8. Ghost
The condensation on my beer bottle is the only thing colder than the knot in my gut. I’m sitting at the scarred mahogany bar of the clubhouse, the same place I’ve sat for fourteen years, but the air feels different. Thinner. Like the oxygen is being sucked out of the room through the vents.
It’s been two days since Onyx. Forty-eight hours since I saw her in that black dress—a garment that should have been illegal—looking like a siren designed specifically to ruin my life.
When she was eight, the “crush” was a joke.
It was cute. I’d given her a pinky-promise to stop her from crying, thinking she’d grow up, find some boy with a fast car and a clean record, and forget I existed.
But she didn’t grow up. She bloomed. And the older she got, the more the “joke” started to feel like a death sentence.
I put distance between us because I had to.
I’m thirty-two. She’s eighteen. I’ve seen her in pigtails; I’ve helped her with her homework.
If I so much as looked at her the wrong way, the club would brand me a predator.
Her father, Doc, would put a bullet in my brain, and I’d probably hand him the gun myself.
But then she walked into my room last week and told me she was ready to be my wife.
My mind went white. One half of me wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it, while the other, darker half—the part of me I keep chained in the basement of my soul—wanted to grab her, drive straight to the town hall, and put my mark on her so clearly that the whole world would know she was mine.
I wanted to claim her. I wanted to be the man she saw when she looked at me with that terrifying, unwavering hope.
But I couldn’t. I had to be the adult. I had to hurt her to save her.
Then came Onyx.
I was sitting in that booth, a woman whose name I didn’t even bother to learn draped over me like a cheap accessory. I was trying to drown the memory of Angel’s face in bourbon when Bear leaned over, his voice a low rumble of warning.
“Ghost. Look at the bar.”
I followed his gaze, and my world tilted on its axis. There she was. My Angel. Wearing a dress that was a sin and a tag that invited every lowlife in the city to treat her like a conquest. When I saw that guy step between her legs, I didn’t just see red. I saw blood.
How dare he? How dare he put his fucking hands on what belongs to me?
The possessiveness was raw, a physical ache in my chest that drowned out every rule, every code, every bit of common sense I possessed.
I wanted to tear him apart with my bare hands.
I wanted to erase the memory of his touch from her skin.
I dragged her into that private room, my blood vibrating with the need to either scream at her or fuck her right there on the table. I was trying to breathe, trying to find my center, when she marched up to me and claimed my mouth.
It was bliss for a heartbeat. Fuck yes, my mind screamed. The taste of her, the heat of her.
And then the shadows came.
Not her shadows. Mine. The ones that live in the corners of my eyes when I try to sleep.
The memories of my childhood, of hands that weren’t kind and a world that was far too loud, flooded back with the force of a tidal wave.
For a split second, the girl in my arms wasn’t Angel.
The face pressing against mine wasn’t hers.
It was her. It was the past. It was the filth I thought I’d buried.
The revulsion hit me like a physical blow to the stomach. I didn’t throw up because of Angel. I threw up because I felt unworthy of her. I threw up because my past had finally poisoned my future.
I ran after her. I burst out of that room, wiping my mouth, desperate to find her, to explain, to tell her it wasn’t her fault—it was me. I was the one who was broken. But she was gone.
For the last two days, I’ve been a man possessed.
I’ve knocked on her door at the clubhouse every two hours.
I’ve paced the hallway like a caged tiger.
I didn’t want to push her, but I needed her to know that her touch didn’t make me sick.
It made me feel alive, and that was the most terrifying thing of all.
“Another one, Ghost?”
Bear’s voice breaks my trance. I look down at my empty bottle and nod. Bear slides another beer toward me, his eyes searching mine. He’s the only one who knows how close I am to the edge.
The heavy front door of the clubhouse swings open. My posture stiffens. Doc and Shade walk in, their faces grim, shadows under their eyes that weren’t there forty-eight hours ago. My heart hammers a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
Did she tell them?
I wait for the blow. I wait for Doc to pull his piece or for Shade to lunge across the bar. I wouldn’t even fight back. I deserve whatever they give me for making her cry.
“Hey,” Shade mutters, sliding onto the stool next to me. He looks exhausted.
Doc stands behind him, arms crossed over his chest, staring at a spot on the wall. They don’t look like men out for blood. They look like men who are grieving.
“Hey,” I rasp, my voice sounding like I’ve been swallowing glass.
Shade’s phone rings on the bar top. A picture of Angel lights up the screen—she’s laughing, her blonde hair caught in the wind, looking exactly like the sun. I have to look away before I lose my mind.
Shade answers. “Yeah. I’m at the club. You at the gate?”
A pause. I can hear the faint, melodic tinny sound of her voice through the speaker, but I can’t make out the words.
“Alright,” Shade says, his voice thick. “Call me when you get there. I mean it, Angel. Every layover. And have a safe trip. I love you, sis.”
He hangs up. The silence that follows is heavy enough to crack the floorboards.
Trip? My stomach drops. What fucking trip?
Shade looks at Doc. “She’s taking off now. She said she’ll call once she’s on the ground.”
Panic, cold and sharp, rises in my throat. I try to keep my face neutral, try to keep my hands from shaking as I grip the beer bottle. “Where’s she going?” I ask, my voice sounding unnervingly flat.
Shade sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “London. She got into some journalism program over there. Accepted it this morning. She’s moving.”
My world doesn’t just crumble; it disintegrates.
No.
The word screams in my head, but I can’t let it out. No, no, no. This wasn’t the plan. She wasn’t supposed to leave. She was supposed to stay here. She was supposed to be in my peripheral vision until I finally found the courage to fix myself.
“London?” Bear asks, his voice full of the shock I can’t express. “That’s... that’s a long way, Shade.”
“Tell me about it,” Doc grumbles, finally speaking. “But she was determined. Said she needed to find her own way. She’s been restless lately. I figured, let her go see the world before the MC life swallows her whole.”
I feel like I’m suffocating. She’s on a plane. She’s leaving the country because of me. Because I let her believe she was disgusting when she’s the only pure thing I’ve ever known.
She was supposed to be here. I was supposed to wait until she was a little older, until I could look her father in the eye and tell him I’d cherish her forever. I could have asked her to marry me. I could have given her the farmhouse and the life she deserved.
I was just waiting for my head to get right.
“Ghost? You okay?” Shade asks, frowning at me. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”
I don’t answer. I can’t. If I open my mouth, I’m going to roar. I’m going to run out that door, jump on my bike, and ride until I hit the Atlantic.
She’s gone. My Angel is gone, and I’m the one who pushed her out the door.
I look at the picture of her on Shade’s phone before the screen goes black. The light is gone. The clubhouse is just a room full of shadows again. And for the first time in my life, I realize that some promises aren’t just broken—they’re buried under three thousand miles of ocean.