Chapter 13
Ghost
I called Bones earlier. Told him I’m bringing Adora to the clubhouse tonight. Told him I’ve had her for months, and no one touches her but me.
He didn’t say a word. Just listened in that way he does when he's already miles ahead of the conversation. And when I finished, “You’re fucked” were the only words he said before he hung up.
He’s right. I am fucked. I can feel it beneath my skin, like a slow suffocation I can’t claw my way out of.
I’m behind the wheel, cage eating up the road, Adora in the passenger seat. She’s quiet, always is during drives. But this time it feels different. Heavy. Like we’re moving in slow motion, sinking, drowning in something inevitable.
Almost a year I’ve had her, and I never gave her a bike ride. Not once. Not even when she looked at the Harley with longing.
She didn’t say a word, of course she didn’t. She won’t say anything she thinks might upset me. She’s too afraid of losing this. Me. Afraid to shift the weight of whatever she thinks we’ve built.
My fingers grip the wheel until my knuckles ache. I’m fucking choking. It wasn’t supposed to feel like this. I was supposed to want this. Anticipate it, not dread it. But here I am, feeling like I’m running full-speed toward my own fucking death.
Still — I have to go through with it. The past demands it. My darkness needs it. She has to pay for her lies, for the life she took from me, for the pain she caused.
And it was always going to end here, at the clubhouse. Among the same people who once cheered for us. The same people who hate her now. They once welcomed her with open arms, and it’s only fair that she gets to face them too before it all ends.
When we pull through the gates, I swear I taste blood. We park, the engine dies, and for a second, the quiet in the cage is deafening.
We both get out, but I stop. I stay frozen next to her, like gravity is keeping me chained to the spot.
I inhale slow, deep. Trying to steady the chaos inside me.
She turns to me, brows drawn tight. There’s worry in her eyes.
“Are you okay?” she whispers.
No! — my mind screams, but I just nod instead. “I’m good.”
She bites her bottom lip, looks down, then back up at me. “Will…” She swallows. “Will Bones hurt me?”
My hand finds the back of her neck before I even think about it. I pull her close, and rest my forehead against hers. Maybe for the last time.
“No, adorable,” I murmur. “None of my brothers will hurt you.” Because I will.
“Okay,” she breathes, barely audible.
She feels the shift in my mood, the darkness rising, but she doesn’t know what to do. She’s so tangled up in me now, that she just goes with what I say. Probably tells herself my mood shift is because of this visit.
In the end, she just follows. Because she belongs to me.
Even if her instincts are probably screaming, telling her to run, she stays. That’s what I turned her into.
I wrap my arm around her shoulders, pull her into my side, and walk toward the clubhouse.
The second we cross through the doors, the world stops. The music is loud but the silence is louder. Every pair of eyes snaps to us, laser-focused. Unblinking.
I don’t look at any of them. Can’t.
Instead of heading where I should, I steer us toward the bar like I’m on autopilot — my body’s moving but my soul stayed behind.
Adora shivers. She feels it too. The weight of disbelief thick in the air. The tension. The curiosity. The hate.
Out of the corner of my eye, Bones enters my field of vision. Eyes narrowed, fury bleeding from every inch of him. He’s never looked at me like that, not even in the worst of it.
I shake my head once, silently asking for a delay.
He clenches his jaw, lifts his chin, and his glare darkens, but he doesn’t move. He’ll wait. For now.
We sit at the bar like we’ve done this a thousand times before, like there isn’t outrage and hate and a million silent questions floating in the air around us.
“Your usual, Ghost.” Grizz slides the beer to me instantly, then turns to her. “What can I get you?”
His tone is as cold as a block of ice. Understandably so. He was there for the fallout. He saw the aftermath, saw it all — what happened and what was left of me.
Just like half the men watching us now.
“Same,” Adora says softly, voice barely audible. She nods toward my bottle.
Grizz doesn’t say another word, he just gives her the beer and walks away.
She sips it. Starts peeling the label off like it would keep her hands from shaking. Her eyes scan the room, lips caught between her teeth. Then she turns to me.
“Do you have my phone?” she asks.
I pull it from the inside of my cut and silently hand it to her.
“Thank you,” she says, and her voice — God, the tremble in it hits me like a bullet straight through the chest.
“No problem,” I manage, even though everything in me is screaming.
She turns away and types something quick. I can see her screen. It’s just three words: ‘I love you.’
She sends it to her sister, locks the phone, and hands it back. I tuck it away with hands that don’t feel steady anymore.
Before she looks away, her eyes lock on mine — just a fraction of a second — and that’s when I break.
Fuck.
I can’t do this. Not tonight. Not like this. I need more of her.
What would my world look like without her? I’m not ready to find out, and I’m afraid I’ll never be.
I need another night.
Before I even realize it, I pull her out of her chair and into my lap. She lets me, and leans into me, soft and trusting. She shouldn’t fucking trust me.
I rest my chin on her shoulder, breathe her in, and feel the chaos inside me begin to settle.
“Let’s go upstairs,” I whisper. “Have our own party. This one’s dead.”
She laughs softly, a spark in her voice.
“Take me to your room, Dominic.”
Just like that, my soul finds peace again.
We have one more night, and I know it deep inside of me — if I take her back home with me tomorrow, she might survive me forever.
On the way to the stairs, I glance over my shoulder. Lock eyes with Bones. He looks like he’s on the verge of putting a bullet in my skull. Angry, staring in almost horrified disbelief. But he doesn’t stop me. He’s giving me tonight.
Tomorrow? Tomorrow will be war.
Ever since I dragged Adora back into my world, I’ve only had that one nightmare. The one at the motel.
It used to be monthly, like clockwork. Sometimes more if I couldn’t sleep at home, where I had space, big windows, air.
But not with her.
Even in that suffocating shoebox of a motel room, she kept the darkness out, just by being close. By letting me hold her when we slept. Normally, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep in that room at all.
With her, there were no nightmares. No claws at my throat. No cold sweats.
Until now. Until I step out of the bathroom and into a nightmare worse than all the rest.
“Bowie.”
It’s just a whisper. Barely a breath. But I hear it, and it feels like an earthquake.
That name from her lips. In my bed. In my fucking bed.
Adora — the woman who made me fall in love with her. Again. The woman I let crawl back inside my soul, is dreaming of him. Of the man who helped destroy me. And she says his name like a prayer, like he’s the one she misses in her sleep.
A blackout rage takes over. Cold. Absolute. The kind that strips your soul bare and leaves nothing behind.
I was already on edge, already slipping. Still weighing how long I could delay her end. Still trying to keep the anger, the bitterness, the pain at a distance for just a little more time with her.
But not anymore.
That thread just snapped.
I feel my skin cracking, layers and layers of it peeling away, leaving me an open, empty shell. The monster that’s kept me alive all these years crawls back inside of me and takes the reins again. For the first time in almost a year.
It’s like I’m molting the last of the man she softened. And what’s left is the one who survived prison. The one she made.
He steps forward now.
He takes control.
And I let him.
From the outside, it’s like watching someone else. A stranger. A beast with my face.
She’s still a liar. A siren with fangs. And I was a goddamn idiot to fall for it twice.
Never again.
I was a fucking fool to back down last night. I was a bigger fool to give her so much time, to let myself feel anything for her. I’m never going to be her fool ever again.
My hands clench. My heart is gone — lying dead in a puddle of blood.
All I can think about is how many nights she lay in my arms, while dreaming of him.
How many times she said my name, while her soul was calling his.
How much does it hurt her that he divorced her? That he never called again? That he left her behind, and never looked back?
My gaze bleeds over her form.
This was supposed to be her ending, but I made it soft. I gave her time.
My final plan was the shittiest of them all. I deluded myself into thinking she loved me. I thought I could see it, but all I saw was my own hope, reflected back at me, just like before. But I should’ve known better this time. She always clouded my judgment, because of my own stupidity.
Idiot.
It was always about pain. About giving her what she gave me.
It was about making her fall in love with me. Feel safe. Happy. And then laugh in her face while I ended her life. Make her feel the same level of pain I felt when the woman I loved betrayed me.
No matter. Her life belongs to me. And by the time I’m done, she won’t even be a memory. I’ll scrub the world clean of her existence while she rots in hell.
I rip the sheet from her body without a second thought. Grab her hips. Unzip. Position myself behind her.
She stirs, startled, barely awake.
“Dominic…?”
She tries to turn her head, but I press her back down with a hand on the nape of her neck. My other hand grabs her breast — just enough distraction.
I don’t want to see her face. I don’t want her to look at me, like all the other times.
Not now.
Not for this.