Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
SADIE
After his meddling in my life, I should have been more upset.
But once again, I couldn’t get the phantom touch of his lips against mine out of my head.
The moment he’d kissed me again, I was willing to surrender my soul to him, even if he didn’t want it.
It was a fact that Rowan Knight wrecked me.
He kept crashing into me and leaving me to pick up the pieces.
The man was cruel. He was seriously messing with my heart when he kissed me like I meant something to him. Like I meant more than just his brother’s best friend.
It was almost pathetic, how badly I wanted to see him.
Just as I had done as a teenager. Even then, I used to wait for him to hit the yard to work out.
I’d watch from the window, hiding behind my lace curtains like a coward, embarrassed by how desperate I was.
How many times had I sat there, stealing glances at him when he wasn’t looking?
So, where the hell was he? He’d told me seven, and the time was ticking closer to it. Two minutes, to be precise.
Rowan. Rowan. Rowan. His name played on repeat in my mind, the only prayer I ever seemed to whisper.
Every thought always circled back to him.
I hated how much he’d become such an obsession.
He didn’t have to swing a blade to cut me.
He already knew where to aim. I was becoming attached, and I was trying my darndest to not show that on my face.
My attitude was the only sense of amour I had, so I was clinging to it like a damn lifeline. It just wasn’t very good at keeping me afloat. Maybe I was a masochist, sitting there with only one minute to go, waiting for him to show and wreck me all over again.
The time hit 7:02 p.m. The walls pressed closer with every passing second. I shot off the bed and paced once before heading to the window, as though the movement could undo the waiting. I hooked a finger around the curtain and yanked it back. Nothing had changed.
The lights in Rowan’s house were still off, the entire place swallowed in the same silence that used to devour me whole.
I knew that silence, that emptiness—it haunted me for years.
At that moment, I was the same kid chasing any scrap of his attention, ignoring the way his absence always loomed larger than his presence.
My phone rang out, its shrill tone cutting through the static in my head. Jasmine’s name flashed up on the screen, and I smiled, despite the tension in my body, and jabbed at the answer button.
I placed the phone to my ear. “Hey Ja?—”
“Sadie.” She cut me off, her voice high-pitched and on edge. “You need to get to the clubhouse.”
The world around me halted, the air gone, my heart a wild thing trying to escape my chest.
“What?” My voice was too loud in the quiet room, desperate and raw. “Why? What the hell happened?”
Jasmine sobbed, every breath muffled. “It’s Rowan. He’s been shot, Sades. You need to come quick.”
A flurry of voices could be heard in the background, a terrible soundtrack to her fear.
The phone went dead. Either Jasmine had hung up, or I had.
I wasn’t entirely sure. I stared at the screen for a long minute.
If I stared at it long enough, maybe Jasmine would have called back to tell me it was all some big fucking joke.
My mind replayed her words.
Rowan had been shot.
Rowan had been shot.
Fuck! Rowan had been shot.
Her voice had been nothing but raw panic, frayed at the edges with something close to finality. A finality that brought me back to the reason I’d run from this town. All I could see behind my eyelids was Logan hanging from his ceiling fan.
Was this going to be another one of those times when I lost a man I loved?
My hands trembled. My heart slammed against my ribcage like it was trying to punch its way out. It was a ruthless, unstoppable thing as it crashed through every barrier I put up to control it. I couldn’t lose Rowan. Not for good. I wouldn’t survive it.
My brain finally kicked into gear, and I darted out of my room, down the stairs, and jumped into my car parked in the driveway. I needed to get to the clubhouse. I needed to get to him before it was too late.
I barely remembered how I got there. Headlights streaked past like ghosts. My grip on the wheel was too tight, slick with sweat. My mind spun in frantic circles, each thread pulling tighter than the last.
Everything felt so damn familiar, like I’d done it a thousand times before. After my mum, after Logan, after every single goodbye that came way too soon. This couldn’t be another time I was too late. It just couldn’t.
I swiped at my tears and came to an abrupt stop in the parking lot of the club, tyres screeching.
Before I’d even cut the engine, I was shoving my door open. My hands trembled as I snatched the keys from the ignition and darted inside, leaving everything behind—including my sanity. My phone hit the ground somewhere behind me, but I didn’t stop to pick it up or even look back.
The clubhouse was eerily quiet, like the calm before a storm.
It pressed down on me, a heavy weight that made it hard to breathe.
My gaze darted around the empty bar room, my breaths coming shallow and fast. The room was dark but tinged with red from the EXIT sign, the shadows stretching like veins of blood across the floor.
Oh god. What if I was too late? What if . . .
Jasmine raced towards me, closing the distance fast. Her face was blotchy, her eyes swollen and red as tears streamed down her face. She slammed into me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders.
“They’re—he’s—Sades, I can’t, oh god. It’s really bad.” That’s all she could say, her voice breaking.
I could almost physically feel the snap of it.
A muffled scream splintered the silence. It came from somewhere at the back of the clubhouse—deep and full of pain. I knew it all too well.
Rowan.
Jasmine sobbed into my hair, her entire body trembling .
I gripped onto her with everything I had. “Where is he?” It was all I could say. All I could think of.
If this was the last time I’d ever see him, I was going to tell him I loved him, that I’d loved him since I was thirteen years old. That I never stopped loving him and I didn’t want to pretend with him—I wanted to feel everything with him for real.
Jasmine pulled back, and swiped at her tears, while I tried to keep mine from destroying me. It was Logan’s ceiling fan all over again. Only this time, I was watching it unfold in real-time. I didn’t know if that was worse or better.
She pointed down the hall, her voice raw. “He’s been asking for you. Come on. I’ll take you to him.”
My heart lurched, desperate and wild in my chest. The words rang hollow, too fragile to be real. Rowan had been asking for me? The universe was laughing at me at that point, giving me what I’d always wanted with one hell of a catch—he might be taken from me before I’d even had him.
My legs were jelly beneath me, and a static buzzing had set up in my head as Jasmine pulled me by the hand, dragging me down the never-ending hallway.
Each step stretched it further, until Rowan’s screams pressed against my skull, echoing louder and more desperate until it filled every inch of space. Every inch of me.
I couldn’t breathe.
My bottom lip trembled, my entire body shaking.
I was barely keeping myself upright when Jasmine paused in front of a door at the end of the hallway and squeezed my hand.
I swallowed against the bile rising in my throat and blinked through the tears clouding my vision.
She knocked, but I couldn’t hear it over the sound of my blood rushing through my ears.
Footsteps approached from the other side, and the door swung open. Bear stood in the open doorway. His white T-shirt now stained bright red.
My hand flew to my mouth, and the first tear of many rolled down my cheek. “Oh my god,” I mumbled behind my hand, stumbling backwards. He was barely recognisable beneath the mess of red that stained his clothes and arms. “Is that—where’s Rowan?”
Was that Rowan’s blood? Or was it someone else’s? There was so much. How could anyone have survived losing it all?
Bear swiped his wrist across his nose and stepped back. “He’s been asking for you, Sades.” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat like that might force the pain down. He placed a hand on my shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “He’s not in a good way.”
Each word was like a fist to my gut. He didn’t need to spell it out for me.
All I could manage was a nod, but even that was like wading through water, heavy and slow. I pressed my lips together. It was the only way I could stop the sob that was threatening to tear from my throat and shatter into a million pieces.
“Is he . . .” I swallowed, the words catching in my throat. “Is he going to die?”
There was no way I was ready to hear the answer.
Not again. Please . . . not this time.
Bear’s gaze shot past me, his dark eyes vacant. The silence stretched out, each second a new brand of torture.
Finally, he exhaled, long and slow. All I wanted was for him to tell me the truth. Was I going to lose Rowan the way I’d lost Logan?
He was dragging out the seconds, and I was close to grabbing him by the shirt and demanding he answer me. I didn’t care if it destroyed him to say it—I needed it. Needed the truth like oxygen.
With glassy eyes and an unspoken apology hanging between us, he lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know.” His voice was gruff, but I didn’t miss the sympathy in it. “Come on. You can see him.”
My breath came out as a strangled mess. I didn’t know how I was still standing, let alone moving, but I followed Bear as he led me across the small room to another door on the opposite side.
He flattened his palm against the wood, jaw clenched, clinging to the moment like it might snap under pressure.