Chapter 25 Ledger
Twenty-Five
Ledger
Some ghosts stay buried. Some find their way out of the dark. Some you carry like a shrapnel wound.
I awake after a night of sleep like I haven’t experienced since childhood. The peace of not holding back with Kelly is something I can’t describe.
She’s here, in my arms, not going anywhere. Jonas drugged her causing the memory loss and she is indeed getting the pieces back little bits at a time.
Chux text and it’s time I make my way to the holding cell.
As the full Alabama Kings are ready to descend to support if needed, it is time to get to the bottom of the threat posed by Jonas Greene and make decisions.
We have ten chapters in Alabama alone and hundreds worldwide with Kings of Anarchy in every single state of the United States.
We are a band of brothers who will rise together and fall together.
But I don’t want to drag anyone else into this if we can clean it up on our own. I’ve already been to two different chapters compounds, clubhouse, or safehouses during this time with Kelly. I’m ready to finish this bullshit with Jonas, my past, and get back to life in Freedom Falls.
I always thought the illegal shit we run through the port would be my undoing not a situation from my past that I do not regret.
That is the thing. I know what Jonas is angry about. I know why he’s here. I thought he had enough sense to understand why I did what I did all those years ago.
Because the fact of the matter is, I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Only now, I would put him in the ground beside his brother rather than give him an opportunity to even breathe on the same planet as me.
I walk into the basement room where the man who has turned my world upside down sits tied to a chair on a concrete floor, blood dried all over his face and arms. His clothes sticking to him from the wounds he sustained.
One eye is swollen shut and his lip is busted where a tooth came through just under the bottom lip.
I had a shower with Kelly. One where she washed the sins of who I am down the drain and we gave ourselves to each other over and over before finally falling asleep in the safety of each other.
The man in front of me used to matter. He was someone I would have taken a bullet for. Now he is nothing but a problem in need of a solution.
I have the answer.
The look in his eyes is unique. Not fear. Not pain. Pure hatred.
Rage.
Jonas Greene’s voice cuts like a knife straight to my soul. “You can kill me,” he says. “But she’s marked now. You know how this works, Ledger.”
Every muscle tightens.
Inside the room, Shaft stands behind him with crossed arms. Nitro leans against a wall, arms folded. Chux studies Greene like he's a puzzle he wants to break open.
Greene lifts his head. He smiles with missing teeth. I lunge.
Chux slams an arm across my chest. “Not yet.”
Greene laughs a wet, broken sound. “She’s not safe. Not now. Not ever. Because Ledger Masters finally showed the world what he cares about.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I growl.
But Greene keeps going. “You think I’m the only one looking for you?” he taunts. “For her? You think I’m your only enemy. Someone’s always watching the Kings. And now they know exactly how to break you.”
A cold wave washes over me.
Chux steps forward. “Unless you give us names, Greene, this ends with you in a shallow hole.”
Greene smirks. “Names won’t matter. Not when the girl dies. I called in my contacts. Whether I’m breathing or not, I made sure your weaknesses are known.”
I snap surging forward, shoving Chux aside. Nitro and Shaft grab me instantly, pulling me back by force.
“Riot,” Chux barks. “Stand down. We need him alive.” He pauses, “for a moment.”
Greene watches him with quiet cruelty.
“You couldn’t protect her then,” Greene whispers. “You all think you are untouchable. But I found your weakness in the women you fuck.”
The world tilts into clarity.
Greene snarls. “Sentimental nonsense will get all the ones you love killed.”
I let out a maniacal laugh before I lay it out for him.
“That’s your mistake. You think love was weakness.
You’re wrong. Loving her makes me dangerous because motherfucker it makes me lose my mind.
And Jonas, it’s the thing that’s going to destroy you.
” I smirk, “because we know that you know just what crazy does.”
Chux lifts his brows. Shaft whistles. Nitro mutters, “Damn.”
Greene lunges against his restraints. “YOU—”
I cut him off, voice low and deadly steady.
“You didn’t steal her from me. You gave me clarity and gave me a future I didn’t feel worthy of. Every time I kiss her, I fuck her, I taste her it’s going to be even sweeter knowing you thought you had me and you never had a damn thing in your useless life.”
But Greene’s voice cuts through the air like a blade. Soft. Cruel. Deliberate.
“You think she’s safe now?” he whispers. “Ledger, your past runs deeper than me. You killed someone who mattered.”
I freeze. Everything is cold. Still.
“What brother?” Mellow demands.
Greene smiles through blood. “Oh, now what a memory the Masters’ brothers have kept buried long before he met her.”
A new silence floods the room.
One too heavy.
One too full of dread.
When Jonas Greene says the word brother, the world narrows like someone cinched a belt around my ribs.
My vision tunnels. My breath stalls. Heat builds behind my sternum in a slow, suffocating wave.
Not again. Not here.
Mellow steps forward. “What brother? Name.” Because he thinks it could be an enemy club. No, that isn’t the kind of brother Jonus is referring to.
Greene only smiles bloody, broken, pleased with the devastation he just detonated inside me.
“Ledger knows,” he croons.
“Quit speaking in riddles,” Shafts snaps.
Greene tilts his head toward me. “Tell them, Ledger. Or Damian can.”
I close my eyes, inhale once, slow and jagged, then exhale the truth like poison. “I killed a man,” I state.
The room goes silent but not in the shock kind of way more like stupefied.
“Everyone here has,” Stunt mutters.
But Greene shakes his head slowly with a proud smirk. “Not like this.”
“His name was Adrian Greene.”
Greene’s one good eye gleams. “My brother.”
A beat. Another.
“He was trained with us,” I share. “Military contract work. No oversight. No rules. The kind of jobs that leave scars where skin can’t show them.”
Greene barks a laugh. “That’s one way to say it.”
I ignore him. I force the memories out before they choke me.
“Adrian was unstable,” I explain. “Mean. Violent. Would’ve killed civilians if they got in the way. Hell, he did once. And when he snapped on a mission, he had to be stopped.”
Greene snarls. “You murdered him. You slit his throat in the dirt and left him there. He was unarmed, unprepared, and you slaughtered him.”
I get halfway to him before three hands slam into my chest, pushing me back.
“Easy,” Chux warns.
I breathe hard enough my ribs ache. “Because he tried to kill a family,” I rasp. “A woman and her kid. They wandered into a target area by mistake. He thought it would be fun to clean up loose ends.”
“I told him to stand down,” I continue. “He laughed. Said he was going to rape her corpse and make her kid watch. I did what had to be done.”
Greene jerks against his restraints. “You slit his throat like an animal!”
“He was an animal!” I roar back.
“Afterward,” I state, “the target retrieved his body. Jonas was already ghost because he watched me end him, even though I didn’t know it at the time.
He set things up for it to look like Adrian died in an explosion so the contract would pay out more.
He knew what really happened. I let him make the play so his mother didn’t have to know what her son had become.
He was supposed to stay dead to me since I agreed to protect his brother’s legacy.
But he didn’t. He lived. And he’s been watching me ever since apparently. ”
Greene smirks. “The brother you stole. The future you stole.”
Shaft studies Greene and then looks to me. “He wants to break you. Don’t let him.”
Chux slams his fist onto the metal table. “Enough.”
Nitro gives a signal and Chux swirls a finger up in the air. “We got what we need. Shaft, Nitro move him.”
Greene is hauled to his feet, still sneering. “You think this ends with me?” he spits. “Ledger took Adrian. And then he joined the Kings. You all have your own enemies. I just lit a new fire for them to come for all of you.”
Before anyone can react, Nitro shoves a gag into his mouth, ending the taunts. They drag him down the hall. His boots scrape. Metal clatters.
Then silence.
Mellow looks at me. “You’re in too deep. Nitro and I have a chat. When the time comes to end it, you can be there, or you can be clean of it. Make the call.”
I look the man in the eyes, “I end him. He touched what is mine.”
Mellow nods, “Nitro is confident no one is tied to him. He actually ran through all of his resources and took on a bunch of debt in this time watching you and planning. Chux will bring you in once we finish.”
With that he walks out and I’m left full of fury but also a peace that this is all going to be over soon.
It’s roughly an hour later when I get the nod from Chux to go to the space they have Jonas held.
Walking in, the aroma of urine, feces, and bleach assault my nose.
His eyes are red and completely closed as snot runs out of his nose.
He is stripped down to his underwear with blood running down his chest and arms from superficial cuts.
Mellow looks at me. “We are confident he worked alone.”
I look at the man I once considered a brother.
“You deserve this death. Tell your brother, I’ll see him in Hell too.
” I move over with Mellow stepping up beside me.
I put my blade under his neck just below his ear.
I begin to cut feeling his flesh part under the pressure as he screams. The first layer is pouring blood, but I didn’t end him yet.
I go to make the second swipe when Mellow crouches low in front of Jonas’s chair. “Your daughter is a beautiful young woman, Jonas Greene.”
Jonas’s eyes grow wide. “Smart play letting her use her mother’s maiden name.
Even more clever was paying child support through a dummy company.
But you still fucked up. Because there is always a trail.
You wanted to play dirty. Just know with your last breaths, Lucy is going to be watched and well cared for by the Kings.
I’m going to personally make sure of it. ”
Before Jonas can reply, I take the blade and make the cut that goes deep. Cutting his vocal chords and arteries the blood covers Mellow’s face as he watches the life drain from Jonas Greene’s eyes.
I look to Mellow as he stands straight up. “You made a vow in blood, brother.” I state the obvious while having a new appreciation for the man.
“No man goes after anyone under King’s protection. Even in his death, he needs to know he left his family vulnerable.”
It makes me an asshole to know that Mellow is serious about Lucy and making sure to still have the power over any enemy even in death and actually be happy about it.
“I’m gonna have fun with this one, brother. She’s young and impressionable. College and shit getting an education. Too bad her father didn’t give her the school of life because I’m going to wreck hers.”
I can only smirk and give a nod. Mellow is a calculated man who will no doubt fuck with Lucy and make sure she knows what a piece of shit her dad was. But no matter how much he may toy with her head, he won’t put her in physical danger like Jonas did to Kelly.
That’s the thing about this life I live, there are casualties in love and in war. Kelly almost became one, and now Lucy is going to have to learn the lesson for her father.
No one fucks with the Kings.
We reign down generational curses.