Chapter 8
Gabriella
I stalled the car.
I stalled the goddamn fucking car.
I don’t know if nerves got the better of me or what, but for some reason, after rolling two metres backwards, the car stalled and I didn’t know what to do about it.
Starting the car again would have been a good place to begin, but for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
“Trouble?” Dante smirked at me as I climbed out of the car.
What was I doing outside of the car?
Avoiding Vienna, that’s what you’re doing.
Fuck off, subconscious. I don’t need you starting with me.
“Dante, leave her the fuck alone,” Rachel hissed back.
I drowned them out as they began to bicker back and forth. Which ended with Dante grabbing her roughly by the back of the neck and hauling her against him, delivering a searing kiss that I had absolutely no business watching, and uncomfortably turned away from.
I focused on the rest of the Disciples instead, each of them swinging their legs over their bikes, yelling and cheering at one another.
They threw catcalls at their leaders, which earned them the middle finger from Dante, and then set off, not waiting for the two of them to finish their—inappropriate—kiss.
They passed our car, each of them blasting their horns as they passed us in the car, yelling well-wishes to Vienna—who was, of course, in his absolute element. He was leaning his hand out of the window like a Victorian widow, coughing like he was seconds away from succumbing to the plague.
And then, before I was ready, before I had plucked up the courage to get back inside and drive Vienna home, the chaos calmed down. The Disciples had left. Dante and Rachel slunk off somewhere on his bike. Engines quietened with the distance, and silence settled.
Until it was just us.
And for some reason, I still delayed actually climbing in the car and doing what I’d promised to do.
Instead, I checked the wheels, kicking them and observing whether they were bald or not. I checked the wipers and even popped the hood of the car at one point, leaning over the engine and checking the oil level.
“I think I’m dying here, Sidney,” Vienna called out in his best Stu Macher impression, and I knew the inevitable had come.
I couldn’t delay it any further. I had to get in that car with him.
And it wasn’t that I didn’t want to. It wasn’t that I wanted to run. It’s just…
For ten years I had avoided him. For ten years, I had driven him away. After ten years of fighting to get back to each other and failing at every turn, I was now driving him home.
It was symbolic, and it hit me harder than I expected.
Because I needed that home to become my home. I needed the sanctuary he had once offered me.
So, with nothing else to do to delay the inevitable, I climbed in the car and put it in reverse. Thankfully not stalling it this time.
“Shall I sing to you? I don’t mean to brag, but I do a mean rendition of I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.”
“I’d really rather you didn’t,” I replied, biting my lip to stop from laughing.
“I’d really rather I did,” Vienna grunted, turning onto his side and curling his body until his head was resting between the front two seats. “I’ve been working on the railroad—”
“You can stop now.”
“All the live long day.”
“I insist.”
“I’ve been working on the railroad.”
“Vienna…”
“Just to pass the time away.”
“Please, for the love of God.”
He cleared his throat, deepened it, and then belted: “Can’t you hear the whistle blowing?”
“Fucking hell.”
“Rise up so early in the morn.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be on death’s door?”
“Can’t you hear the whistle blowing?”
“I give up.”
“Dinah, blow your horn.”
“Enough!” I snapped, but I was laughing despite myself.
“Thank God for that,” Vienna muttered. “I didn’t have much left in the tank.”
“Well, I’m so glad you used the last of your reserves on something so meaningful.”
“You know what, Gabby?” he said, slapping his hand over his heart. “You are so welcome.”
“Lie down properly,” I grinned, pushing his head backwards.
“I want to make sure I bleed everywhere possible. Don’t want just the one big patch. I want to make Sunshine have to work to get this clean.”
“Do you want to live to see another day?” I asked.
“Depends. Will I hurt as much tomorrow as I do right now?”
“Maybe. You might be missing a limb or two depending on how seriously Sunshine takes it.”
“Worth it,” he said, but he did flop back onto the backseat as I asked, hissing slightly and tensing his jaw at the pain.
I did my best to concentrate on the roads, following the stream of headlights from the motorbikes in front of us, but I couldn’t help my eyes from looking in the rearview mirror, nor could I stop my hand from adjusting it until it was focused on the giant spread over the back seats.
“Stop looking at me, Princess. I’m fine,” he said without opening his eyes.
“I’m not looking at you.”
“You are. I can feel it.”
“I am driving, actually. Something you bikers may not be familiar with, but it does usually involve looking in mirrors.”
Besides, I didn’t need the mirror to look at the roads behind us. I knew what I was driving away from. I knew what I was leaving behind. And as we continued driving, entering Disciple territory, I didn’t need any mirror to remind me of streets I knew like the back of my hand.
My eyes went back to the mirror, and I saw Vienna with his eyes open, staring back at me.
I quickly looked at the road, hearing his smug chuckle from the backseats.
His eyes closed again, but the corner of his mouth stayed lifted, and I hated how much I wanted to keep looking at him.
He looked awful. Truly awful.
There was dried blood in his beard, in his hair, smeared across his cheek and down his neck. One side of his face had swollen enough that I was half convinced Rachel’s slap had only been adding insult to injury, and his cut was ruined, torn and stained and carrying more blood than leather.
He looked like exactly what he was.
A man who had come for me.
A man who had almost died because he thought I had.
A man who had spent ten years standing in the dark outside my window because neither one of us had ever been strong enough to fully let go.
“Luke?” I whispered.
He opened his eyes again, and for a moment, just a moment, the years weren’t there. The blood wasn’t there. Nico wasn’t there. It was just him and me on some dark road, saying everything except the things that mattered.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you,” I said softly. “Thank you for coming for me.”
He was quiet for a moment, and I waited for the joke. For the stupid comment. For anything that would drag us back onto safer ground.
“Thank you for not being dead.”
And then he closed his eyes once more. I gripped the wheel tighter, staring straight ahead until the road blurred.
I blinked quickly, refusing to cry, because if I started now, I wasn’t sure I would ever stop, and I did not fancy crashing Dante’s precious car because my feelings had decided to make a dramatic appearance.
Neither of us said anything for a while after that.
The silence wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t empty either. It was full of everything we hadn’t touched. Everything waiting for us. Every conversation we had spent years avoiding, every truth that had been twisted out of shape, every apology that wouldn’t be enough but needed saying anyway.
And beneath all of it was a burning question. Something I already knew in my heart, but I needed to hear him say it.
I looked at him again.
He was fading. I could see it now. The pauses were getting longer, his breathing deeper, his body heavier against the seat. He was fighting it, because of course he was. Vienna would argue with death itself if he thought it was trying to tell him what to do.
And then he would irritate him with some stupid joke and a sarcastic comment, and Death would likely send him straight back into the land of the living.
“Luke?”
“Hm?” he murmured.
“Are you still with me?”
“Always.”
I let out a shaky breath and kept driving.
Always.
How I wished that could be true.
The turn for the Devil’s compound was getting closer. I knew it was. I could feel the shift in the road, the old familiarity creeping in despite everything.
This had once been my home, as much as the Riders had been home.
This had been my secret sanctuary. The place where my heart resided.
Where it still was, truth be told.
I could admit that to myself if no one else.
Because in quiet corners, stolen rooms, the back of Vienna’s bike and the spaces between club wars, I had found pieces of myself there I hadn’t found anywhere else.
And yet, this time I was returning with an ocean of tears between us, and a lifetime of memories neither of us wanted to remember.
We were not foolish kids anymore, hoping for a happy ending to our tragic story.
We were adults who had already lived a sad beginning, middle, and what we thought was our end.
Where did we go from here?
“Can I ask you something, Luke? Before we arrive.”
“Hit me,” he mumbled, his lips barely moving.
I paused, not quite knowing how to frame the question, but knowing I needed an answer. I needed to know before we entered the chaos of his clubhouse. Before his brothers took over, and we were separated by medical supplies and endless questions.
“Where is she? What happened to my mum?”
He didn’t respond. My eyes flew to the mirror, focusing on the steady rise and fall of his chest.
“Brilliant,” I muttered to myself. “Now you fall asleep. Fucking fantastic.”
The one time I finally found the courage to ask, and the useless bastard had the audacity to be unconscious.
“I hope she went peacefully,” I sighed, because I already knew.
Vienna wouldn’t have walked away without her if there was any other choice.
I continued the drive in silence. By the time the gates of the Devil’s Disciples compound came into view, his breathing hadn’t changed once.
And I had checked.
A lot.