Chapter Thirty-One #2
“Obviously.” Derek rolls his eyes as if I’m being deliberately slow.
“What? You think I did it myself? Please. I’m not getting my hands dirty with that kind of shit.
That’s what desperate people are for. People who need money badly enough that they’ll do anything.
It’s actually fascinating how easy it is to find someone willing to commit a felony for the right price. ”
My hands ball into fists under the table. “And the people who died? The people who are still recovering? That doesn’t bother you at all?”
“Why would it?” Derek leans back, supremely confident. “They’re all old, Marley. They would’ve died soon enough anyway. I just… accelerated the timeline. Besides, this isn’t about them. This is about teaching your biker boyfriend that there are consequences for stepping out of his lane.”
I shake my head, completely and utterly confused, because before all this craziness started, Derek broke up with me. He didn’t want me. So, what the hell is this even about anyway?
“I don’t even understand what this is all for, Derek? We broke up because you were ashamed of me. You didn’t want me. Hell, I’m not sure if you even liked me in the end. So why are you going after Nitro if you don’t want me? It makes no sense?”
He laughs.
Not loud.
Not amused.
Just a low, bitter exhale that twists my stomach. “You really don’t get it, Marley.”
His eyes lift to mine, cold, assessing, like I’m not a person but a piece of inventory he’s evaluating.
“I didn’t break up with you. I released you.
” The words hit like a slap. “I was done,” he continues, shrugging as if this is all perfectly reasonable.
“You stopped being useful. You stopped being… manageable. But that didn’t make you not mine anymore.
” A sick chill crawls down my spine. “You were still mine. My failure. My project. My reminder of everything wrong with me. Everything I didn’t want to look at.
And you accepted that. You wore it like a second skin. That was the agreement, Marley.”
My voice comes out as a broken whisper, “Agreement? What agreement?”
“The unspoken one,” he says, his eyes narrowing. “Where you stay small. Where you stay right where I left you. Where you never, ever, rise above the place I put you.”
My breath hitches. “Derek… that’s sick.”
He ignores what I said as if it doesn’t reach him. “But then that asshole walks in…” Derek spits, the mask slipping, his venom finally showing. “He walks in, and suddenly you’re all shiny. Confident. A woman worth wanting. You don’t look broken anymore. You look…” he sneers, “… desirable.”
My throat tightens. “That’s not a crime.”
“It is!” he snaps. “When it makes me look like a fool. When it makes everyone think I let go of something better than me. When he…” he jabs a finger in midair as if he is pointing toward Nitro, though I know he’s not behind me, “… steps in and turns you into some fucking prize.”
I jolt back into the seat, nausea rising up my throat. “So, you tried to ruin him?”
“No,” he says coldly. “I tried to correct the narrative. Someone needed to knock him off that pedestal. Someone needed to remind him, and you, exactly where you belong.” His lips lift in a cruel smirk. “And it sure as hell isn’t by his side.”
And now I see him for what he really is, empty. Hollow. A shell of entitlement and ego with nothing of value inside.
“Derek,” I say carefully, my heart pounding so hard I’m sure he can hear it. “You’re confessing to hiring arsonists. To murder. To—”
“Oh, please!” Derek waves his hand dismissively.
“There’s no proof. Shell companies, cash payments, burner phones, I’m not an idiot, Marley.
Nobody can trace anything back to me. And even if they could, even if someone tried to say I was involved, it’s my word against some hired thugs who’ll say anything to reduce their sentences. ”
He leans forward, his smile turning vicious. “The best part? Your biker boyfriend is too stupid to figure any of this out. He’s probably still crying over his grandmother, blaming himself, never knowing that it was you, your choice to be with him, that got those old farts killed.”
Derek isn’t just evil, he’s arrogant. So arrogant that he doesn’t see the noose closing around his neck.
So arrogant that he’s confessed to everything on a wire that’s recording every word, feeding it directly to Maria Moretti’s team.
So arrogant that he doesn’t notice Sin, Nitro, Koa, and Bear moving through the café, positioning themselves at strategic points around our table.
“You’re wrong about one thing,” I say quietly, straightening my spine and letting the vulnerability vanish like smoke. “Nitro isn’t stupid. None of them are. In fact, they’re smart enough to make sure I was wearing a wire for this entire conversation.”
Derek freezes. For half a second, he blinks, confused, as though he genuinely can’t process what he just heard.
Then the blood drains from his face.
“W-what?” His voice cracks, thin and brittle. “No. No, that’s… Marls, you’re bluffing.”
I lift my chin, tapping two fingers to the neckline of my dress. “Everything you just said? Recorded. Admissible. And feeding directly to the police captain who’s been waiting for enough evidence to arrest you.”
It hits him like a sledgehammer.
His expression collapses into sheer panic.
Then fury.
Then panic again.
“You… you fucking bitch!” His chair screeches violently as he shoots to his feet, knocking it over.
Heads turn. Customers stare. He points at me with a shaking hand, voice rising into something shrill and unhinged.
“You set me up? You set me up! After everything I did for you?” He laughs, loud, hysterical, desperate, but it sounds more like a choke.
“No. No, this isn’t happening. You don’t get to do this to me. You don’t get to—” His eyes jerk wildly around us, finally noticing the brothers closing in.
Sin is blocking the exit.
Bear is stepping behind him.
Koa is drifting closer like a shadow.
And Nitro is silent, controlled, but burning with rage, standing at my back.
Derek stumbles backward, bumping the edge of the table, knocking over his untouched latte. “You think you can… you think you can ruin me?” he snarls. “You will not take me down, you hear me? I’m untouchable. Do you understand? I’m—” He stops abruptly when he sees the officers arriving at the door.
Detective Maria Moretti is outside the front door.
His face drains completely.
His knees actually buckle.
For a second, I think he’s going to faint.
Derek’s breathing turns erratic, shallow pulls like he’s drowning on dry land.
“No… no, Marls, please.” His voice cracks, hands lifting as if he can physically stop what’s happening.
“I didn’t mean for anyone to die. I swear to God.
That wasn’t the plan.” His laugh jerks out of him, ugly and unhinged.
“I just needed him to lose something. I needed him to feel what I felt when you walked away.”
His eyes lock onto mine, sharp and desperate.
“That moment where you realize the best thing in your life is gone, and you’re never getting it back.
I wanted him to know that pain.” He leans forward, lowering his voice, like this is some shared confession.
“You did that to me,” he says quietly. “You left me empty. You took everything that made me feel like I mattered.”
For a long second, I say nothing.
I let him sit in that belief.
Then I straighten.
“No,” I say calmly. “You don’t get to rewrite history.”
His brow creases, confused. Still clinging to the idea that this is about him.
“You didn’t lose me,” I continue, my voice steady, sharp, surgical. “You discarded me. You chipped away at me until I barely recognized myself. And when I finally stopped bleeding for you… you decided that meant I owed you something.”
His mouth opens. “That’s not—”
“You didn’t break up with me, Derek,” I cut in. “I escaped you.”
The word lands like a gunshot, and I take a step closer, lowering my voice—not cruel, not loud, but worse.
Certain. “You didn’t want me happy. You wanted me small.
Grateful. Waiting. You wanted me broken enough that I’d always come back and beg.
” His face drains as the truth starts to click.
“And when I didn’t?” I tilt my head. “When I chose someone who treats me like I’m worth protecting instead of controlling? ”
He swallows hard. “I loved you!”
I smile. Not soft. Not sad. Just honestly. “No, Derek,” I say. “You loved owning me.”
His eyes widen. His lips part.
I step back, already done. Already gone.
“You didn’t lose me,” I repeat, colder now. “You never had me. You just convinced yourself you did.”
His lips part, but nothing comes out.
His eyes widen, betrayal and terror twisting together, and then suddenly Derek lunges across the table, his hand reaching for my throat, but he doesn’t make it.
Nitro moves behind him like vengeance personified, his massive hand clamping down on Derek’s shoulder and slamming him back into his chair with enough force to make the furniture creak.
Sin moves to my side, his presence a wall of protection.
Koa and Bear flank Derek’s other side, blocking any escape route.
“You fucking bitch—” Derek starts, but Nitro’s hand tightens on his shoulder, cutting off the words.
“Finish that sentence…” Nitro says, his voice deadly calm, “… and I’ll finish you. I fucking dare you!”
The café door bursts open, and Maria Moretti strides in with two uniformed officers, her badge held high. The other customers scramble back, whipping out their phones to record the scene unfolding before them.
“Derek Fletcher…” Maria announces, her voice carrying through the sudden silence. “You’re under arrest for arson, murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and a long list of other charges I’m going to enjoy reading to you.”
Derek tries to jerk away from Nitro’s grip, but it’s useless. One of the officers steps forward with handcuffs, and within seconds, Derek’s wrists are secured behind his back.
“You can’t prove anything,” Derek shouts, his composure finally cracking. “It’s her word against mine.”
“Actually…” Ghost’s voice crackles through Maria’s radio, “… it’s your own words.
On recording. With timestamps. And we also found financial records showing the shell companies you used to pay the arsonists, communications between you and the contractors, and evidence of your fraud and embezzlement at your advertising firm.
It’s all admissible. It’s all documented. You’re done, asshole!”
The color drains from Derek’s face as reality hits him.
He’s caught.
Completely, irrefutably caught.
“Marley,” he says, his voice suddenly desperate, trying one last manipulation. “You can’t… we had something. You can’t let them—”
“What we had…” I interrupt, standing up and meeting his eyes with a level of calm I didn’t know I possessed, “… was toxic. Abusive. Destructive. And it’s over. You’re going to prison for what you did. For the people you killed. For trying to destroy someone I love.”
The officers start leading Derek toward the door, but Maria holds up a hand, stopping them for a moment. She looks directly at Derek, her expression carved from stone.
“The fire you started?” Maria says quietly. “It didn’t just hurt Nitro’s grandmother. It killed innocent people. And thanks to your arrogance and this young woman’s courage, you’re going to pay for every single one of them.”
Derek’s last view as they drag him out is of me standing between Nitro and Sin, surrounded by the club brothers, whole, unbroken, and free.
The moment the door closes behind him, my knees give out.
Nitro catches me before I fall, gathering me into his arms as if I weigh nothing, pressing his face into my hair. “You did it,” he murmurs, his voice raw with emotion. “You were so fucking brave, Small Town. You got him.”
“We got him,” I correct, my hands fisting in his club cut. “All of us.”
Sin claps a hand on my shoulder, his mismatched eyes warm with approval. “You’re a real part of the club now, Marley. Anyone who can face down their demons like that? You’re one of us.”
Koa nods his agreement. “That was some cold-blooded spy shit right there. Respect, girl! Respect!”
Bear’s massive frame shakes with laughter. “Girl’s got balls. Well done, kid.”
I laugh despite myself, the adrenaline finally crashing, leaving me shaky, exhausted, and inexplicably giddy.
We did it.
We actually did it.
Derek is going to prison.
The evidence is solid.
And Queenie and the victims of the retirement village will finally get justice.
Nitro tilts my chin up, forcing me to meet his eyes. “I love you,” he says with no hesitation, no fear. “I love your courage, your strength, your fierce heart. I love every part of you, Marley Wren.”
“I love you too,” I whisper back, and this time when he kisses me, it’s not for show, not for an audience, not for anyone but us.
It’s real.
It’s ours.
It’s fearless.
And as the club brothers cheer, Maria finishes coordinating with her team, and the café patrons cautiously return to their overpriced lattes, I realize something important—I’m not the same woman who sobbed in Nitro’s back seat months ago, broken, lost, and convinced I was worthless.
I’m stronger now.
Braver now.
Loved now.
And nothing, not Derek’s cruelty, not the age gap, not my insecurities, will ever take that away from me again.