Chapter Nine #2
That woman never existed. Survival stayed my only truth. A runner. Alone. Always hunted.
I sat at the edge of the bed and held a pen over blank paper. Words refused to come at first. How could I explain the one action Ace begged me not to take? I wrote three notes before settling on the simplest version I could manage:
I won’t let him destroy everything you love. This fight belongs to me, not you. I’m sorry.
The sentence carried only a fraction of everything I wanted to say. Nothing on the page showed real gratitude. Nothing hinted at how deeply I cared. Nothing admitted I had fallen in love and walked away because loving him demanded sacrifice.
I set the note on a pillow. My hands smoothed the paper so he would see the message first thing.
Standing took effort. My backpack felt heavier than anything I’d ever carried. I walked toward the door, paused on the threshold, and looked back.
Unmade bed. Dresser drawer cleared of my clothes. The bathroom mirror where Ace stood behind me once and whispered I was safe. The kitchen where we made coffee shoulder to shoulder in quiet comfort.
No place ever felt like home before this one.
I left because love demanded protection, even when protection meant breaking myself.
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I closed the door.
The lock clicked loud enough to echo in my bones.
Cool morning air hit my face and carried a faint trace of smoke from the bar.
I kept moving. Fast. Head lowered. I got into my car and hoped no one would try to stop me from leaving. I didn’t need questions or obstacles.
The motel on the outskirts of town came into view under full sunlight. My face had dried, although pain still carved itself deep under my ribs. I paid cash, gave a false name, and locked the door once I entered the room. A plain bed waited across bland carpet. I sat and let grief swallow me whole.
* * *
I found her jacket on my couch. Auxiliary leather folded sharp, my name stitched across the back as if she wanted the threat printed right between my ribs.
I moved through the house and looked into the bedroom.
On top of my pillow sat a sheet of notebook paper, torn from one of her little grocery lists.
Four sentences written in her tight handwriting:
I won’t let him destroy everything you love. This fight belongs to me, not you. I’m sorry.
Nothing else. No signature. No promise. Just goodbye.
Cold hit first. Then heat. Then something sharp and hollow that didn’t feel like rage or grief, but something worse -- helplessness.
My house felt wrong without her. Too quiet.
Too still. The air held the memory of her breathing, and her absence punched through me harder than any fist I’d ever taken.
She’d slipped away without anyone noticing. I checked the bathroom anyway. Then the kitchen. Then the laundry room. Each step drove the point deeper until my chest hurt.
My bike sat outside, but her car was gone. She hadn’t taken anything of mine for the road. No protection. The cash I’d left on the counter was still there. I picked up the jacket, and her scent -- vanilla lotion, my damn soap -- hit so hard I grabbed the back of the couch before I fell.
I didn’t think. I called Atilla.
“She’s gone,” I said. “She left a note.”
He didn’t ask questions. Didn’t tell me to calm down.
Promised he was coming and hung up. Five minutes later the rumble of his bike rolled down the drive, steady and familiar.
I stepped outside before he even killed the engine.
His gaze locked on the jacket in my hand, then the paper I’d brought with me and dropped on the table.
“When?” he asked.
“I don’t know. She was gone when I got here.” The shame scraped both sides of my throat. I should have known she would run. “She thinks disappearing protects us.”
Engines sounded from down the street before he answered. Spade and General pulled in first, Kane right behind them. One look at my face and the jacket told them everything they needed.
We didn’t waste time. We rode straight to the clubhouse.
Movement kept me upright. Brothers filed in while I paced like a caged dog. Maui and Casey stepped inside next, then Ravager and Rebel. Wildcard. Knuckles. The air thickened with intent until the room felt too small for the amount of determination inside it.
“She thinks if she’s not here then Mercer will stop coming after us,” I said. My voice carried across the room without effort. “She thinks the fight belongs to her.”
General leaned near the jukebox, arms folded tight. “Mercer will take her, and there’s a good chance he’ll leave once he has what he wants.”
Maui cleared his throat. “Or he could still see Ace as a threat. In the past, maybe he’d have left with her. But this time it’s different. Marci has someone important in her life.”
Nobody argued. Maui was right. I didn’t think Mercer would leave me alone.
Spade set up his laptop on the table. His fingers stalled at nothing, moving across keys faster than anyone else in the room could think. “Pulling motel cameras, street feeds, security footage. Anything within forty miles.”
Kane didn’t wait. “I’ll hit cheap motels. She needed a place to disappear.”
Maui pointed toward the door. “Truck stops and the bus depot. Somebody always sees something.”
I stayed where I was, useless, watching other men move because my brain couldn’t do anything but replay that note. This fight belongs to me, not you. She believed that bullshit. She believed he’d leave us alone if she was no longer here. She still didn’t understand what her life meant to this club.
Time slowed hard. Phone calls rolled in, none helpful. Kane reported nothing at Sunrise or Travel Lodge. Maui struck out at the depot. I called her cell over and over, voicemail every time, battery off or tossed somewhere she couldn’t hear it. Either option felt like a knife.
“Ace.”
Spade said my name like a command. My boots carried me across the room before I realized I moved. The laptop screen showed grainy black-and-white footage from a motel parking lot. Timestamp 6:47 a.m. A small figure in a hoodie crossed the frame. Slumped posture. Defeat in every line of her body.
Marci.
“Eastside Motor Inn,” Spade said. “Twenty miles east.”
Brothers crowded behind me. We watched her stop near the edge of the frame and wrap her arms around herself like bracing for impact. She didn’t look around for us. She already made her peace with her decision.
Then a black sedan slid into view.
My stomach flipped. I knew that car. He’d parked it across from the bar when he strutted in and threatened the club. Same windows. Same arrogance.
Mercer stepped out.
He slowly walked toward her, savoring every inch of his advantage. She looked up. I saw the flinch when he touched her arm. He leaned in, said something designed to break her spine from the inside. Her head dipped. Shoulders tightened. She didn’t fold, but she didn’t fight either.
He motioned to the sedan. She hesitated. Looked right at the surveillance camera. Her eyes told the whole message -- regret, apology, love, goodbye. She got in the car. It pulled away. Screen returned to an empty lot.
“Again,” I said.
Spade replayed it. Rage swelled until breathing tasted metallic. She’d run because she thought she could protect us by dying alone if the bastard caught her.
“We go now,” General said. “Follow the car. Track the trail.”
“He expects that,” Spade answered. “He wants us charging in blind.”
My fist slammed the table. “So we let him keep her?”
“No,” Atilla said, voice quiet enough to take the whole room down a level. “We move smart.”
I stared at the frozen frame of her looking up at the camera. I knew exactly what she thought -- If I leave, he’ll let them live. I also knew she was wrong.
My hand already had my phone before the thought fully formed.
“Ace --” General snapped.
I put in Mercer’s number and hit dial.
Shouts erupted. Atilla moved toward me to take the phone. Spade swore. Rebel cursed my sanity. I turned away from all of them and put the call to my ear.
Mercer answered, every inch of his voice smug.
“You want me,” I said. “Not her.”
He didn’t speak at first. I let that silence stretch because I knew men like him. Power for them wasn’t the kill -- it was making somebody crawl.
“I trade myself for Marci,” I continued. “Set the place. Set the rules. She walks.”
He laughed. Long. Pleased. Then cut the laugh short. “You think noble sacrifices impress me?”
“No,” I said, steady. “You want a statement. Breaking me means more than breaking her. You already knew that.”
Quiet breathing. Consideration. Interest.
“Where?” I pushed.
“Old quarry off Highway Twelve,” he said. “You know it.”
“I know it.”
“Warehouses right across from it. Midnight. You come alone. No phone. No backup. No toys from your hacker. She waits there before you show. You take her place and we finish this. One sign of a lie, she pays.”
“I’ll be there.”
He hung up.
I lowered the phone. Silence hit harder than noise.
“You will not go alone,” Atilla said.
“I will.”
“Bullshit,” General snapped. “Mercer most likely set a trap and expects you to walk in.”
“If that’s the cost,” I said, “I pay it. She walks.”
Voices rose around me -- arguments, strategy, curses. I barely heard any of it. My mind already stood in the vicinity of the quarry, gravel under my boots, moon above my head, pistol to my temple or knife to my throat, whatever he wanted.
I didn’t care.
Marci walked into that car thinking she could save all of us. I refused to let her die in the belief that she was alone.
Midnight waited.
She’d come home, even if I didn’t.