Page 32 of Property of Thrasher (Kings of Anarchy MC: South Carolina #1)

MELODY

I knew before the doctor even opened his mouth.

The hallway was too quiet. The nurse wouldn’t meet my eyes.

Thrasher’s hand tightened around mine like he felt it too—like he knew the world was about to split right down the middle and take me with it.

He had left for about an hour, but came back after talking to whatever brother he needed a meeting with.

I didn’t ask questions because none of it mattered to me.

“She had another bleed we couldn’t stop.”

Those were the words. Just that, nothing else. Clinical, cold, final.

Another bleed. Couldn’t stop.

Lyric was gone.

My knees buckled, but Thrasher caught me before I hit the sterile tile. His arms locked around me, iron and warmth at the same time, but I couldn’t breathe. I pressed my face into his chest and screamed, the sound ripping out of me raw, like my soul was clawing for air.

Not her. Not Lyric.

She was the one who believed in escape, who believed in second chances and freedom, even when I doubted. She was the one who laughed too loud, who made friends with strangers like she’d been born to charm the world. She was the one who said we’d be safe if we stuck together.

And now she was gone.

I shook so hard I thought my bones would shatter. My cousin, my sister in all the ways that mattered, ripped out of my life because two men I knew too well decided to make us pay for leaving.

Thrasher didn’t speak. He just held me, his chest solid beneath my cheek, the steady thump of his heart somehow proof that the earth still turned. But I hated it. I hated that it kept moving when she wasn’t here.

The rest of the night blurred. Voices came and went.

Brothers filled the waiting room, grim and silent, their fury simmering so hot I could feel it even from where I curled in Thrasher’s lap.

Tiny still clung to life down the hall, his body a battlefield, his brain fighting for every second.

But Lyric… she was already on the other side, and nothing was going to pull her back.

When the worst of the storm inside me burned down to an empty ache, Thrasher shifted me so I had to meet his eyes. His face was rough, blood still in the cut at his temple, his jaw dark with stubble, but his gaze was steady, unflinching.

“Melody,” he said, his voice low and grave. “I need to ask you something, and I need you to answer me straight.”

I blinked at him, numb, hollow. “What?”

“Do you trust me?”

The question hit me like a shove. “You know I do.”

“Do you?” he pressed. “All the way?”

My throat went dry. “What are you saying?”

He glanced around once, then leaned in closer, his breath brushing my hair.

“You know my world doesn’t run on the same rules as everybody else’s.

You’ve seen enough to know that. I want to know that you understand what comes next, and that when it does, you’re either behind me or you walk away. I can’t have you halfway. Not on this.”

His words sliced through the haze of grief like a knife.

“What comes next?” I whispered, though I already knew.

His eyes darkened, hard and merciless. “I’m going to end them. Logan. BJ. Both. And anyone else involved. They touched what’s mine. They took your blood. There’s no world where they breathe another day if I’ve got the say.”

The air vanished from my lungs. My heart hammered so loud it was all I heard. “You mean—you’re going to kill them.” I whispered the words unsure this was really happening.

“I mean they’ll never have another chance to touch you. Or anyone you love.” His grip on my hands tightened. “That’s not up for debate, Melody. That’s not negotiable. What is—is whether you can live with it. Whether you can live with me after it.”

The room spun. I wanted to scream that this wasn’t who I was. I wasn’t a woman who thirsted for blood, who believed revenge brought anything but more grief. I’d spent years dreaming of a life outside violence, outside control.

But Lyric’s face swam in front of me. The way she laughed, the way she teased me, the way she clutched Tiny’s cut like she belonged against it on him. The future they had yet to begin. The sound of her scream before the truck hit. The sight of her broken body on the asphalt.

She was gone because of them.

And me? I was still here. Breathing. Trembling. Hiding inside Thrasher’s arms because with him, I felt something I hadn’t felt since I was a child—safe.

Safe, because he was the kind of man who didn’t let threats grow.

I closed my eyes, twisting up inside so bad I thought I’d break apart. My old self—the girl who begged for peace, who prayed for mercy—told me to say no. To beg him not to add more death to the pile.

But the woman who’d survived, who’d lost everything, who knew the world was sharp and cruel and merciless… she was done begging.

She wanted them gone.

When I opened my eyes, Thrasher was still watching me, patient but fierce, as if he’d already decided his path but needed to know if I was on it with him.

“I’m not someone who wants revenge,” I managed, my voice breaking. “That’s never been me. I wanted to get away, to start over. I wanted… I wanted something clean. I wanted to exist quietly.”

His thumb brushed over my knuckles, rough and steady. “And now?”

“Now…” I swallowed, the grief burning into something hotter, darker. “Now I don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. I don’t want to wake up at night thinking they’re coming for me next. I don’t want to live in fear of the next time they decide to take something from me.”

My breath shuddered out. “If you’re the only thing standing between me and that, then yes. I trust you. I trust what you’ll do.”

The steel in his gaze didn’t soften, but something else sparked there—satisfaction, maybe, or relief. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to mine.

“That’s all I needed to hear,” he murmured.

I sagged against him, drained, but some part of me steadied in a way it hadn’t since the accident. It terrified me, knowing I’d just given myself to something I couldn’t take back. But it also felt… inevitable. Like I’d stepped into the path already predestined for me.

Thrasher’s world wasn’t clean. It wasn’t safe in the ways I used to dream about. But with him, I wasn’t powerless. With him, I wasn’t prey.

I was his.

And in his world, that meant protected.

The next day was a blur of condolences and logistics. Brothers took shifts in the hospital. Tiny’s condition wavered but held, a flicker of hope in the sea of grief. But Lyric’s absence hung heavy, a hole none of us could fill.

I sat in the chapel alone for a while, the small sterile room with its wooden cross and stiff chairs. I wasn’t sure if I believed anymore. But I whispered anyway—angry, broken words that weren’t prayers so much as accusations.

Why her? Why not me? Why always the ones who still had hope?

The silence gave me no answers.

When I came back to the waiting room, Thrasher was standing with DK, their heads bent low, voices hushed. Plans were being made. I didn’t ask details. I didn’t need them.

Thrasher looked up as soon as I walked in, his eyes locking on mine like I was the only anchor he needed. He crossed the space, his hand cupping the back of my neck.

“You good?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No. But I’m alive and with you. I will be.”

He kissed my forehead, rough and lingering. “That’s all I ask.”

That night, back at the clubhouse, the grief turned into something sharper. The brothers drank in silence, no music, no laughter. Just the heavy air of mourning and the electric buzz of rage.

I sat at a corner table, nursing a glass of water I barely touched, watching Thrasher move through the room. He wasn’t loud. He didn’t need to be. His presence alone carried weight, and every brother who met his eyes knew what was coming.

I realized then that revenge in this world wasn’t chaos. It was order. It was the way they balanced the scales when the law couldn’t—or wouldn’t. It was brutal, yes. But it was the only justice some men ever faced.

And for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to turn away from it.

I wanted to see the scales balanced. For Lyric. For Tiny. For me.

When Thrasher finally came back to me, his hand slid over mine, his eyes steady.

“You still with me?” he asked.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Always,” I promised.

The word twisted inside me, both terrifying and freeing.

Because it was true.

I was with him.

No matter where this road led.