Page 96 of Bound By Flames

“No, you don’t get it, I….Ineedyou, Ares, please,” she murmurs, her voice breaking.

“I…”

Speechless.

Mia had taken my dark iron heart and had cut the metal with her soul, making my world fall from its axis.

“Prez, we gotta start the interrogation. He’s got an hour max,” says Carter, kneeling next to Nero and pushing his index finger into the guy’s wound, making the bastard cry like a baby.

"Ares,” Vox says, pulling me back to reality. He zeroes in on me, as if he could read my fucking mind. “We’ll deal with him.”

He knew.

He knew I had to leave. But leaving them with the prey we had hunted all together for months, which was supposed to be the ultimate reward I wanted to personally handle, was bittersweet. New. Unfamiliar.

I had never let personal matters over the club ever since I became prez. Perhaps because I couldn’t make a distinction between me and the club. I was the embodiment of it. And yet, my little tornado had made her way into my twisted soul and wrecked my world, leaving me there, so fucking torn yet already all too aware of where I really wanted to be.

Business over women.

Fuck it.

“Take all you can get, skin him alive, then burn his body up the valley,” I order Vox, locking our gazes and feeling a sense of relief because he had known this torment all too well before me.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” I tell her, hearing a sigh of relief on the other side of the call.

Then, without a second more, I turn my back on the prize I thought would give me the satisfaction I need and drive back home to my woman, repeating in my head the four letters words that have become a vital need to be said out loud.

Mia

He was alive, but still, I couldn’t stop crying, knees up under my chin, rolled on his side of the bed, thinking I could have lost him. My breathing stopped the minute I heard the gunshot and then came back when I heard his voice again. I knew he was busy, I knew this was an important operation,and yet, I had this feeling that he needed to come home, that we couldn’t be apart tonight, that something monumental was about to happen.

Twenty minutes after the call, I heard his bike pass our gates. The clock indicates one a.m., the moon shining through the beige curtains as the only source of light around me.

I couldn’t wait.

I needed to see him.

Now.

Make sure, with my own eyes, that he wasn’t hurt.

So, I shoved the covers away and ran the stairs to the main entry door, a few heads turning to me as I exited our large cabin in my tiny pink nightwear. They all looked away within a second, remembering the cost of gawking at their boss’s wife.

The air was cold and small drops of rain were exploding on my burning skin as I watched, barefoot in the gravel, Ares remove his helmet and get off his bike. A good five meters were separating us, the wind brushing trees and branches, echoing around us like a blanket, stopping the time.

“You came back,” I say, realizing I’m out of breath.

“You called.” His tone is low and grounded, his body covered in his black gears, making him look even more impressive than usual.

“Why…? I thought the club was your priority above anything else.” A shiver runs down my spine as the cold of the night brushes against my skin.

“It was.”

“Was?” I bite my lower lip.

“Mia.” He makes one step toward me at the same time as I take one step back.

“Ares, I…I thought I’d lost you tonight. I don’t think I have any more tears to shed if you can’t—”