Chapter 24 Ego
Ego
It’s colder than a witch’s titty in here, and the garage smells like stale oil, burnt rubber, and crushed fucking dreams.
Mine, mostly.
The overhead lights flicker like they’re as tired as I am.
Shadows crawl along the concrete like regrets I can’t outrun.
My boots echo against the slick floor, and every clang of metal, every creak of the lift chains sounds like judgment.
Guilt sits on my chest like a thousand-pound anvil, crushing every breath until I feel like that damn cartoon coyote—smashed flat, bones powdered, soul splattered.
Only this ain’t a joke. There’s no bounce-back.
No “next episode” to try again.
She could have been seriously hurt.
Or, God help me, worse.
The breath wheezes out of my chest, and my entire fucking body shudders at the thought.
I mean, she was seriously hurt.
A fucking concussion.
And on my watch.
Not only had Sabrina been kidnapped by her brother.
But she’d been re-kidnapped by Chekhov. Witnessed a half a dozen guys get killed by that psycho.
Then she was slapped around by that same goddamn piece of shit who I’d give my left nut to go bring back to life just so I could fucking kill him all over again.
My sweet, innocent Angel really went through it today.
All because I failed her.
And the guilt is eating me alive.
I scrub at the dried blood in the truck like maybe, just maybe, I can scrape away the part of me that failed her.
But it doesn’t work.
It won’t wash away the sins of my failure, but that doesn’t stop me from trying.
I should stay away from her. I am staying away from her.
I’m so goddamn weak. I want her, need her, so much.
But she doesn’t need you, Ego. You could’ve gotten her killed.
“FUCK!” I roar and slam the truck door shut, hitting it with my fists and making a dent.
I don’t even feel the blood dripping down on my knuckles, but I watch it fall to the broken concrete and somehow, it makes me feel worse.
Drip drip drip.
I’m standing there like a frozen fucking moron, wallowing in my own well-deserved misery, so no, I don’t hear anyone coming until they’re already there.
Figures.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Kai’s voice cuts through the cold like a blade, sharp and pissed off from where he’s standing outside the truck.
I don’t look up.
Just keep staring at my fists. The blood is drying now. Just like the drops on the floor mat I tried to scrub off.
Cause maybe if I scrubbed hard enough, maybe I could erase the way her body went limp in my arms. Maybe it was just from sheer exhaustion after her ordeal. The concussion or just plain fear.
Either way it’s unacceptable. She should never have gone through any of that.
Your fault, Ego. All your fucking fault.
Worthless.
Reckless.
I close my eyes and see her there. In that fucking warehouse. Tied up and hurt.
Now I want to howl like an animal.
I press my hands to my sockets, maybe if I do that hard enough, maybe I can unsee the bruises on her face or the way her voice broke when she whispered my name.
“The fuck does it look like I’m doing?” I snarl, teeth clenched so tight my jaw aches.
“Well,” he says, stepping closer, “it looks like you’re playing Mr. Fucking Clean while your girl is holed up in a damn clinic with a concussion, man. What is wrong with you?”
“Fuck you.”
My voice cracks on the edge.
Rage and something uglier boiling under my skin. My fists clench.
“No, seriously.” He doesn’t back off. “What’s the matter with you? You love her. We all know it. So what the hell are you doing here?”
I snap.
Just like that.
I turn on my heel, shoving him hard enough to rattle his teeth.
Big fucking mistake.
He shoves me back, harder, and now we’re throwing punches like we’re back in the ring my father used to put us in when we were kids and couldn’t get along.
“You’ll work it out on the mat, boys. Now go again.”
The old man was something else, but he loved us. And he wasn’t wrong.
Fighting is something we’re both good at. But that means we’re evenly matched.
Only this time I let my emotions—rage, grief, shame—all of it simply explodes out of me, feral and fast.
“Ego! Man—what the hell?” Noel’s voice slices through the chaos as he storms over and wedges himself between us, grabbing me by the collar and dragging Kai back by the arm like we’re a couple of rabid dogs.
“What the fuck is wrong with you two?” he demands, breathing hard. “You trying to kill each other on Sigma property now?”
Kai wipes blood from his mouth and points a finger at me. “My stupid brother here should be with his girl instead of scrubbing blood out of the damn truck like it’ll fix anything. That’s what I was telling him.”
“You wanna know why I won’t go?” I growl, chest heaving, hands still shaking. “Because I don’t deserve to go. Because I’m the reason she’s in there in the first place!”
The words rip out of me like bullets.
“I did that to her,” I shout. “I failed. I sucked at my job. I got distracted—involved. I should’ve never crossed that fucking line. She’s too good for me. Too soft. Too pure. And I got her hurt. I let those assholes touch her—hit her. I can’t even look at myself right now.”
“That’s bullshit, Ego! Her brother did that to her. You got her back!” Kai barks, taking a step forward again, but Noel plants a hand on his chest.
“No,” I mutter, my voice lower now. Raw. Broken. “It’s the damn truth.”
Noel exhales slowly, but he’s not nodding in agreement.
He’s smirking.
That smug bastard smirks.
And I know something’s wrong.
“Yeah, well,” he says, too casual, “it doesn’t really matter now, anyway. ‘Cause she’s gone.”
I freeze.
“What?”
Now, I turn on him.
“What the fuck do you mean, she’s gone? I left Less watching her door. I told him to stand guard. Where is she, Kane? KANE!” I roar.
“She gave him the slip,” Noel supplies with a shrug. “Guess she got tired of waiting on your sorry ass.”
“What?” My voice goes hoarse.
Panic grips my chest like a vise.
“Oh, her brother was discharged, too. Apparently, he worked out a deal with the Feds. Asshole’s now a fucking CI and untouchable, you believe that shit?”
“What? Marco was released too? Fuck. You don’t think—? What if that fucker tries something again? What if she’s alone?”
Kane shrugs. “So what? You said you didn’t have anything to do with her anymore. It was a mistake, remember?”
The earth tilts.
Everything goes silent for a beat.
Then fury explodes in my blood, a firestorm of panic and purpose.
I shove past them both and leap into the driver’s seat, honking the horn like a madman.
“MOVE!” I roar at Kai, who’s now blocking the driver’s side door with all the smug self-righteousness of a little brother who thinks he’s being helpful.
“Why?” he deadpans, lifting an eyebrow.
“You can get the fuck in or get outta the way!”
“Guess we’re going for a ride, bruh,” he smirks.
And I punch him in the shoulder. Hard.
“Ow! You prick!”
“Fuck you,” I grunt, slamming the truck into reverse like it insulted my mother. Kane’s laughter echoes behind us as Kai flings open the passenger door and throws himself in, still rubbing his arm.
“Jesus, man. You hit like a gorilla with PTSD.”
“Shut up and track her,” I bark, tires screeching as I peel out of the garage.
The back end fishtails on the slick pavement before the truck straightens out, chewing through the storm-slicked streets like it was born for this.
The sky’s still spitting a miserable wintry mix—ice needles and sleet that make the world blur at the edges, but I don’t care.
I’ve driven through worse.
“Verona?” Kai asks, already pulling up the last known GPS ping.
“Yeah. If she left, that’s where she’d go. Straight home.”
“And if she didn’t?”
“Then I hunt down every last person she knows until I find her,” I snap.
Kai sighs and mutters, “Romantic and unhinged. No wonder she ran.”
“She didn’t run,” I growl. “She left because she was scared, alone. Because I wasn’t there. Because I—” My hands tighten on the wheel until the leather creaks. “Because I fucked up. Again. Fuck!”
There it is. Out loud.
“I thought staying away would keep her safe. That pushing her away after the hospital was the smart thing to do. Let her go back to her little normal life. No guns. No blood. No assholes with Russian accents.”
“Dude, I said it before. I’ll say it again. That wasn’t you. That was her brother. And how’s staying away from her working out for you?” Kai says, not unkindly.
I shoot him a glare.
“Hurts like a motherfucker, Kai. Like my soul’s being ripped in two. She’s gone, my head’s a mess, and I’ve been cleaning congealed blood out of a truck for two days like some penance priest in hell.”
Kai whistles.
“Wow, you’re really in love, huh?”
“Yeah,” I mutter. “Yeah, I fucking am.”
The silence sits heavy for a beat.
“I’m not even sure she’ll talk to me,” I admit. “Not after all this. Not after what I did. What I didn’t do.”
Kai turns toward me.
“Then you don’t ask. You show her.”
I look at him sideways.
“Beg if you have to,” he says. “You’re good at groveling.”
“Eat shit, asshole.”
“I’m just saying, bro, you don’t give up. Not on someone like that. You think you get many like her?”
“No,” I say quietly. “No, I don’t.”
The storm thickens as we cross the Hudson, ice bouncing off the windshield like hail.
Winter in New York is slushy and slick. When we hit Jersey, the shit gets thicker.
More snow than ice. Slower traffic. Closed roads.
Paying attention to the drivers is hard when my brain is thinking about one thing only, but since I want to get there alive, I do what I have to.
“Why don’t you just use the tracker on her boots?”
“She’s not wearing them. I-I took all her clothes out of her room when she first got there. I don’t know. I guess subconsciously, I was hoping to keep her there until I found my fucking balls to confront her.”
“Damn. That’s some fucked up shit,” Kai says, but he’s grinning.
“Shut up.”
Verona’s not far now.
My pulse is steady, too steady.
The kind of stillness before something breaks.
I’m holding onto hope by the thinnest thread—that she’s there, that she’s safe, that she hasn’t decided I’m too much.
That I haven’t already lost her.
Because if she’s not home, if Marco found her first, if anyone touched her again—I don’t give a fuck about consequences.
I’ll burn the whole fucking world down for you, Angel.
And then I’ll build her a new one from the ashes.
“You just drive, brother. Go on and get your girl,” Kai says, softer now.
I nod.
“Yeah. That’s the plan. If she’ll have me.”