Chapter Thirty-Six
Bane
“Did you have to piss Mercy off?” Montana asked as he shoved me into a seat in the boardroom.
Grunting, I tried to make myself comfortable as I watched him walk over to the small mini-fridge and remove a bottle of water.
Slamming it down in front of me, he reached into his jacket and produced three prescriptions, placing them next to the bottle of water. “Take them. Now.”
“I still have another hour.”
Montana sneered, glaring at me until I picked up one of the prescriptions, removed the lid, and shoved a pill down my throat. Swallowing, I smiled. “Happy now?”
“Not even close,” the fucker snipped, taking his seat as Mercy walked in. “Where the fuck is everyone?”
“Malice and Silver are on a date, Rage is on his way in, and Payne is down in the mailroom annoying the bitch.”
“Date?” I questioned before popping another pill, unsure I had heard him correctly.
“Yeah, don’t ask. All they do is ride on the bike and come back, both eating a green-apple snow cone.”
Smirking, I refused to comment as I took the last pill.
“Talked with Reaper. Fury and Vicious are at Davenport Tower getting cleaned up, and Torment’s plane landed an hour ago,” Mercy added.
“Snoopy and Popeye?” Montana asked.
Mercy shook his head. “No luck. No one has seen them.”
“What about Storm?” I asked.
“I’m here,” the man himself stated, walking into the boardroom, dropping an overnight bag at the door before taking his seat. “And for the record, Mercy, threatening to have Malice hunt me down and give me the Blood of a Sinner was a dick move.”
The VP shrugged. “Got ya here, didn’t it?”
Moments later, Torment strolled into the boardroom looking all fresh and well-rested. Narrowing my eyes, I looked at the fucker and said, “You look weird. Why are you so fucking happy?”
Grinning from ear to ear, the club’s therapist smiled as he took his seat and leaned back, placing his hands behind his head. “Because, my dear cranky brother, I’ve finally found my equal, and she’s more terrifying than me.”
“And that’s good news?” Storm chuckled.
Torment winked, fixing Storm with a knowing look. “She’s got me rethinking every dirty, delicious bad habit I can think of.”
A ripple of laughter circled the table, easing the tension that had been coiling in the air since the call went out for the missing members. Even Montana allowed himself a smirk, although he tried unsuccessfully to hide it when the alarms went off down in the mailroom.
Jumping to their feet, the brothers rushed out of the boardroom, heading downstairs. Following as fast as I could, I finally made it into the mailroom to hear Montana cursing up a fucking storm as he slammed his fist into the wall. “WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?!”
Seeing Payne sitting on the floor, his back against the wall with a gunshot to his shoulder, I walked over and kneeled beside him, putting pressure on his wound.
Breathing heavily, he muttered, “It was Dakota. One minute I was cleaning up, the next he was here and shot me. He took the bitch. She’s gone.”
“FUCK!” Montana roared.
“The bullet went through your shoulder. I just need to clean the wound and patch it up. You’ll be fine,” I said, sitting on my ass, short of breath as Montana paced the mailroom.
“We’re screwed,” he muttered mostly to himself as we all watched the volatile man. “I can’t explain this. No one has ever escaped the mailroom before. It’s impossible.”
“She didn’t exactly escape, Montana,” Mercy jumped in. “Your fucking brother let her out.”
“How the hell did he even get in here?” Storm asked.
Ignoring everyone, I looked at my best friend and whispered, “Montana.” The second he spun around and looked me in the eyes, I knew what he was going to say before he even spoke the words.
Closing my eyes, I slowly shook my head. “I’m done.”
“August,” he whispered, taking a step toward me.
Carefully getting to my feet, I swallowed the pain of torture I’d suffered at the hands of the Brotherhood and simply said, “I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry. I gave it twenty years.”
“August, it’s just until we find her again.”
Narrowing my eyes, I sneered, “What? Another twenty fucking years? I can’t do this anymore, Montana.
I’m done. Your father, this club, your fucking brother, and that cunt have taken everything from me.
EVERYTHING! For what? That’s what I don’t know.
That’s the one fucking mystery I could never solve.
They’ve ruined any chance I had at happiness for their own perverse greed and fulfillment. ”
My voice choked on the words, each syllable a testament to the shattered pieces of my existence.
Twenty years of living a half-life, a ghost haunted by memories I couldn’t escape.
Dakota Stone. Meredith Doherty. George Stone.
Their names were etched into my soul like brands, a constant reminder of the darkness that had consumed me.
I’d been manipulated, drugged, forced into a life I never wanted, all for their perverse pleasure.
And for what? I still didn’t have the answer.
All I knew was that it had cost me everything: my freedom, my peace, and, most importantly, Diana.
“August, don’t do this,” Montana pleaded, his voice rough with desperation.
“We need you. I need you.” The misery in his eyes mirrored the turmoil in my own heart.
He was my brother, my confidant, the one person who’d stood by me through it all.
But the pain had become a tangible thing, a crushing weight that I could no longer carry.
The thought of facing another twenty years, another betrayal, another fight against shadows that seemed to multiply with every step, was simply too much.
“You don’t understand,” I whispered, my gaze fixed on the bloodstain spreading on Payne’s shirt. “This is it. I’m out. I can’t sacrifice any more. I’ve lost too much. I’m done. I’m so fucking done.”
My words hung in the air, heavy with finality.
The weight of my decision settled on me like a shroud.
Montana’s desperate plea echoed in my ears, but the twenty years of being a pawn in this twisted game had worn me down to the bone.
I’d fought for Diana, I’d endured the unimaginable for her, and now that she was within reach, the thought of being dragged back into the abyss, another twenty years of this fucked-up war, was more than I could bear.
It wasn’t about not wanting to fight; it was about finally wanting to live.
I kept walking, my gaze fixed on the stained concrete, each step a silent renunciation of the life I’d been forced to lead.
The cheers of my brothers, the desperate calls for me to stop, all faded into the background, replaced by the phantom scent of Diana’s perfume, a beacon in the encroaching darkness.
I saw her face, not the one I remembered from twenty years ago, but the one I’d conjured in my dreams, weathered perhaps, but still the woman I loved.
That was enough.
It had to be.
Montana’s rage, Mercy’s despair, my brother’s worried looks—they were casualties of my choice, just as I was a casualty of George, Dakota, and Meredith.
But I couldn’t sacrifice another moment of my life to their twisted games.
The war against the Soulless Sinners and the many others had cost me everything.
Now, with Diana finally found, I was taking back what little I had left: my own damn life.
The second I entered the main gathering room of the clubhouse, I stopped dead in my tracks when a fragile, soft whisper damn near knocked me on my ass.
“August.”
I dared not move.
If this were a dream, I never wanted it to end because there she was, standing not ten feet in front of me.
Still the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on.
My breath hitched; my entire body froze as if struck by lightning.
Her whisper, so faint it could have been the wind through the broken windows of my soul, was nonetheless undeniable.
My Diana.
Her voice, a melody I’d only heard in the echoes of my nightmares for two decades, was right there, a tangible presence in the stale air of the clubhouse.
Turning slowly, my heart threatened to burst through my chest when I finally saw her.
Not a ghost of a memory, not the idealized phantom conjured in my dreams, but her.
Standing there, frail and beautiful, her eyes were wide with a mixture of disbelief and overwhelming recognition.
She was real.
Tears, hot and stinging, blurred my vision, but I didn’t dare move, didn’t dare breathe too deeply lest my fragile reality shattered.
Twenty years of pain, of relentless pursuit, of enduring the unimaginable—it all converged in this single, devastating moment.
The secrets, the lies, the sacrifices, even the agonizing decision to walk away from everything I knew, they all culminated in this.
Seeing her, truly seeing her, alive and breathing and somehow, impossibly, looking at me, was both a balm and a fresh wave of agony.
The fight was over, the battle for her was won, but the cost.. . the cost had been my very soul.
“Diana.” Her name was a ragged gasp, torn from my throat, raw and imperfect, a stark contrast to the phantom whisper I’d just heard.
I took a step, then another, my legs feeling like lead.
The world narrowed to just her. The chaos of the clubhouse, the worry of my brothers, the lingering threat of Dakota Stone and Meredith—it all faded into an insignificant hum.
I needed to touch her, to feel the reality of her against my skin, to finally, after twenty hellish years, believe she was mine again.
I was done with the darkness, done with the fighting.
I just wanted my wife.
And then, she was in my arms. The scent of her—a ghost of perfume and a lifetime of memories—filled my senses.
Her body felt fragile beneath my touch, like a bird that had been through a hurricane, but she was alive.
She was real. My tears fell freely now, not from pain, but from joy so profound it threatened to shatter me.
“Diana,” I choked out, my voice raw and broken. “I’m so sorry.”
She clutched me tighter, her own tears wetting my chest. “I knew you’d find me,” she whispered, her voice stronger now, though still tinged with the trauma she’d endured.
The world outside this embrace ceased to exist. The machinations of Dakota Stone, the lingering threat of those who still wanted to do us harm, the fractured brotherhood of my club—it all dissolved into insignificance.
For twenty years, she had been my sole focus, my guiding star through an ocean of darkness. And now, she was here. Safe. My personal war, the one that had consumed my life, was finally over. I had endured the pain, the manipulation, the unimaginable horrors, all for this moment.
I held her, breathing in the reality of her, the proof that I hadn’t lost my mind, that my sacrifice hadn’t been in vain.
The ache in my soul, the phantom pains from my past, they all faded into nothingness.
All that mattered was Diana, the woman I loved, the reason I had fought so fiercely for so long.
This was it.
This was the end of the fight, and the beginning of... what? I didn’t know. But for the first time in twenty years, I was ready to find out, with her by my side.