Page 26

Bella

Blade picked me up at sunset and we went for a ride, the golden afternoon light slowly giving way to twilight as the tires of the bike swallowed up the asphalt. We’re sitting on the beach now, watching the final descent of the sun into the waters of the ocean.

This spot used to be one of our favorite date spots.

Right by the water, sheltered by tall cliffs, hidden from the world, just the two of us.

It’s not far from the first clubhouse the MC ever claimed and the place that tore us apart for a decade, because my family almost killed him there.

That fact is not lost on me. Nor is the reason for this trip down memory lane, although Blade hasn’t said as much.

“You’re leaving soon, aren’t you?” I ask, because I need everything out in the open now.

The moon is starting to rise over the waters, large, white and almost full, making the diamond ring he gave me shimmer and glow.

I love watching the moonrise as much as I love sunrise and sunset—a love that grew even fiercer while I was in prison and couldn’t watch the sky as much as I wanted.

And I love that he made me his. Finally. After all these years.

He’s staring at the moon too, but holding my hand in both of his very tightly.

“Yes,” he finally says. “Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we ride for Pleasantville.”

Such a quaint, pretty name for a place that might take him away from me forever. My stomach is in knots, my mind spinning in a way that I never knew how to stop with the aid of drugs. Yet I have no desire to get high.

“Can I just come with you?”

He looks at me and even in the near darkness I can see the plain and simple no on his face.

“You know, I think this is the first time in my life that I regret not becoming a biker like the rest of you,” I say and actually mean it. “Like Bianca did. And Angel. Do you think it’s really too late?”

He smiles and releases my hands to wrap his arms around me. “That’s not what you want. You really just want to be my ol’ lady.”

“That I do. But that’s because I want to be with you. In any way I can. All the time.”

I hug him back, resting my head against his chest, enjoying the sound of his deep, strong breaths and heartbeat, so reminiscent of the sound of waves hitting the sandy shore. Eternal and strong. And the most peaceful sound I know.

“I don’t want to ever lose you again,” I whisper.

“Me either,” he says. “Which is why I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

It’s not a promise he can make, not truly, he can only promise he’ll do the best he can to come back. But I appreciate it anyway.

“Don’t make this hard, Bella,” he adds and I nod with my head still pressed against his chest. He smells like the sea and the road and moonlight. All my favorite things.

“I’ll do my best.”

He chuckles at that. “Well, at least you’re honest.”

I look up to smile at him. “I try to be. Now kiss me goodbye.”

He does, like he did the first time I ever asked him, and whenever he could since. I taste all those things I love in his kiss, they’re pouring into me like a flood, making me brave and strong despite all the fear hanging in the air around us, obscuring our future.

But at least the darkness we’re facing now isn’t as impenetrable as the black nothing of the last ten years we spent apart. At least our love is shining bright again, warmed by the sunlight, shimmering in the moonlight.

We’ve been through so much. We can get through this. I’ll make it happen.

From our last conversation, I know that my family and my bad blood and history with the Moretti crime family is at the heart of this issue.

He didn’t say as much, but I can read between the lines.

And if my brother is working for Dante Moretti now, I can ask for his help to get the Morettis off our backs.

He’s never said no to me yet. Never wanted to control me the way my father and other brother did. Or at least not as much.

This will be the last and only favor I ever ask of him. To let me go and let me live my life with the people I love.

But I won’t tell Blade anything about these plans. He’ll just try to stop me again. And I don’t want to be stopped. Not now that I can actually help them all for the first time.