Chapter 10
Ghost
Bones found Elyna. Luca gave him the location last night, and he’s already gone — bolted before sunrise. Called me at four-fucking-A.M., voice clipped, said to hold down the fort while he figures out what kind of hell he’s walking into in Silverpine.
I know exactly what’s going to happen. Two outcomes.
He either kidnaps her and brings her back. Or he moves the club there.
But he won’t kidnap her, though. He won’t want to give her one more reason to hate him, which means we’ll move instead. That’s the only logical play.
I need to prep. Call my realtor. Start looking for property. Somewhere private. Something big enough to fit my needs. My skin’s already crawling, just thinking about what’s waiting for me ahead.
All of that’s spinning in my head when I step into the bedroom, ready to grab my phone and start making calls.
That’s when I see her, and I stop cold.
Adora’s on her knees in front of the closet, hunched over something I haven’t looked at in thirteen fucking years.
The violin. The case I shoved into the dark. The thing I buried, sealed away like a coffin.
My lungs seize. My heart tries to claw out of my chest.
What the fuck is she doing?
I’m halfway to yanking her away from the case when she turns her face to me. Tears. Too many of them, pouring down her cheeks like a river that won’t stop. And those beautiful eyes of hers are wide, raw, like she’s about to bleed out on the floor.
“It was dusty,” she whispers, voice hoarse.
My jaw locks.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I snap, sharper than I mean to.
Her expression fractures. A world of misery passes through her eyes, and I want to look away. I want to run. Disappear somewhere she can't follow.
“Why was the case dusty? Hidden?” Her voice is so soft, I almost miss it. “It’s because of me, isn’t it?”
I clench my fists. Hard. My eyes drop to the floor. Of course it’s because of her. Of course!
She looks back down at the violin, watching it like it’s a dead body. Her hand lifts halfway toward it, then freezes, like she’s afraid she’ll break it just by touching it.
“I’m so sorry. I took it away, didn’t I?” she whispers. A sob slips free. “You’d never let it collect dust if you were still playing. I thought… I thought maybe you just didn’t want to play for me. That you were still doing it at the clubhouse.”
She sounds shattered, and it fucking breaks me.
“It brought back too many memories,” I say, voice flat. Barely audible.
She nods slowly, like she already knew.
“Your music… it used to be the only thing — besides you — that could bring any light into my head.” Her voice is soft, but it cuts me open with terrifying ease.
Her sorrow coils around me and grips me so tight, I feel it crushing my bones. Because I know exactly what my music meant to her. I know the war she’s fought inside her own mind for her entire life.
“I took everything from you,” she says, her tone terrifyingly calm. “You really should just kill me.” She says it like it’s the most rational conclusion in the world. As if we didn’t just spend almost three months wrapped around each other like horny teenagers.
No.
No!
Too soon. Too fucking soon.
I drop beside her, brush a strand of hair behind her ear. My hand’s shaking.
“Adora… I’m not going to kill you,” I say, and my voice fucking cracks. “If I could, I would’ve done it in the dungeon. But I can’t. I can’t.”
It’s the truth. I can’t kill her. Not now.
She turns those tear-soaked eyes on me.
“I could do it for you.” It’s a whisper, fragile and broken. “You’d be free of me. Of my presence. My disease. That’s what you called it, didn’t you?”
Her tears keep falling in endless rivers. Panic slams into me, hard and fast.
I need to make the shadows leave her mind. Now! Fuck!
My voice hardens. I grab onto the only thing that gives me leverage. Anger. Control. The deal.
“Don’t,” I bite out. “You still owe me time, Adora. We have a fucking deal.”
She nods slowly, staring past me.
I know that fucking nod. That’s not agreement. That’s autopilot. She’s just nodding to make me stop talking.
She turns back to the violin, empty-eyed.
Fuck! I’m not ready to let her go.
“I’ll play for you.” The words leave my mouth like someone else shoved them out.
My fingers tremble at just the thought of touching that cursed instrument again.
Her breath catches.
“I can’t ask that of you,” she murmurs, her voice wrecked.
“You’re not asking, are you?” I cut in. “I offered.”
I need her out of her head. Need to drag her back to me before the darkness takes her someplace I can’t reach. I need more time with her.
Fuck it. No more waiting. When the spiral starts, it’s a war to pull her back. And she always fights it.
I move. Grab the violin from the case like it’s a snake ready to strike. The moment my fingers wrap around the handle, a jolt hits me. My breath snags. Everything inside me locks.
This feels wrong, but I don’t stop.
I tune it with hands that won’t stop shaking. She’s still not looking at me. She keeps her head bowed, silent. I watch her tears hit the floor, one by one, each drop a gut-punch.
The mask she’s been wearing to protect herself, to fake her strength, is completely off. She’s not pretending to be strong anymore. She’s breaking into pieces right in front of me.
I lift the violin to my collarbone. My chin settles into place like no time has passed.
It’s muscle memory. Even after all these years, my body remembers.
My breath stutters. The bow rises— And the first note is a mess. Broken, ugly and jarring, it hits the air like a scream.
I stop and double over, hand braced on my knee, dragging in air like I just got punched. The pain is instant. Bone-deep.
But I inhale. I steady. I push through. And I lift it again.
When I look at her, everything else falls away. Nothing else matters anymore. Not my irrational aversion to the violin, not my plan, not my darkness, not my pain.
Just her. Only her.
I ready the bow again.
The music is already playing in my head — her favorite. The one that used to chase her nightmares away. The one I created just for her, the song she always said brought the sun inside her mind.
“Count to ten, adorable,” I whisper.
The words hit her like thunder, and she flinches. I used to say them every time she got like this, right before I'd play this piece for her.
My hands move, pulling sound from strings. My performance is shit. It’s not that I forgot how to play, I could never do that.
The strings are fucked and need replacing. But that’s not the problem either.
The problem is that I’m playing for her. Something I never thought I’d do ever again.
She took this from me. She buried my music deep, and now she’s the one pulling it out of the grave and shoving it back into me. It feels like another death.
“Count, Adora,” I murmur again, this time firmer, almost a command. I need her back. I need time. I need more of her. I’m not fucking ready.
She gasps and then I see it — her fingers start moving. One by one, each tapping the pad of her thumb. Her old grounding trick. One, two, three, four…
I play, watching her, watching for any sign.
When I finish the song, the bow falls from my fingers and hits the floor with a quiet clatter.
I drop to my knees beside her, heart thundering, hands still shaking.
She turns her head, and looks at me, searching my face for something. I don’t know what she’s searching for, but she finds it, and a small smile touches her lips. Barely there, but real.
“Thank you, Dominic,” she whispers.
I let the violin fall away and wrap my arms around her so fucking tight it hurts.
She’s ok. She’s ok. For now, she’s ok.
We’re moving to Silverpine. Knew it.
My realtor managed to dig up a halfway decent cabin on the outskirts. Wide open space, enough privacy, no neighbors breathing down my neck. Smaller than my place in Driftwood, but it’ll do.
Bones wanted me to take over the Driftwood Chapter now that he’s relocating.
Yeah, no. Fuck that.
I don’t like people. I tolerate them at best. And being President? That’s all people. All the time. Politics. Meetings. Deals. Babysitting grown-ass men through turf wars and tantrums.
I’ll stick to my lane — investigations, intel, and the occasional torture session to keep things sharp. That’s what I’m good at.
Bones thinks prison made me this way. Antisocial he calls it.
He’s right. And also wrong.
I was like this before, I just used to hide it better.
He never noticed it fully because he was always my shield.
The people person. The one who dealt with everyone else so I didn’t have to.
He did the small talk, the crowd control, for both of us.
I shoved him in front of anyone who looked like a chatterbox or a headache. And I liked it that way. Still do.
I pull into the motel parking lot and stare at the dump in front of me.
It’s worse than I expected.
We’ve got at least a week before I can get the keys to the new place, so this hellhole is home until then. The best-rated place within a hundred miles. Fuck. I can already smell the mildew.
I check us in. The woman behind the counter gives me a look like I might stab her — or fuck her. She can’t decide which.
She gives me the key without a word.
I bet the room is cramped. Stale. Probably crawling with bacteria. Like a prison cell but with ugly wallpaper.
It’s going to be a long fucking week.
On the bright side, Bones is too busy chasing Elyna to ask why I’m not crashing in my room at the new clubhouse Tank found. It’s definitely better than this shithole.
I open the door, we enter, and the fucking room is exactly the way I imagined it. Tiny. Fuck my life.
Adora
A wounded, guttural roar tears through the dark and yanks me out of my sleep.
My eyes snap open. I sit up fast, sheets rippling around me, heart thundering, breath caught somewhere between panic, dread and instinct.
Another sound follows — softer, but worse. It’s a shattered, helpless whimper that claws at my chest.