Chapter Fourteen
Rowen
According to Dean, Emerson and I spent the night investigating the blazes.
Following leads, shaking hands, showing face.
Keeping things quiet while the empire he’s so desperate to preserve smolders from the inside out.
That’s what he’ll tell others. That’s the version of us he’s proud of.
Dutiful sons. Sharp and composed. Always where we’re supposed to be.
But the truth?
We were at the club. From moments after the blast until the sky started to lighten again. Drenched in bass and flashing lights. Music so loud it rattles your bones. Heat thick in the air from too many bodies trying to forget the weight of their own stories.
We weren’t investigating shit.
We were escaping.
And yeah, I’m more than just buzzed. There’s a pleasant heaviness in my limbs that dulls throb in my head that signals I’ve had one too many.
I’m not proud of it—but pride hasn’t mattered in a long time.
Not when everything around me is cracked and bleeding.
Not when guilt festers in every breath. Sometimes a shot of whiskey and a stranger’s body are the only things that silence the noise for even a second.
I tried twice tonight to fuck a girl in the bathroom. Two different girls. Both of them gorgeous in that forgettable kind of way. Willing. Eager, even. Hands on me, mouths on my neck, moaning like they knew me. Like I could be theirs for just ten minutes.
But it didn’t happen.
Not once. Not even close.
I couldn’t stay hard. Couldn’t stay present.
Because none of them were her.
I try to forget. Hell, I’ve made it a full-time job.
The liquor helps. So does the fighting. So do the nameless women who press themselves into me, thinking they’re what I need.
I let them try. Let them kiss me, touch me, drag me into bathroom stalls and dark corners of clubs.
But even when I’m there—hands gripping someone else, body going through the motions—it’s her that claws her way into my mind.
Berkley.
It’s sick, really. Twisted. Because she’s gone. Burned in a fire, buried in a past I can’t fix. And even if I could? She’s not the girl I remember. Not after what Reign’s letter revealed.
She betrayed us.
Betrayed her.
That’s the part that cuts the deepest. Reign gave her everything—her trust, her loyalty, her heart. And Berkley threw it away like it meant nothing. Like screwing her boyfriend behind her back was just another choice, not a knife to all our spines.
Like we didn’t matter. Like I didn’t matter.
And now I’m left in the wreckage, sifting through the ashes of what we were, trying to convince myself that the girl I loved—the version of her I still see when I close my eyes—would’ve never done that.
But she did.
And I don’t know how to let her go when part of me still clings to the lie that she wouldn’t have betrayed us.
And I hate that it still hurts.
Because it shouldn’t.
She’s dead.
I’ll never see her again, never touch her, never get to scream at her the way I want to. There’s no closure. No reckoning. Just this endless ache I can’t shake. This rage I carry in my chest like a second heartbeat.
I can’t even hear her name without going ballistic.
Which is exactly why I can’t listen to Ronan and his wild-ass conspiracy theories.
Every few months he brings it up again, whispers of “What if?” like he’s trying to breathe life into a corpse.
He swears she’s alive, that something doesn’t add up, that we were fed lies.
And every single time, it ends in fists—mine in his face, his in mine.
Because I can’t go there.
I won’t.
It’s easier to believe she’s gone. Easier to live with a ghost than the truth. Because if there’s even a chance she’s alive… then I’d have to face the fact that she left us. That she chose to stay gone.
And I don’t know if I can survive that.
So, I keep trying to drown her memory in bodies and booze, even though nothing touches the spot where she lives. No matter how many women I take to bed, no matter how many drinks I slam down, she’s still there.
Emerson lets out a scoff that cuts through the heavy silence between us, the sound sharp and edged with just enough irritation to pull my eyes toward him.
He’s sprawled in the corner of the living room where we landed, a half-empty bottle swinging lazily from his hand, looking far too relaxed for the storm I know he feels brewing beneath the surface.
“You done sulking yet?” he mutters, not unkindly, but definitely with that familiar bite. “Because we both know what this is really about.”
I don’t answer. Just glare in his direction, jaw tight, shoulders tense. I already know where he’s going, and I’m not in the mood to walk through that minefield.
His voice softens a fraction, almost like he’s trying not to spook me. “You’re not the only one, Ro. All our minds have drifted to Berk lately.”
At the mention of her name, something snaps. A low growl rumbles in my chest before I can stop it, and I shoot up from my seat, eyes locked on him like he’s just thrown a match onto gasoline.
“Don’t,” I warn, voice rough and cracked at the edges. “Don’t fucking bring her up right now.”
Emerson doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t retreat. He just lifts his hands in that slow, exaggerated, drunk-diplomat way of his. A peace offering paired with a shrug that says he knows exactly how far to push me.
“I’m not trying to start shit,” he says, voice slurred but laced with something dangerously close to reason. “It’s been years, brother. Years. We need to learn how to let her go.”
His words settle like broken glass between us.
“And part of that,” he continues, slower now, more grounded, “is being able to admit we miss her. Even if she betrayed us in the end.”
I clench my fists so tight my knuckles ache. My chest burns with everything I don’t want to feel, and everything I do—but can’t make peace with. Because he’s not wrong.
And that’s what pisses me off the most.
I rub at my chest, right over the spot where the ache has settled like something permanent—low and pulsing, a reminder of everything I’ve buried and still can’t escape.
My heart pounds harder than I want to admit, like it’s trying to claw its way out from behind my ribs.
The conversation has already sunk its teeth in too deep, and I can feel myself unraveling—too raw, too exposed.
So, I shift. Pivot. Throw the conversation in a different direction because I can’t sit in the wreckage Emerson just laid at my feet. Not tonight.
I mutter something half-hearted—something about needing more whiskey or dragging Ronan’s stubborn ass back from whatever conspiracy rabbit hole he’s fallen into. Emerson plays along, letting the subject drop, but the silence between us now feels heavier, more loaded.
And then… a sound.
A rustle. Sharp. Soft. But wrong.
Emerson and I both go still, heads snapping toward the hallway. Every muscle in my body locks into place, instincts firing all at once. That wasn’t the house settling. That wasn’t the wind.
Before we can reach for a weapon or call out—BANG.
A gunshot tears through the quiet, loud enough to rattle the windows and drop my stomach to the floor.
We’re on our feet in an instant, both moving before thought catches up. The haze of liquor evaporates as if it were never there.
We tear down the hallway, my pulse thundering louder than our footsteps. There’s no time to think, no time to breathe—just that single, echoing gunshot replaying in my head like a warning I heard too late.
I don’t hesitate—I lower my shoulder and ram Ronan’s door with everything I’ve got. The lock splinters with a loud crack, the door slamming open and bouncing off the wall behind it. I’m already moving through the threshold when the scene inside hits me like a freight train—and I freeze.
What I see stops me cold.
Ronan is sitting up in the center of his bed, chest heaving, his muscles rigid with tension. For a split second, I think maybe he just startled awake—until I see it. The deep crimson stain spreading across his chest, vivid and wet, soaking into the sheets beneath him.
Blood.
It takes me a beat too long to process the scene, but when it hits, it hits hard. My gut lurches. My throat goes dry. He’s been shot.
Our eyes lock across the room, and I see it—pain, yes, but also a calm acceptance that makes my stomach twist. There’s no panic in his expression, just that same quiet, steady look he always wore when he’d take a hit and keep standing.
But then his gaze flicks past me, sharp and focused, like something behind me suddenly matters more than the bullet in his chest.
Emerson sees it too. “What the—”
I spin around just in time to catch a shadow slipping along the far wall.
A figure—small, fast, and cloaked in darkness—is crab-walking toward the window, trying to disappear before we can react. Purple hair flashes in the dim light, wild and unmistakable.
The fighter. Cupcake.
“What the fuck?” Emerson breathes beside me.
I move in, pulse pounding, every instinct on high alert.
Whoever she is, she just tried to put my brother in the ground.
And there’s no damn way she’s walking out of here without giving me answers.