Chapter Thirty-Five
Bane
Three days.
Three eternities.
The silence was a suffocating blanket that pressed down on me and stole the very air from my lungs.
Lying in the hospital bed, I watched the minutes tick by as I waited to hear from Shame. He’d been gone for three motherfucking days now, and the not knowing was eating me alive. I needed to know that Diana was safe. That he got her out of that fucking insane asylum.
I wouldn’t be able to rest until I knew.
The sterile white walls of my confinement amplified the thumping in my chest. Each tick of the clock, every drip of the IV stand, felt like a hammer blow that chipped away at my resolve.
Shame was my last vestige of hope, the only one who’d ever dared to go toe-to-toe with that fucking bastard who destroyed my happiness and walked away unscathed.
He’d promised to find my wife wherever she was, and get her to safety until Montana and I could do what needed to be done.
Only it didn’t work out that way, and while Shame never stopped looking, Montana and I had a hell of a time gathering the evidence needed to oust George.
In the end, that motherfucker up and retired, thinking he’d gotten away with murder.
However, Montana and I were leery. With George no longer walking the halls of the clubhouse, he had free rein to do whatever his perverted mind came up with.
Which is why I reluctantly asked Shame to split his focus and monitor George and the rest of the Rejects.
I stupidly thought when George died, that would be the end of my misery, but it wasn’t.
I knew then that this shit would never end.
Especially when Shame woke from the lifesaving surgery I performed to tell me that Dakota fucking Stone was working with Meredith Doherty, the same fucking cunt who drugged and raped me, allowing George Stone to blackmail and force me into the Soulless Sinners.
Knowing what we knew now about Dakota, I should have seen it before. I should have known that party all those years ago was nothing more than a setup to get me in the same place as her.
As for why, I figured it was something I would never know. Maybe I wasn’t meant to. Who knows? All I knew now was that finally after twenty fucking years, Shame had located my wife, and I just prayed that when she saw me again, she forgave me.
My gaze drifted to the window, the gray sky a mirror of my mood. I imagined Shame out there somewhere as he navigated labyrinthine corridors, dodging guards, his usual cool a thin veneer over a simmering rage.
Had he found her?
Was she safe? The thought clawed at my throat.
I knew Shame. He wouldn’t quit, not for Diana.
But the people running that place... they were monsters, the kind that feasted on hope.
A faint shadow fell across the doorway, and my head snapped up. A figure stood silhouetted against the brighter light of the corridor, a shape I recognized instantly.
Slowly sitting up, I looked at my best friend and watched a slow smile spread across his face.
“Well?”
“Shame called me.”
“And?”
“He’s got her, brother. She’s safe.”
Closing my eyes, my head fell back on my pillows as tears streamed down my face, while every emotion I’d been holding in, caged within me all these years, burst forward like a tsunami, threatening to drown me in its wake.
My sobs racked my body, raw and ragged, each one a testament to the years of anguish, the suffocating darkness I’d been forced to endure.
Montana’s confirmation wasn’t just information; it was absolution.
It was the first sliver of light piercing the perpetual night that had consumed me since Diana had been ripped away.
Montana’s hand found mine, his grip firm, a silent acknowledgment of the shared weight we’d carried.
The sterile room, once a cage, now felt like a sanctuary, the impossible finally made real. But even amidst the overwhelming relief, an icy dread coiled in my gut.
Shame had Diana. That was undeniable.
But “ safe ” was a relative term when dealing with the scum we were up against. George was dead, yes, but his tendrils likely still reached into every dark corner, his influence a venom that could poison even the most secure haven.
And Dakota motherfucking Stone.
The thought of him, the architect of so much of this fucked-up reality, working in tandem with that cunt Meredith Doherty... it made my blood run cold.
Shame may have pulled off a miracle, but this fight, my fight, was far from over.
I pushed myself up, ignoring the ache in my body, the IV pole clattering as I moved. “Where is she?” I rasped, my voice thick with tears and a nascent fury.
Montana met my gaze, his own eyes grim. “Shame’s got her locked down somewhere solid.
He said he’d fill us in when he could. But you’re right,” he added, his voice dropping to a low growl.
“My dad might be a ghost, but Dakota’s got a long fucking memory.
We can’t just sit here and wait for the other shoe to drop. I’m bringing in some help.”
The fight for Diana wasn’t just about rescuing her anymore; it was about ensuring she stayed rescued, and that the monsters who’d tried to break us would finally be put down for good.
The flight from Lincoln, Nebraska, to New York City was uneventful.
Too bad I couldn’t say the same when I arrived home, because the second Montana and I entered the clubhouse, Mercy laid into us.
“SHAME IS ALIVE?!” my brother roared, storming toward me.
“All this motherfucking time, you two numbnuts knew and let us all believe that Reaper killed our brother!”
“It was Bane’s idea,” Montana quickly said, throwing me under the proverbial bus.
Mercy’s face was a thundercloud, his voice a physical blow that resonated in the very air of the clubhouse. My stomach churned, not from fear, but from the raw, unadulterated betrayal I saw in his eyes.
He was right. I let them grieve, let them believe the lie, all to protect the love of my life, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Montana’s quick deflection, while predictable, did little to ease the guilt that settled heavy in my gut.
This was going to be harder than I anticipated.
“It wasn’t like that, Mercy,” I started, my voice still raspy from disuse and pain. “Things were complicated. It was the only way.” But my words felt hollow even to me, a weak excuse against the storm brewing in my brother’s gaze.
Mercy wasn’t buying it, and frankly, neither was I.
Mercy’s eyes narrowed, his jaw tightening.
He took a step closer, his presence an imposing force.
“Complicated? The only complicated thing here is how you kept this from us. We mourned Shame. We grieved for him. And you, you sat there and let us wallow in it.” He gestured wildly, his voice cracking with the raw pain of betrayal.
“You think that’s fair, brother? You think that’s what family does? ”
His accusation hung in the air, heavy and suffocating.
My gaze flickered to Montana, who remained silent, his expression unreadable, but I knew he felt the weight of Mercy’s words as much as I did.
“It was to keep her safe, Mercy,” I finally managed, my voice a low growl, laced with the lingering pain from my own ordeal.
“Shame’s survival and Diana’s discovery—both had to be kept under wraps.
George was still sniffing around, and Dakota.
.. that fucking snake. If they knew Shame was alive, if they knew we were closing in, he would have moved Diana, or worse.
” I met Mercy’s furious gaze, willing him to understand.
“This wasn’t about deception for the sake of it; it was about survival. Our survival. Diana’s survival.”
“Who the fuck is Diana?”
My heart hammered against my ribs, a wild, trapped bird.
Mercy’s raw pain was a mirror to my own, yet he didn’t have the context, the years of insidious manipulation, the sheer terror that had dictated my every move.
“Diana,” I ground out, the name a foreign thing, heavy with a grief that still felt too new, too raw. “She’s my wife.”
Mercy’s breath hitched, his storm-cloud expression momentarily cleared, replaced by sheer disbelief, then something akin to shock. His gaze flickered from me to Montana, searching for confirmation, for an explanation that wasn’t shrouded in half-truths.
“Your wife? You... you’re married?”
The betrayal in his voice was a fresh wound. He’d known me most of his life, and I’d kept another monumental secret from my vice president.
Mercy’s disbelief morphed into a dangerous quiet.
The roaring fury subsided, replaced by a chilling stillness.
He looked at me, then at Montana, his eyes scanning our faces, as if searching for the truth hidden beneath layers of betrayal.
“Married? And you kept this from me? From us?” His voice was barely a whisper, yet it carried more weight than his earlier shouts.
His unspoken accusation hung heavy between us.
This was more than just a secret about Shame and Diana’s survival; this was about the foundation of our brotherhood, now fractured by my choices.
My pain, the gnawing emptiness left by Diana’s absence, felt like a cruel joke when faced with Mercy’s hurt.
I wanted to explain, to pour out the decades of fear and manipulation, to make him understand that every decision I’d made, every lie I’d told, had been a desperate attempt to protect her, to protect them.
But my words caught in my throat, choked by the sheer magnitude of what I’d hidden.
Montana stepped forward, placing a hand on Mercy’s shoulder, a silent plea for calm, but even he looked uncertain, caught between loyalty and the undeniable truth of my deception.
“It wasn’t about not trusting you, Mercy,” Montana finally managed, his voice rough.
“It was about keeping you all safe. If anyone knew, it would have put a bullseye on their back. Shame’s life, Diana’s life needed to be protected.
I refused to let them become collateral damage in my dad’s fucked-up game of power. ”
I met Mercy’s gaze, my own eyes raw with the weight of years of secrets. “I know I messed up. I know I broke your trust, and I would do it all again. I will do anything to protect my wife. Just like you did with Largo.”
“Don’t bring my wife into this,” Mercy seethed. “I never hid her from anyone.”
“No, you just subjected her to Blood of a Sinner.”
Montana moved fast as Mercy lunged for me. “YOU MOTHERFUCKER!”