word.
When news broke that Hell’s Army had lost their head, their planted rats started surfacing. Easy to spot once you know where to look.
Hellfire had his claws in almost every MC south of Kentucky.
Their plan was simple.
Rot us from the inside out. Isolate the princesses. Break the trust between officers. Turn brother against brother.
And when the club is weak enough—gut it. Strip it clean. Swallow their trade and sell whatever—whoever is left.
When church ends, my body grows numb with every breath that passes. Boots shuffle around me as the brothers exit the room.
Almost instinctively, my head turns to my left. I’d usually wait for everyone to leave and have a few seconds alone with Wolf.
We’d chat about strategies to improve our standing. Especially our bylaws. The ones that had failed us so miserably when it came to protecting Charlotte.
But my gaze lands on my dad instead. He’s been quiet. More than usual since all of us came back that morning.
The sun had barely risen, and Dad was there. He’d stayed back along with a few other brothers to protect the compound.
We’d suspected that Hellfire would’ve planned to attack us while most of us were gone on the hunt.
Thankfully, nothing happened. With Mihai’s men on our side, Hellfire and Ioana were stretched way too thin.
With everything almost over, I’m not sure how to go back to before. There’s this constant rage living inside of my chest whenever I don’t see Wolf where he’s supposed to be.
And there it is again—the hollow space beside me.
“Son.”
“Don’t,” I blurt out numbly. “We’ve… we’ve looked, Dad. Just don’t.”
He lowers his gaze, his jaw clenched. “Maybe he escaped.”
I stand up jerkily, leveling my gaze on him. “Or maybe he’s one of those burnt bodies we couldn’t identify.”
I don’t wait for his response and start limping toward the door. My feet carry me outside but my mind remains in that room.
Goddammit! I’ve never left this room without his voice echoing off these walls. And this is the third time in the last week I’ve done it. Feeling hollowed out after.
It isn’t until I’m standing right outside Charlotte’s door that I realize I’ve somehow led myself to her.
Subconsciously pulled to the one person I can’t seem to meet the eyes of.
We haven’t talked much since we came back.
Healer told me how she’d stayed by my bedside in the infirmary. At least until I woke up hours later.
Now, I’m here. Hand raised to knock. It’s so fucking natural to simply be by her side. Especially since I wasn’t around her just to protect her these past weeks.
There’s a numbing silence after I knock. Followed by a soft “come in.”
I’m not sure what I expected to see when I opened the door, but the sight still leaves me completely, paralyzingly empty.
She’s sitting on the carpet, a box in front of her.
I know that box. It contains two years’ worth of words from her brother.
There’s a cut—Wolf’s cut—draped over her lap.
I quietly make my way to her, ignoring the sharp sting in my leg. The bullet Scar’s men gave me had only grazed the flesh of my calf. But it still fucking hurts to put my weight on it.
She doesn’t look at me. Not even when I awkwardly settle down across from her.
The silence between us isn’t terrifying this time. Not like the cell, but it’s still heavy. Suffocating in a different way. Thick with words that don’t matter anymore. Words that won’t fix our reality.
After a while, she looks up. But her gaze doesn’t reach my face.
My breath catches when I realize what she’s looking at.
“Will you get a new one?” she asks, her voice dull as she stares at my cut. “Or just remove the word ‘Vice’?”
She traces the raised stitching on the cut in her lap, her thumb brushing over Wolf’s name.
Within a blink, I’m beside her, my back settling against the couch. I pull her toward me, guiding her legs into my lap. She comes easily like her body knows where to go even if her mind doesn’t.
Her face tucks into the crook of my neck instinctively.
Wolf’s cut lies between us.
I place my hand over hers, but it stays limp. Cold. Lifeless in her lap.
She isn’t crying. She isn’t shaking.
That terrifies me more than anything. This frozen numbness isn’t what I wanted for her. Not after everything.
God, I almost wish she still hated this club. Hated all of us.
“I told him to go,” she says flatly.
I sniff, blinking hard against the burn in my eyes. That cell really did a number on me—cracked the fucking floodgates open that I can’t seem to shut again.
“He would’ve gone anyway, Charlotte,” I murmur into her hair. “You know that, right?”
She nods, but it’s stiff. Mechanical. Like she’s just going through the motion.
“Charlotte.” My voice breaks despite myself. “Please come back, baby. I can’t—I can’t see you like this.”
She leans back slightly, brows knitting together. “I’m here, Theo. I just…”
She pulls away a little more, but I tighten my hold on her. I can’t—won’t—lose the contact.
Her hand comes up to my chest, like she’s trying to ground me. But she’s not looking at me. She’s staring at my throat. “Mama says I’m feeling guilty for missing the time,” she whispers, her voice thin, haunted. “But he… he was—I know he tried to talk. But then he was busy.”
A pause.
“With the war and everything,” she continues, almost too quickly. “He was busy.” Her eyes lift to mine, desperate. Searching. “He was so busy.”
She’s asking me, isn’t she? Begging me to make it true—and it is.
Christ. I don’t want her burdened by this guilt. So I nod quickly. Even as my chest caves in. “Yes, baby. He was,” I say, brushing my hand gently over her back. “Everything was falling apart. He had to be careful. He was very busy.”
She nods again, like she’s clinging to it. “Yeah,” she murmurs. “And then it just—everything slipped.”
I hold her like she might slip through my fingers if I don’t. That if I look away, even for a second, she’ll disappear.
And the fucked-up part?
I know that feeling isn’t just in my head.
I’ve already lost her once. That fucking night when she was taken away from me—right under my goddamn nose.
My grip tightens instinctively, my chin resting against her hair as my mind spirals somewhere dark and relentless. Everywhere I look these days, I see him.
In the empty chair.
In the silence that stretches too long.
In the way everyone pauses for half a second before speaking—like they’re waiting for him to walk in and take over.
If I can’t escape it… if I can’t stop seeing him everywhere… What the hell is this place doing to her?
“I’ll take you back,” I blurt before I can stop myself, the words rough and urgent. “Craven Ridge will—”
“No.” It’s soft. Immediate. Final.
She curls closer into me, like she didn’t just rip that option right out of my hands. And my whole body fucking deflates.
Relief hits first. Then it’s chased just as quickly by something colder. Heavier.
Fear.
Fear that she won’t stop hurting if she doesn’t leave.
“I don’t want to leave,” she murmurs, her voice a little uneven now. “I want to be here, near Mama and Torch.”
That part makes sense.
“And you,” she adds in a whisper.
My heart fucking stutters. Like it forgets how to beat for a second before slamming back to life, hard enough to hurt. Fighting down ripples of undeserved joy and excitement.
“That’s a major turnaround.” I try to joke, but there’s an edge to it. Something too tight. Too hopeful.
“Yeah,” she mutters. “You’ve been behaving.”
A broken laugh slips out of me, wet and shaky. I press my face into her hair for a second, trying—and failing—to get my shit together.
Because fuck, I don’t think I can survive her walking away from me again. So I tighten my arms around her without thinking.
She squeaks. A tiny, indignant sound that leaves stupid flutters in my chest.
“Sorry,” I mumble quickly, but I’m already smiling.
“So close.” She sighs dramatically. “You were so close on that behaving streak.”
I press a kiss to the top of her head. “I’ll behave from now on, baby.”
“Baby?” She snorts. “I’m a grown woman, hammerhead.”
I don’t even freeze this time.
Hammerhead?
A laugh rips out of me before I can stop it, my shoulders shaking against her. “Where the hell did that come from?”
But I know the answer.
She just huffs, like she regrets nothing.
God, I missed this. Her giving me ridiculous nicknames that I can never predict, even if my life depended on it.
I pull her back just enough to look at her, my hand coming up to cup her cheek. My thumb brushes under her eye, slow and careful, like I’m still learning the shape of her.
Without thinking, I blurt out the words I’ve kept caged in my chest for the past week. “I’m so in love with you,” I say quietly.
The words sit heavy between us.
“Enough to let you go—if you want to,” I tell her, my chest tightening.
Her eyes soften, something flickering there.
I can’t help but lighten her mood when her face crumples slightly. “But not enough to not use you as my personal stress ball.”
That does it. Her expression drops to a black stare.
“Theo.”
I point at her face immediately. “That. You keep calling me that and I’m gonna start getting ideas, Ms. Hayes.”
She rolls her eyes. “Fine. Ruin.”
My face drops instantly and I pout. Full fucking pout. Lower lip and all.
“Wow.” She deadpans. “There’s no winning with you.”
I shrug, pulling her back into me, my tone turning quieter. More honest. “I don’t mind you calling me that,” I murmur. “Even if… even if you choose to leave me.” The words scrape on the way out. “I’ll just love you regardless, baby.”
She leans back slightly, studying my face. Not searching for lies. Not doubting. Just weighing it. “You actually love me?” she asks softly.
I don’t hesitate. “I love you.”
She swallows, her throat working like the words are heavier than she expected. “I… don’t love you,” she admits carefully. “But I don’t hate you either.”
It’s not a knife. It should be—but it isn’t. Because somehow, that feels like everything.
“That’s good,” I breathe out, my voice rough. And I mean it. Because she’s still here.
She didn’t run.
She didn’t push me away.
She didn’t choose not me.
My hand slides to the back of her neck, fingers threading gently into her hair. I hesitate—for a second.
Giving her time.
Giving her space to pull back.
And when she doesn’t, I lean in. Slow at first. Careful.
Her breath catches before our lips meet.
Everything else just fades.
She melts into it.
Soft. Warm. Real.
Her fingers curl into my cut, holding on just as tight as I am.
And I kiss her like I’ve been starving for it. Like I need it to fucking breathe.
When we finally pull apart, our foreheads rest together, breaths uneven.
I huff out a quiet laugh, my thumb brushing over her cheek again. “Yeah,” I murmur, still a little dazed. “You definitely don’t hate me.”
Her lips twitch.
For the first time since all this shit started, I let myself hope. Not because I deserve her. Or that even she believes she could look past my mistakes.
But that maybe, just maybe…
She’s starting to like me a little.