13. Reckoning
Bones
I t took four years to get here. Four fucking years of digging, chasing ghosts, watching leads dry up, waking up in cold sweats from dreams that felt more like memories, suffocating under the weight of what I did to her.
And now, I'm here.
The town is small, remote, hidden away in the fucking mountains where no one would think to look for her. It's no wonder it took so long to track her down. Silverpine is the perfect place to disappear.
Luca Romano had his new fancy hacker do some really shady shit to get the information. Nothing legal. Nothing clean. The kind of digital bloodletting that could put us all in prison if the wrong people ever found out. But I didn't care. I told him to do whatever it took. And in the end, it worked.
I found her. Temperance Brennan.
I let out a silent, bitter laugh, shaking my head. A final fuck you. That's what her new name is. A permanent, living reminder of what I did to her. It's cruel. It's perfect. It's so fucking Ely.
She was so careful with it, too. Never used her name online. Even for her business, she used a registered agent. Shielding herself.
I move through her home in silence, taking it all in. It's beautiful. Decorated exactly the way I knew she would. Warm colors, soft fabrics, touches of nature everywhere. There's no sign of the past she left behind. No remnants of the world I forced her to escape.
And then, I step into her bedroom.
The room is dark, but the moon spills through the window, silver light stretching across the hardwood floors, casting soft shadows over the bed where she sleeps. Peaceful, untouched, like nothing bad has ever reached her.
I know better.
She looks like a fucking dream.
Her hair is shorter now. She cut her dark blonde locks, probably trying to shed the last pieces of the woman I knew. The woman I ruined.
My chest tightens, a sharp, unbearable weight pressing against my ribs. I shouldn't be here. I know that.
But it's been four years of torment. Four years of not knowing if she was dead or alive. Four years of suffocating under the weight of my own fucking regret.
So I stay.
I find a chair in the corner of the room and lower myself into it, my heart pounding like a war drum in my chest. My hands clench against my thighs, every muscle in my body tight, coiled, ready for the reckoning that I know will come.
She's right there. Right fucking there.
And yet, she's still so far away.
My breathing is uneven, rough. I don't know what to expect. I don't know what the fuck I'll even say when she wakes up, when she sees me sitting here like some creep who broke into her home in the middle of the night just to get a glimpse of her.
But none of that matters right now. All that matters is that she's here.
She twitches.
My body goes still. My blood roars.
Then, suddenly, a gun is pointed at my fucking face.
She moves fast, ruthless, unforgiving, her aim deadly, her expression blank. Cold. Hard. Empty.
I swallow hard, my jaw locking. I feel like prey.
Ely
There's someone in my bedroom. Watching me. I feel it before I even see the shadow.
Every hair on my body stands on end, instinct screaming at me. My fingers twitch toward the gun under my pillow, my heartbeat steady even as my pulse slams against my ribs. I don't panic. I don't hesitate.
In one swift motion, I turn and aim. And my breath stops.
Bones is here.
In my fucking bedroom. In my home.
The sight of him is like a bullet to the chest. Painful, unexpected, lethal.
A smirk tugs at his lips, but his eyes tell a different story. He looks wrecked. Worn down. Like he's been running through hell and back.
"Surprised to see I'm not rotting away in prison?" His voice is low, taunting, but there's no real bite behind it. Just something broken.
I don't lower the gun. "No. Just disappointed."
His smirk falters, his throat working as he looks up at the ceiling like he's praying for patience. "Fair enough."
I inhale slowly, my grip steady. "Are you here to kill me for ratting you out? Because if so, I'll have you know I'll put a bullet between your eyes first. Your brothers can take me out after, doesn't matter. If I die, at least I take you with me."
His entire body stiffens, and then his eyes soften.
Fucking soften.
"I'm not here to kill you, Ely," he says, voice quieter now. "I couldn't, not even when I thought you betrayed me. I'm here to apologize. However you want it. In whatever way it takes for you to forgive me."
Something cold and dead twists inside me. Forgiveness. The word is almost laughable.
"Forgiveness is not an option. If you're not here to kill me, then why have you come?"
His jaw tightens. "Because I still love you, Ely."
A bitter laugh rips out of me before I can stop it. Sharp. Hollow. Painful. "It's all about you, isn't it? Well, I don't love you. Not anymore. I left you behind years ago, and I don't intend to go back. I have someone else now and it's him I love."
He exhales, slow and controlled, like he was expecting it. Like he's been rehearsing this moment in his head for years. Maybe he has.
"I know there's no one else. I got all the info before getting here. Lots of hook-ups," his eyes get dangerously dark, "but no one permanent."
Fuck. Of course he would be prepared.
He rises from the chair, and I pull the safety on my gun with a click that echoes in the silent room. If I shoot him right now, no one would hear. My house is far enough from the nearest neighbor that I could cut his body with a chainsaw into tiny pieces in my backyard and no one would see or hear a thing.
"Not one more step, Bones."
He stops dead.
Looks at me. Really looks at me.
And I see it then. Four years of grief. Four years of regret. Four years of hell, etched into every sharp line of his face.
"Please," he murmurs. "Just hear me out."
A shiver rolls down my spine. Déjà vu.
I tilt my head, eyes narrowing. "I seem to remember making the same plea once."
Bones flinches. Actually flinches.
"I fucked up, Ely," he says, voice wrecked. "I know I did. I've been dying inside for the last four years. Please talk to me. I can't let you go, you're my fucking soulmate. I know I'm selfish. I know I hurt you. But I'm coming for you anyway, baby. I'll tear through any wall, walk through fire, anything you need to just give me a second chance."
My chest constricts, but I force myself to stay cold, stay still. Stay fucking untouchable.
I tip my chin up. "Kneel."
His brows furrow. "What?"
"You heard me." I lift my gun slightly. "Beg. If you want anything from me, my forgiveness, my time, my mercy, then get on your fucking knees. Make it convincing. Or there's the door."
I motion toward it with my gun, watching as something flickers in his eyes. A storm, a war, the last thread of his pride snapping under the weight of what he lost.
For the first time in his life, Bones doesn't look like the ruthless, savage king of the Iron Vultures.
He looks desperate. Just for a moment.
I wait.
And he kneels. Proud, unflinching, unwavering.
He doesn't kneel like a man defeated, doesn't bow like he's breaking. His broad shoulders, carved from stone, don't slump. His head doesn't lower in shame. He kneels like a man giving his soul willingly, placing it at my feet, letting me decide if I'll stomp it into the ground. And fuck, I want to. The thought makes me giddy.
"I only ever kneel for you, baby," his voice is rough, wrecked, but steady. "And I only ever beg for you."
The gun in my hand doesn't waver, but something inside me does. The part of me that remembers the good before the ruin. Before the branding, the betrayal, the fucking exile. I stomp on that feeling and kill it with every bit of rage I have.
"You want to hear me say it?" he rasps. "I am so fucking sorry. I was wrong, Ely. I was so fucking wrong. I tore my own goddamn heart out when I broke yours. And when my head was clear again, I knew I would spend every minute, every hour, every day trying to find you." He drags in a ragged breath, his chest rising and falling, but his gaze never leaves mine. Not for a second.
"I can't move on. I can't forget you. I can't do it even if I try. But I would never want to try. No matter if it's four years, forty years, or four hundred years, I will always come for you. Because I will always love you. You're it for me. You were then, and you still are now."
My heart rips open.
I clench my jaw, anger swelling like a storm. Why now? Why the fuck couldn't he have said this when it mattered? When I was screaming his name, pleading for him to see me, to believe me.
I rise from the bed and step closer to him, the barrel of my gun barely an inch from his chest. He looks up at me like he's worshipping a goddess. "What the fuck are you thinking, Bones? After all these years? After everything? You really think you can just waltz in here and say all this shit like it changes a goddamn thing?" My voice shakes with rage. With something darker. Something bitter and vicious.
He doesn't flinch. Doesn't cower.
"I don't think it changes the past, Ely." His voice is soft but firm, steady like the man I fell in love with, the same man who fucking broke me. "I just know it doesn't change how I feel about you."
A sharp laugh bursts from my lips, my grip tightening on the gun. My hands are shaking. Fuck.
"Why?" I whisper, seething, spitting fire. "Why couldn't you be like this when it mattered? Why couldn't you show your love that night? Why now, on your knees, on my fucking bedroom floor?"
He swallows hard, his throat working. "Because I was a coward. Because I let fear, pride, and duty blind me. I've paid for it every goddamn day since."
I see it in his eyes. The regret. The torment. But it's not enough.
It will never be enough. Rage like never before tears through me.
Before I know it, my finger squeezes the trigger.
A gunshot rips through the room. Loud. Deafening. Final.
Bones grunts, his body jerking back, his shoulder blooming red as the bullet tears through muscle. I freeze.
He exhales sharply, staggering but catching himself, his hand pressing against the wound. Blood spills between his fingers, dripping onto the floor.
I expect him to rage. To curse, to break something, to show me his wrath.
But he doesn't. He just stands there, eyes dark, wild, and so fucking unbreakable. His lips curl into something almost amused. Almost proud.
He wipes a stray drop of blood from his lower lip, still holding his shoulder. "That all you got, baby? Give me more, I can take it."
A tremor rolls through me, my chest heaving. I want to scream. I want to claw him out of my life, out of my soul, out of each of my rotten memories.
But he's here. And he won't stop.
He takes a shaky breath, gives me a knowing look, then nods. "I'll leave you alone."
I blink. What?
His gaze holds mine. Smoldering. Dangerous.
"For tonight."
I feel the words like a tornado inside my chest. For tonight.
Because he's not backing down. He never fucking backs down.
"You don't get to do this," I hiss, voice shaking. "You don't get to chase me down and throw your heart at my feet like I should give a shit."
"I do," he says, voice like a promise, like a curse. "And I will."
I lift my chin, eyes burning into his. "You'll regret ever coming after me, Bones."
His smirk deepens, dark and knowing. "Maybe. But I'd rather regret chasing you than spend another second regretting letting you go."
I hate him.
I hate that part of me still feels something for his stupid face. A tiny part, but it's still too much!
My jaw tightens. "You have a club to run. Get your fucking mind straight, because I will never move back to the place where I lived my worst nightmare. And I'll never forgive you. Or your fucking brothers!"
He nods, slow and calculated, like he's letting me have this moment. Like he's letting me think I've won.
But the way he looks at me, wrecked and determined and so relentless, tells me everything I need to know.
He rises slowly from the bedroom floor, his movement measured, like every muscle in his body is resisting the act of leaving. Like leaving me is its own kind of pain.
I grip the gun harder, tracking his ascent, my breath locked tight in my chest. The bastard towers over me again. The way he always did. Commanding, dangerous, all-consuming.
His gaze flickers down, and I brace for whatever bullshit he's about to say. But then he stops. His eyes fix on my neck.
A sharp breath rips through him, like someone just shoved a blade between his ribs.
Then, without a word, he lets go of his wounded shoulder and reaches out. His fingers touch my throat.
My skin burns under the warmth of his hand, but it's nothing compared to the sensation that follows. He traces the scar there, slow and reverent. And fuck — he leaves a smear of blood in its wake. His blood.
I shudder with rage, but before I can shoot him again, he lets his arm drop.
I expect him to say something, anything. But when I look into his eyes, I see it. His eyes are misting over.
I almost recoil because I don't know this version of him. I know the man who showed me eight months of bliss. And I know the ruthless man who branded me and then watched as I was dragged to my own personal hell.
But this? This is something different.
His breathing turns ragged, his broad chest rising and falling unevenly. And then his gaze drops lower. Lower.
To my right arm.
To his mark.
TRAITOR.
Or what's left of it. Reborn into something tragically beautiful.
I see the second it guts him.
His Adam's apple bobs, and his fingers twitch like he wants to touch that too. Like he wants to trace over what he did to me.
He doesn't.
Instead, his voice comes out low, wrecked and raw.
"You took my ugliness and made it into something beautiful." His throat works again. "Exquisite, just like you."
I don't move. Don't breathe.
Because I can see him break and I have no idea how he's going to react next.
But he just turns around and walks away.
I'm going to fucking destroy him. I need to make a plan.