Epilogue #4
He was the first person I trusted after my mother died. The first person who had my back without trying to own me, place me, fix me, or demand that I become useful enough to earn it.
Cade took the Milwaukee Inferno cap from my head, turned it backward, and put it back on.
“You looked like an asshole,” he said.
“I still look like an asshole.”
“Less of one.”
His hand remained against the back of my neck. For a moment, we only looked at each other.
“I hope you know what you mean to me,” I said.
Cade’s expression shifted.
“I know I don’t say that shit. I know I act like showing up should be enough for you to understand everything I don’t know how to put into words.”
“It is enough.”
“No, let me say it.”
He nodded.
“You found me when I had nothing, Cade. You knew I was sleeping wherever I could find a place, and you never made me feel like the homeless kid you had to rescue. You treated me like your equal. You gave me a place beside you before I understood what it meant to belong anywhere.”
His jaw tightened.
“You brought me to Kimball Falls. Every person at this table is in my life because you told me to come with you so I wouldn’t be alone.
” My voice roughened, but I forced the words through it.
“You were the first person after my mother died that I trusted to have my back without wanting anything from me except friendship.”
“Brotherhood,” Cade corrected.
“Yeah.” I gripped his shoulder. “I hope I’ve been as loyal to you as you’ve always been to me.”
Cade’s face broke, tears in his eyes and shock in his voice. “You saved my life,” he said.
I went still.
“You stayed with me when I was dying. You kept me breathing while you talked to 911, and you refused to let me go even when I was sure I was finished.” His hand tightened against my neck.
“You didn’t leave until you knew I would be here today.
Don’t ever stand in front of me and wonder if you’ve been loyal enough. ”
My eyes burned.
“You’ve been more than loyal, brother. You’ve been my family since before either of us understood how badly we needed one.”
I pulled him into me.
We held on without pounding each other’s backs or turning it into one of those quick embraces men used when they were afraid affection might expose something. His face pressed against my shoulder, and my good hand closed around the back of his jacket.
“I don’t know who I would’ve become if you hadn’t found me,” I admitted.
“You would’ve survived.”
“That isn’t the same as living.”
“No.” Cade’s voice broke near my ear. “It isn’t.”
When we separated, he kept one hand on my neck.
“I’ll see you next weekend,” he said.
I nodded.
“Next weekend, Ryan. That means you answer the door when we show up.”
“I heard you.”
“You’re my brother.” His eyes held mine without letting me escape what the words meant. “Milwaukee won’t change that. Charm won’t change it. You can’t cut us out, no matter how hard your ass tries.”
My mouth twisted through the pain. “I hate losing.”
“So do I.”
“I’ll answer the door.”
“You better.”
Cade looked at everyone gathered around us before returning his attention to me. “We’ll find Ryan.”
The promise tightened my chest.
“He might not be there anymore.”
“He is.” Cade touched two fingers to the center of my chest, directly above the hidden tattoo none of them knew existed. “I’m looking at him.”
My hand covered his before he could feel the raised ink beneath my shirt.
“Ten toes down,” he said.
“Always.”
Cade opened the door.
Cold air moved through the bar as I stepped outside with my brothers and the women they loved behind me. Kimball Falls waited beneath the night, holding every version of the life I’d built after Cade brought me here and told me I didn’t have to be alone.
This city gave me KFU, the Furnace, the Sin Bin, and the family standing behind me. It gave me a future in hockey and the woman whose name I’d carved into my skin because leaving her didn’t mean I knew how to live without carrying her.
Milwaukee didn’t contain a version of Charm and me. It offered unfamiliar streets, professional ice, and enough distance for both of us to discover who we were when loving each other no longer decided whether we survived.
I didn’t know whether the road between us had ended or only disappeared beneath everything we needed to heal. I couldn’t promise forgiveness, reconciliation, or anything waiting beyond the pain I carried tonight.
I felt broken, lost, and dead in every place Charm once made alive. I will always feel that, but El Cuchillo kept me walking.
Maybe Milwaukee would quiet him long enough for the man beneath him to breathe again. Maybe I would discover they were never separate men at all. One was created out of love, the other forged by everything that tried to kill him, and both carried Encanto beside the same beating heart.
I adjusted the backward Inferno cap with my good hand and walked toward Cade’s truck. My scarred hand remained protected inside its brace, my family followed behind me, and Milwaukee waited beyond.
For the first time since my mother died, leaving didn’t mean I had been abandoned.
This time, I was choosing where I went next.