30. Ash #2
“Angel...” The word leaves my lips like a prayer.
On the screen, she turns her head towards Kai, their eyes locking in desperation. Bloody and broken, Kai softens, his lips moving as he speaks to her. I can’t hear him at first, but I see the way she latches onto the words. See the way she holds onto them as pain and fear take over her body.
Then I lean forward, every muscle in my body straining.
“Eyes on me,” he says.
My throat tightens.
“Keep those eyes on me, Maddison.”
And she does. Even when her body trembles. Even when Zeke moves closer again. She keeps her eyes on my brother like he’s the only anchor in the room. And I hate myself for feeling grateful. Grateful that someone is there to steady her when I’m not... When I failed her.
Something in me ruptures when Zeke touches her again. My vision goes red at the edges. A hand grips my shoulder, Griff’s maybe, but I shrug it off violently.
“Don’t,” I growl, voice shredded down to nothing but gravel and hate. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
Zeke crouches down, and I feel my angel’s fear through the screen.
Her skin coats in a shiny sheen of sweat, bruises and blood stark against her pale skin.
Her lashes are wet with tears, and her pouty bottom lip wobbles.
I hear him ask her about the drive. The drive I told her all about that day at the meeting.
And my brave, stubborn girl says nothing.
Not a single word.
“Just tell him,” I whisper at the screen, desperation clawing its way up my throat. “Tell him, Angel. I don’t fucking care. Just make it stop.”
I would burn the club to the ground. I would hand over every weapon. Every man. Every secret. None of it matters. Only her. And if this world doesn’t have her in it, then it deserves to be burnt to ashes.
My eyes are scanning the area, trying to figure out where they are. The dilapidated room is mouldy and dark, with water dripping down the stained concrete. It only confirms what we already know. They are underground. So fucking far away from me.
“Leon, where are you on the location?” I grit out, not bothering to turn to his direction.
I hear him typing furiously his computer, chasing the answers I desperately need.
“I’m almost there, boss,” he mutters, voice strained. “I’ll get it. I swear.”
A desperate noise claws its way out of my throat. I need better than that. My attention is dragged back to the video feed when I hear Zeke utter my parents name. My mother’s name.
Everything else fades away as my eyes narrow on my angel. Zeke just told her about my Mum. About how I killed her. My biggest failure until today... Until I left her and my brother in the hands of Zeke.
Multiple emotions flicker on her beautiful face. Confusion. Fear. And then sadness. She’s sad? I continue to stare at her and wait for it to happen.
Wait for the moment her face changes. For disgust to creep in. For horror to take over. For the light in her eyes, the part of her that still looks at me like I’m something other than ruin, to snuff out.
Because how could it not?
If my own mother couldn’t love me past it, how could an angel?
But she doesn’t look disgusted.
She looks devasted. Not at me. For me.
Then her voice, small and wrecked, threads through the speakers.
“You loved her.”
My brows knit, confusion punching through the numbness.
The words don’t fit. They don’t make sense.
But Zeke... His reaction is immediate. His hand whips to the side, muscles contracting as he slaps her across the side of her face.
The impact has her head swinging, strands of blonde hair stained red, flying.
It’s so harsh, it’s almost a confession.
I lean closer to the screen without meaning to, like if I narrow the distance, I can change what I’m seeing. Zeke never loses control. Not like that. He’s too calculated, unlike me. He doesn’t crack.
But he cracks now.
And in that fracture, memories I’ve kept blurred and buried start dragging themselves up to the surface.
Zeke lingering in our house. Zeke at my father’s side.
Zeke hanging around long after meetings ended, long after a normal man would have left.
The way my mum used to go quiet when he entered a room.
I always thought it was fear. Could it have been something else?
I always thought he idolised my father.
But what if it wasn’t him?
What if it was her?
Something cold and nauseating settles into my gut, heavy as lead. Did my mum love him? The way she couldn’t ever love me?
Did she choose him too?
It should destroy me, should split me down the middle. But it doesn’t, because none of that matters now. Not really. Not when my angel is there, ropes cutting into her skin, her mouth bloodied, her eyes still fighting to stay open.
Only one thing matters.
She lifts her head again. Even through the pain, even through the fear, she finds the strength to hold herself upright. Blood glistens on her lips. Exhaustion clings to her like a second skin.
Her next words ruin me.
She loves me.
Not whispered in some soft, safe moment where it costs her nothing. Not murmured against my throat in the dark, not hidden behind a glance or touch. She says it out loud, to the camera. To my enemy. To me.
She says it knowing exactly what it might cost her.
She loves me. She loves me.
My knees buckle and the screen blurs. A sound I don’t recognise tears out of me.
She loves me.
And I wasn’t there.
Zeke moves; the camera shakes slightly as he closes the distance. His fist connects with her face with a sickening crack, and I watch the lights go out of her pretty, tired eyes.
The men in the room shift, waiting for the command, the reaction, the eruption. They’ve seen me violent. They’ve seen me ruthless.
I straighten slowly, my jaw locks.
I know what I need to do.