Page 44 of Perdition (Unchained Hearts #4)
TWENTY-SEVEN
“She letting your sorry ass back in the house?” Patriot asked as he uncapped a beer and came to a stop next to him.
Swallowing his own beer, Frost cast a quick glance at Patriot. “Yup, just barely. She changed the key code again today, but she said she’d give it to me later if I’m good.” He was frowning, but his voice was light, humor filling his tone.
Patriot chuckled. “I guess you better not act up, then. Besides, Cluster is doing enough dumbass shit for all of us.” He tipped his beer bottle, indicating the brother who was, right then, trying to mount a motorcycle blindfolded…after downing five beers and toking a blunt.
The man was out of his fucking mind, but he was harmless.
It was the patch party for the Tonys, and the clubhouse was booming with music, booze, laughter, and carefree fun.
Tony—the first one—earned the road name Fetch, because he’d been so good at fetching whatever the brothers needed, they’d depended on him more and more over the last two years.
Tony Dos earned the road name Goose, because every time he fell asleep on the couch after a club party, he’d honk like a fucking goose in his sleep.
And they weren’t the only two new members getting their official Unchained MC patches.
Tiburon, Malo, and Throttle had all earned their new patches as official members of the Unchained.
Finally, with the patch over complete, his business with the Bone Dogz was over.
Mad Dog’s mess with the Cartel landed him in the prison infirmary when he lost a kidney to a dirty shanking in the showers. Sarah, after Val did her thing on the computer and added lots of not so fun charges, ended up in the state prison, serving five years.
She was no longer his problem, and it felt amazing to wash his hands of her and the trouble she brought with her.
But it wasn’t as easy to wash his hands of the trouble he’d brought to Emily and his kids.
Sorsha and Warwick had come home for the weekend and were there with him.
War was standing with Locust and Redtube by the firepit, talking about the psychology behind men who stalk their women—a completely appropriate topic for those two obsessive assholes.
Sorsha was sitting with the old ladies, including her mother, and Frost did his damn best to ignore the way his baby girl kept peeking at Tiburon across the backyard.
Patriot chuckled, bumping his shoulder into Frost’s.
“You’re going to have some trouble there, brother,” he teased, making Frost turn and glower at him.
“There won’t be a problem as long as the fucker keeps his eyes and hands to himself.”
“What are you two talking about so intently over here,” Emily asked as she came up beside Frost, slipping her arm around his waist, and leaning into him.
It had been six months since the night she’d decided—against her best judgment—to forgive him.
There was still a space between them that she wouldn’t let him bridge, but he was patient.
It took months to degrade what they had before, it would take much longer to heal it.
And he would heal it, because living without her, without the woman he loved, was impossible.
So, when she was silent, he let her be silent, he never asked her if she wanted him home, he just came home, every night, to spend time with her.
Even on the nights when she stayed late at Flower’s Blooms, he made sure to be home waiting for her.
The porch light on, calling his warrior woman home.
Some nights, he made sure to have her favorite wine open and ready for her, especially on tough days.
And some nights, he was just a listening ear for when she wanted to unload.
And it felt damn good.
How the hell did he ever think she didn’t need him?
He’d been a fool, but the fool died an agonizing and well-deserved death.
They stood at the edge of the clubhouse back lot as the sun melted into apricot and gold, fingers intertwined like an old, unspoken agreement.
Around them, the trees whispered with the slow, certain language of seasons, and the air smelled of grease, smoke, and the faint ghost of vodka.
Mads squeezed Emily’s hand, a small, private punctuation, and she leaned into him as if the rest of the world had finally learned to wait.
“We’re plotting a murder,” Frost groused, making Patriot throw his head back and laugh.
Emily, her eyes wide, chided, “Don’t say stuff like that!”
She followed his gaze and hummed.
“Ah, so you finally noticed, did you?” she asked, smug as shit.
He reeled back, glaring at her.
“You knew about this and didn’t tell me?” he protested.
She giggled, her smile lighting up her face, and her laugh lighting up his heart.
Damn, he missed that sound, even when it was at his expense.
“Of course, I knew, but that’s mother-daughter privilege, buddy.” She playfully poked his chest, and he grabbed her finger, licking the tip.
She gasped, her eyes growing heavy, her breathing labored.
Hmmm…his woman was in need.
“While you two do your weird foreplay, I’m gonna go get my lady another lemonade,” Patriot informed them before he strode off toward the coolers lined up along the back of the clubhouse.
After he left, Em and Mads stood silently watching the party playing around them.
Em in his arms, next to him, her head on his shoulder, his chin on top of her head—they fit. Meant to be. Better or worse.
Mads loves Em 4-ever.
That tree was gone, and that carving with it, but the meaning and the intention were still the same today as they had been back when he’d etched that heart and those words into the bark of that red maple.
Yesterday, today, and forever, it was Mads and Emily.
“Do you ever wonder what our life would be like if Sarah hadn’t done what she’d done…if you hadn’t had that emotional affair with her?”
That question…it was one he’d been waiting for her to ask.
And so he gave her the answer that had been weighing on his heart.
“We’d still be living a half-life, me being listless, pridefully ignorant of your needs, and you’d still be reaching out for me, waiting for me to step the fuck up and be the husband and father you needed me to be.”
“So you’re saying that everything we went through was for our own good?” Emily asked, her expression pensive.
“Come on, you have to admit we were both drifting, living in limbo, waiting for the other one to throw a rope over the divide and brave the gap.”
Em rolled her eyes, huffing.
“So you’re saying that we’d be worse off if Sarah hadn’t stuck her tits in our marriage.”
Grabbing her shoulders, he turned her to face him.
“Even the strongest metals are made even stronger when put to the fire.”
She glared at him, but there was no true anger in her eyes.
“Are you comparing our marriage to rebar, Madsen?”
He chuckled, then planted a quick kiss on her pouty lips.
“Okay, how about…even the healthiest rose bushes need pruning to truly flourish and bloom?”
She hummed, her lips trembling as she fought a smile.
He pulled her closer and cocked his head, waiting.
Finally, she grinned, putting him out of his misery.
“That’s better…and more appropriate for us, Mr. Flowers .”
He nodded sagely. “That’s what I thought, too, Mrs . Flowers.”
Behind them, the clubhouse glowed—warm windows that had watched their laughter, caught their arguments, and held their quiet apologies.
It had been built of stubbornness and soft moments, the way their life together had been: plank by plank, brother by brother, good times and bad, mistake by forgiven mistake.
They had learned how to be patient with each other’s shadows, to lift when the other faltered, to celebrate the small victories like festivals.
Standing there, they could see the shape of everything they had made.
Their family, complete and yet still growing.
His chest could barely contain the pride he felt in that moment, standing beside the woman who’d helped him build it all.
Mads cupped Emily’s face and let his thumb trace the line of her jaw as if committing it to memory all over again.
“Thank you, my Bloom, for letting this asshole be your husband again,” he said, not as a triumph but as a contented fact—two people who had chosen one another, day after day, until choosing felt less like an action and more like a state of being.
Emily smiled, quiet and full, and in that smile was all the storms they’d weathered and all the bright mornings still to come.
“Well, I couldn’t let you go—you’re the sexiest piece of biker ass I’ve ever seen. I’d be a real shame to give you up…especially since you own my heart.”
Her voice soft, her eyes warm, her expression filled with joy and adoration, she pressed a kiss to his chin.
Closing his eyes against the surge of emotions bursting forth from his soul, Mads sighed contentedly.
They turned toward the fire pit, their steps easy, a sure-footed rhythm that fit the life they’d chosen: simple, honest, fiercely connected.
Laughter mingled with shouting and bickering and off-key singing filled the air, a reminder of the world’s continual unfolding—and that Cluster couldn’t sing to save his life.
Mads pulled Emily close, resting his forehead on hers, and they stood like that until the first star pricked the sky, small and unwavering.
At home, when night finally settled, they went inside not as two halves seeking completion but as companions who had long ceased to measure their worth in solitude.
Later, after they made love, and as the house breathed and the world softened outside, they fell asleep in the familiar fold of each other’s arms—no more endings to fear, no more heartache to soothe, only the promise of every coming morning.
For Frost, his time in his own hellish perdition taught him something he would never take for granted: there was nothing he’d rather lose than his pride, and nothing he’d rather have more than his wife, his Emily, blooming beside him.
Mads and Emily forever.