Blaze POV
We’ve lost Dylan, entirely. Whatever phone he was messaging me from can’t be fucking traced. I spent all night and day searching but I can’t find him.
I’ve checked his apartment but he hasn’t gone back there. Glitch has been working to try and find out as well and that has me anxious.
“Declan wouldn’t kill him,” Ghost says.
“How do you know? He’s fucking vanished.” I rub my face. I should have ran after him yesterday and ignored his father. I would have known where he went.
“Look, he’s going to show up.”
“If he’s alive,” I snap.
“Always so dramatic,” Titan chuckles and I flip him off.
My phone buzzes and I grab it. I stare at the number and open the message.
“After the fuck up, figured you should know your boyfriend is highly drunk, I’ll keep an eye on him until you get here.”
“Grim has him,” I mutter.
“Grim?” Knox laughs. “He went to Grim?”
“No, I think Grim just found him drunk.” I type out a message asking where he is, and get the name of a hotel an hour away. “I need to take a car.”
Sure I can go on my bike but my hand fucking kills, and if Dylan is drunk, I can’t hold him on the bike as well.
Echo throws keys to me that I catch and I leave. When I get outside the hotel I walk straight up to the room and open the door. I’m not going to shout at him, I know he needed time.
Stepping into the room my body tenses, and I pull Grim back. He staggers half naked.
Dylan sways and I grab his throat, not hard but enough to hold him up.
“Keep an eye on him?” I snap.
“Hey, he came onto me, I tried to stop him, he stripped me, I’m just saying,” Grim says while smirking.
“Oh and you just went along with it?”
“B-blaze,” Dylan stutters.
“Not now!” I snap and look at Grim. “He’s fucking wasted.”
“Not wasted enough to struggle stripping me clearly,” he laughs as he finishes pulling on his clothes.
“B-blaze.”
“No!” I snap, not looking at Dylan. “You knew not to fucking touch him.”
“Maybe listen to Blaze,” Grim says.
“How about stop trying to change the damn conversation—” my words end when I feel something wet hit my hand and sound of Dylan retching.
Turning, he’s passed out, his body leaning into my hand, and there’s vomit all over me. “Just leave,” I snap without looking at Grim.
“With pleasure,” Grim laughs and walks out. Sighing, I drag Dylan to the bed and lie him down. He fucking threw up on me, great.
I stand there for a moment, staring at him. He’s completely out, breathing slow and heavy, his face pale and sweaty. The room smells like alcohol and vomit, and I can see the empty bottles on the nightstand. He must have been drinking all day.
I sigh and grab a towel from the bathroom, cleaning myself up as best I can. Then I sit on the edge of the bed and look at him. His hair is a mess, his clothes are half off, and he looks so small and broken right now.
I should be angry. I should be furious that he got this drunk and tried to fuck Grim. But all I feel is this heavy, aching worry in my chest. He’s been through hell. His father basically disowned him, he lost everything, and I walked away when he needed me most.
I reach out and brush some hair from his face. He stirs slightly but doesn’t wake up.
“I’m here,” I whisper, even though he can’t hear me. “I’m not going anywhere this time.”
I lie down beside him, careful not to jostle him too much, and pull the covers over both of us. He shifts in his sleep and curls into my side, his head resting on my chest.
I wrap an arm around him and close my eyes.
We’ll figure this out tomorrow.
For now, he needs to sleep, and I need to be here when he wakes up.
I don’t sleep. I just lie there in the dark, watching him breathe, the slow rise and fall of his chest the only thing keeping me grounded. I knew he needed space after everything his father dropped on him, time to let the betrayal sink in and break him apart. But this wasn’t space.
This was him running scared, drowning himself in bottle after bottle until he couldn’t feel anything anymore, until he was willing to let Grim’s hands on him just to forget.
He might have lost his shot at taking over the family, but he hasn’t lost everything. Not while I’m still here, still breathing, still refusing to walk away.
The room stays quiet for hours, the cheap lamp casting long shadows across his pale face. Every small twitch, every soft groan in his sleep pulls at something deep in my chest.
My hand aches like hell, my ribs burn with every shift, but none of it touches the heavier ache of seeing him like this, wrecked, lost, and so damn alone he reached for the wrong person.
It’s early morning when he finally stirs.
A low groan slips out as he rolls over, face pressing into the pillow like he’s trying to hide from the daylight.
His hand fumbles blindly across the sheets toward the nightstand, fingers searching for another drink on pure instinct.
I lean over fast and snatch the bottle away before he can grab it.
He jolts hard, eyes flying open in panic as he scrambles backward and tumbles right off the edge of the bed with a dull thud.
“W-w-w-what the fuck?” His voice cracks, raw and thick. When his gaze finally lands on me, his eyes widen even more, shock and confusion flooding across his face.
“Oh, let me guess,” I say quietly, sitting up, “you don’t remember much of last night?”
“H-h-h-h-how did you g-get here?” The stutter is heavier than usual, tripping over itself, exposing every raw nerve he’s trying to hide.
“Your friend Grim let me know where you were.” I keep my tone even, swallowing the sharper edge I want to throw at him about Grim. As much as I want to taunt him, as much as the image of them together burns, he already looks like he’s barely holding it together. “Forget it for now. Get on the bed.”
“W-w-w-what?”
“I said get up off the damn floor and back on the bed.”
He glances around the room, disoriented, chest heaving like he’s waiting for the floor to drop out from under him again. Slowly, on shaky legs, he pushes himself up and climbs back onto the mattress, sitting on the very edge.
His hands twist in the sheets, shoulders hunched, and he won’t quite look at me. The silence stretches between us, heavy with everything we haven’t said yet.
“How are you feeling?” I ask quietly, watching the way his shoulders stay tense. “Clearly not good. I’ve never heard your stutter this bad before.”
His eyes flick around the room, darting from the floor to the wall, anywhere but at me. The shame creeps across his face, coloring his cheeks as he curls in on himself a little more, like my words just piled another weight onto his back.
“Dylan, you need to answer me.” I knew the shit with his father would hit him hard, but I didn’t expect this, him looking so completely wrecked, like every piece of him was barely holding together.
He stays silent, jaw tight, fingers digging into the sheets. Is it because I mentioned the stutter? The thought twists in my chest. “You know I don’t care about you stuttering, right? Sometimes I actually fucking find it hot.”
He scoffs and turns his head sharply away, eyes glistening with frustration and something deeper, more painful. I reach out, grasping his chin gently but firmly, and turn his face back to mine. “You stuttering isn’t a fucking issue for me.”
“Y-y-y-eah?” he spits, the word cracking as he glares at me through watery eyes. “B-b-b-b-b—” He groans in pure aggravation and rubs both hands roughly over his face, like he’s trying to scrub the weakness away.
I let out a slow breath, my thumb brushing lightly over his jaw. “Get showered and cleaned up, then come back out and talk.” I release him and lean back, giving him space. Hopefully the hot water will ease some of the tension out of his body, even if it can’t fix what’s tearing him up inside.
I watch him push off the bed and walk off on unsteady legs, the door clicking shut behind him. I pull out my phone, realizing I never told the guys I wasn’t coming back last night. I find Echo’s name and fire off a quick message.
“Found Dylan, not sure when I’m back. If it’s urgent and church, video call.”
I can’t believe the first fucking thing he did when he woke up was reach for the bottle. It’s fucked up how fast he’s using that to cope with everything crashing down on him.
Ten minutes later he walks back out with his hair damp, but he still won’t look at me as he sits down on the edge of the bed.
“You’re going to come back to the club with me.”
He looks up sharply and shakes his head, eyes full of panic.
“Yes, you have nowhere else to go, so come back with me.”
“N-n-n-n—” He stops, face twisting with frustration. “F-f-f-fuck!” The scream rips out of him as he grabs a bottle and hurls it hard against the wall. It shatters, glass exploding across the carpet.
I move fast, grasping the back of his neck and pulling him toward me, firm but careful. “Calm down.” Leaning in, I kiss him slowly, feeling the way his lips tremble before they start to move against mine, desperate and unsteady.
I rest my forehead against his, breathing him in. “I don’t give a shit if you stutter. I can see it, Dylan. You thinking it’s wrong for some reason… it’s fucking not. Stop overthinking it.”
Pulling back I nod.
“I-i-i-i—” He cuts himself off with a frustrated growl, chest heaving. I watch as his hands shake while he grabs his phone and starts typing furiously. When he turns the screen toward me, his eyes are full of raw defeat.
“No one in the club will accept me. My size alone is a fucking weakness, you said it yourself, and stuttering? As my father said, it’s a weakness.”
I stare at the message longer than I should, the words hitting like a punch to my already bruised ribs.
Fuck. I regret ever saying that about his size.
In his father’s world, yeah, it was a liability, but it could’ve been sharpened into something else.
Something stronger. I never meant for it to cut this deep.
He snatches the phone back, types again with jerky movements, and shoves it at me once more.
“I was seven when my father decided I couldn’t handle it because of my stutter, so just fucking leave.”
Shit. The phone slips from my fingers onto the bed as I stare at him, really look at him, the way his shoulders are curled inward, the exhaustion and pain etched into every line of his face.
“I’m not fucking walking out of that door, Dylan.”
He groans and turns his head away, but I catch his chin again, gentler this time, forcing his gaze back to mine. His eyes are glassy, fighting back everything he doesn’t want me to see.
“Bullshit. Stuttering isn’t a weakness,” I say, voice low and steady.
“It’s the mark of someone who’s already fought harder than your father ever had to.
” I lean in closer, thumb brushing over his jaw.
“So he cut you off. Took something you were promised your whole life. He gave you freedom, Dylan. So become the shadow he tried to turn you into, one he can’t touch.
Become the nightmare he’ll regret creating. ”
He breathes out heavily. “T-t-t-there’s n-nothing left.”
“Your whole damn life is left, Dylan. I’m left! I fucking walked into a mafia wedding, stopped and stole the groom, do you think I did that for fun?”
He shrugs slightly. “S-s-sounds like s-something E-echo would do f-for fun.”
Rolling my eyes I nod. “Yeah, Echo and Theo would gatecrash a lot of weddings for fun, but this was my plan.”
“B-b-b-because I w-wasn’t getting t-to take o-over.”
He thinks that’s why? The thought stings more than it should. “Dylan I would have done it regardless. You taking over or not. Yeah part of me, a big part of me decided to stop the wedding because it was a trap, but the other part came because it fucking loves you.”
His eyes widen, panic flashing through them clear as day.
Fuck, I wasn’t supposed to say that out loud.
It’s out now though. “You’re coming back to the club, and yes you will be fucking accepted.
You already are, look back Dylan, you’ve been coming for months, you were welcomed as Siren’s friend, and you will be welcome as my partner. ”
Nodding slowly, he looks at me. “I f-feel like t-that kid a-a-agin, w-w-who couldn’t t-t-t-talk.”
“Because everything went to shit. Your father used something you’ve been self-conscious about to rip you down, so you’re going to struggle to fucking talk. Once you realise it isn’t important, and his excuse is bullshit it will get easier again.”
I watch as he looks around the room. His shoulders relax slightly. Good, he’s listening.
“Now, can we discuss last night, you and Grim?”
“I w-w-wasn’t with G-grim.”
“Oh you were, in this room, him half naked, you half naked.”
His cheeks flame red, and I smirk.
“N-n-no.”
“Yes Dylan, you were that wasted you were trying to fuck Grim.”
Groaning he hides behind his hand. “I w-w-wanted to f-feel something.”
“So you remember now?”
Nodding he glances down at his hands. “I f-f-feel like I l-lost e-everything.”
“You lost nothing. You got a life, one that you can control. You get a life where you get to be yourself. Your father expects you to crawl back to him begging, promising to marry a woman. Prove him you don’t need him.”
He nods slowly and I relax. Good, he’s listening.
“S-s-sorry for leaving y-you were hurt.”
I shrug slightly. “I wanted you dead when I woke, I thought it was you they were messaging, and weirdly, I wasn’t angry at you for trying to hide it if it was.”
“T-then why d-d-did you want me dead?”
“I’m a little possessive Dylan, if I can’t have you, no one can.”
He laughs and rolls his eyes.
“Y-y-you’re okay though?”
“A few broken ribs, a broken hand, bruising, a few stitches, but nothing that could have stopped me chasing you down at your wedding.”
Groaning he shoves me but my body doesn’t move. Instead I shove him back, he falls backwards onto the bed and groans. Moving, I kneel between his legs, my good hand planted beside his head.
“I’m fucking you Dylan.”
I grind down against him and he’s already hard. Fuck, I missed him. My lips crash against his as I begin to pull off our clothes, and he helps me undress us both.
This will be the first time we’re fucking without the world thinking he’s straight and about to marry a woman. It’s the first time where he won’t be thinking about if his fiance will walk in or his father find out. Which just makes me want to fuck him harder for longer.