Chapter 21 Ledger
Twenty-One
Ledger
I didn’t realize I was dead inside until I experienced life with her. I won’t lose her again.
I drop to my knees before I understand why. I hear the echo of the hatch slamming as the bastard escapes back into the storm. I hear the ring of spent shells rolling across concrete. I hear the generators kicking back on in hiccupped bursts.
But all of it is background noise.
Because she’s standing there shaking, crying, breathing hard, and thankfully alive.
Alive because she fought. Alive because she remembered. Alive because she ran toward me instead of away.
My hands shake so violently I have to curl them into fists just to stay upright.
“Ledger,” Kelly’s voice comes out soft, cracked at the edges. “Hey. Hey, look at me.”
I lift my head. She’s right in front of me, kneeling before I can stop her. With her hands reaching for my face like she’s desperate to touch me, like she has to check I’m real, check I didn’t disappear while she blinked.
Her palms land on my cheeks. I flinch. Not from pain, from relief. From the unbearable crash of everything I just came close to losing. I had a taste of life without her and I won’t survive going through it again.
“Don’t,” I choke out, voice shredded. “Don’t do that.”
She frowns, breath hitching. “Do what?”
“Run into a fight. Charge at danger. Get between me and a fucking gun.”
“You did,” she whispers.
“That’s different,” I growl.
“How?”
“Because I’m the one who’s supposed to bleed,” I snap louder than I mean to.
Her eyes widen. Tears fall. She pulls back like she’s been hit.
Fuck.
I drag both hands over my face, breath shaking as I try to reel myself in.
Then she says, voice trembling, “I remembered something.”
I freeze.
She leans closer, her forehead brushing mine, her hands sliding to cradle my jaw so I can’t look away.
“You told me,” she whispers, “that once you fall you don’t stop.”
My heart detonates inside my chest.
“I remember you,” she continues, voice breaking. “I remember us. Not everything. But enough to know I loved you. I know you loved me. Even without the words.”
I shake my head sharply, pain lancing through me. “Sunshine.”
She holds tighter. “Ledger. Don’t lie.”
My voice cracks. “I’m not lying.”
Terrified. Exposed. Split open by her memory and her tears and her voice saying loved, past tense, like I’m something she survived.
“I tried not to,” I force out, every syllable scraping against my throat. “I tried not to fall for you.”
Her breath shivers. “Why?”
“Because look at you.” I run a trembling hand down her arm. “You’re light. And warmth. And comfort. And sweetness. And hope. You’re all the good and easy in life and baby, I’m a mess inside.”
Her lashes lower, tears slipping down her cheeks.
My voice drops to a brutal whisper. “I’m violence. I’m danger. I’m darkness. I didn’t want my world to damper your light.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t get to decide that alone.”
“I had to.” I swallow hard. “Because the second I let myself feel something real, the second I admitted what you were to me, you got hurt.”
A broken exhale leaves her lungs. “Riot.”
“I can’t do it again,” I rasp. “I can’t lose you again. Not to a truck. Not to a man with a mask. Not to a damn memory loss. Not to my mistakes.”
Her hands tremble against my skin. I breathe her in, all the fear, adrenaline, tears, and the feelings of survival wrapped in someone I never should’ve touched but did anyway.
“Look at me,” she whispers.
I do.
“I didn’t remember you this morning.” Her voice breaks but she keeps going. “But my body did.”
My lungs burn.
“My heart did.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“And now my mind is catching up,” she says. “Piece by piece. And none of the memories coming back make me want to run from you.”
“Kelly,” I warn.
“No,” she says firmly, cupping my face, dragging my gaze back to hers. “You protect me. You ground me. You fight for me. You hold me like I’m not breakable, but still cherished.”
“Because you are,” I choke.
“And you love me,” she whispers. My whole body freezes. She touches my chest right over my heart. “I remember enough to know that,” she says softly. “And I’m not scared of it.”
I can’t breathe. Not because her words scare me. Because they free me.
I grab her face in both hands and rest my forehead against hers, breath mingling, tears burning behind my eyes even though they don’t fall.
“I never stopped,” I whisper.
She gasps softly.
“Even when we ended things,” I continue baring my damn soul. “Even when you told me not to fall. Even when you walked away. Even when you forgot me. I didn’t stop. I don’t know how.”
Her hand slides to the back of my neck, grounding me.
“I don’t want you to stop,” she whispers.
A violent ache cracks open inside me. “I can’t lose you,” I admit. “I can’t survive that.”
“You’re not going to,” she promises. “Not tonight.”
Before I can answer, I hear movement.
Voices echo from the tunnel entrance. I stand so fast the air moves with me, placing myself instinctively between Kelly and the noise. I lift my weapon ready to take it head on again.
The metal hatch slams open.
“RIOT!” a familiar voice booms.
I lower my gun a fraction.
Chux. Stunt. Nitro. Shaft. Gainz. Looney. Along with three more brothers who spill through the entrance, weapons drawn, eyes scanning every inch of the underground. Kelly collapses forward against me in relief. I catch her, steadying her with both arms as her knees buckle momentarily.
Chux steps into the center of the room and freezes at the sight of us. His jaw ticks. He doesn’t comment about her so close to me.
He turns instead to the bodies on the ground. “Damn. You cleaned house.”
I don’t relax.
My voice comes out low and lethal. “One got away.”
“Yeah,” Nitro says, exchanging a look with Stunt. “We caught visuals him fleeing the east exit. He’s injured.”
“Not enough,” I growl.
Chux kneels by one of the downed men. “These marks, Jesus. Bratok’s men really did crawl out of their grave.”
Tensing, I share. “This wasn’t Bratok.”
“No,” Chux agrees. “This was something else. Someone else.”
All eyes turn to the shattered blast door, the broken vent, the blood.
“You saw his face?” Stunt asks.
My jaw flexes once, hard. “Yeah.”
“And?” Chux presses.
“He knows me,” I explain quietly. “Knew me before Kings. Before all of this.”
Chux raises a brow. Shaft stiffens. Nitro curses under his breath.
Kelly tightens her grip on me.
“He called me Ledger.”
Silence falls like a dropped anvil.
Chux breaks it. “You sure?”
I nod once. “Positive.”
Shaft steps forward. “Ledger Masters doesn’t exist anymore not in this world. Only Riot.”
“Tell that to him,” I snap.
Kelly shivers against me. I tighten my hold.
“Do we know this guy’s name?” Shaft asks.
I answer clear as day. “Jonas Greene.”
Another thick silence. The kind that ripples outward like a bomb blast. Chux whistles low. Stunt mutters a curse. Nitro shakes his head.
“You sure?” Chux asks again, because he needs the confirmation.
“Yeah,” I confirm, “Same eyes. Same voice. Same fucked-up calm.”
Kelly shivers. I pull her into me closer.
“He’s supposed to be dead,” Chux mutters.
“Apparently he disagrees,” I share.
Chux walks toward me and Kelly, stopping a few feet away. “We’ll lock this place down. Sweep the woods. Check cams. He won’t get near you again.”
Chux lifts both brows as I don’t settle in any way. I feel my cheeks heat. I don’t budge.
Chux sighs. “Alright. I get it. You’re in guard dog mode.”
“It’s not mode,” I explain. “It’s reality.”
Chux lifts his hands in surrender. “Fine. Reality noted. Need to switch it up. Not gonna keep you here.”
He turns to Stunt. “Prep for relocation. We’re moving them both to the inner compound.”
I stiffen. “She doesn’t go anywhere without me.”
“No argument here,” Chux says.
“But she does go,” Nitro adds. “You both do. Because wherever Greene shows up next, he’ll bring backup.”
Kelly slips her hand into mine. I squeeze lightly. She squeezes back.
Nitro pauses, watching us. “You good enough to move?”
Kelly nods. “Yes.”
I interject. “She’s rattled.”
“I’m not,” she whispers.
“You shot someone,” I remind her.
Her chin lifts. “To save you.”
Every man in the room stills. I go absolutely rigid. And then something happens, something I feel before I see. I turn toward her. Step in closer. Grabbing her waist with one hand, tilting my chin up with the other.
And then with my lips against her temple, I mutter, voice shaking, “You saved me.”
Kelly swallows hard. “I wasn’t letting him take you.”
“You remember us,” I whisper.
“I do.”
“Then remember this too,” I share not caring who is here. I need her to know Voice shaking, I admit, “I love you.”
Kelly blinks, breath catching, tears filling her eyes faster than I can stop them.
I didn’t plan to say it now.nIt came out of me the same way a dam breaks—too much pressure, too much rage, too much fear.
But once it’s in the air, neither of us can pretend it’s not real.
So I whisper, “I loved you before. I know I still do. I want a chance to make new memories with you, Sunshine.”