Page 58

I stood just inside the door of our half-finished bakery, flowers clutched in my fist, suit suffocating me. The scent of fresh paint and sawdust filled my nose—memories of her fingers traced in yellow, her laughter echoing off empty walls.

This morning, the stranger in the bathroom mirror wore a suit, his hair clean, his eyes hollow. I'd practiced the words until my voice cracked. "Will you marry me?"

I killed people for a fucking living, now I'm tongue tied over a fucking question.

The question had hung unnatural and wrong in the air. I'd slammed my fist into the mirror—the glass should have shattered. It didn't. Just like everything else, it refused to break the way it should. Black on black—shirt, slacks, jacket Victoria had gotten me years ago. I'd never worn it until today. I kept my combat boots. The one piece of myself I wouldn't surrender.

My hair hung loose past my shoulders. Oakley liked it that way. I'd washed it three times, combing out each tangle with her shampoo—the one she bought for me. Its scent surrounded me even when she wasn't there. One more thing I'd changed for her. One more piece reshaped by her hands.

Lilies in my grip—her favorites. I'd seen her stop to touch them at the market, fingers gentle against petals like she was afraid they'd crumble. I noticed everything about her. The black fabric was poorly ironed, creases visible, each uneven line evidence of my clumsy attempt at normalcy.

The wooden sign sat propped against the counter. Our handprints pressed together in the wood—my black palm spanning wide, her delicate lavender print nestled inside mine. Below, an empty space waited. Summer's handprint would go there. Our daughter who would exist because I'd decided she would.

I'd crafted that sign by hand. Hours bent over oak, knife sliding through grain, spelling out Sweet Summer's in flowing script. The bakery she'd dreamed of since childhood. The life we were building together.

Seven o'clock. That's what we'd agreed.

I could see it—white silk pooling around her feet, her chestnut hair catching afternoon sunlight like spun gold. Law would walk her down the aisle. The way she'd bite her lower lip when nervous, jade eyes finding mine across the grass between us. She'd be beautiful. She was always beautiful, but in a wedding dress, walking toward me like I was worth choosing—it would stop my heart if I had one that worked like other men's.

The garden would be small. Intimate. Just the club and their women under open sky because we'd all burn if we set foot in a church. Yellow roses scattered in the grass like sunshine she could walk through, wildflowers woven into her hair. Real flowers, not the dying ones in my fist.

And afterward, when the vows were real and legal and chosen, we'd come back here. To our bakery. She'd wear her dress while we mixed batter, flour dusting the white silk, her laughter echoing off walls we'd painted together. I'd lift her onto the counter, careful of the fabric, and kiss her until she forgot every reason she ever had to doubt this.

Seven fifteen.

My finger found the outline of her handprint on the sign. Delicate. So much smaller than mine. I could span her entire palm with three of my fingers.

Inside my jacket, four pendants pressed against my ribs—silver teardrops, each with ash inside. Michael. Tyler. Jensen. Karson. The boys who tormented her in high school. I was hoping we could smash them together.

I'd imagined her taking my bat, those delicate hands wrapping around the handle while I guided her swing. The pendants would shatter like glass, ash scattering across our bakery floor—the final destruction of everything that ever made her cry. She'd be magnificent in that moment, jade eyes bright, hair wild around her face as she took her revenge. Fucking beautiful.

Seven forty-five.

The empty display case reflected my distorted image back—a man in expensive fabric holding flowers. The case I'd installed last week, sweating through measurements to make it perfect. Now dust gathered where her pastries should be. Like everything else I touched—beautiful at first, then left to rot.

Eight-fifteen.

An older couple passed by the window, holding hands in the rain, their laughter cutting through the glass. His weathered hand covered hers, fingers intertwined with the ease of decades. I watched their casual happiness, their comfortable love, and something vicious twisted in my gut. What they had looked effortless. What I wanted felt like trying to hold smoke.

The realization crept in—slow, then all at once. She'd seen what everyone else saw. That I was broken beyond repair. That love wasn't meant for things like me.

Nine-thirty.

Each tick of my watch was a nail in the coffin of whatever delusion had brought me here. A man in formal wear, practicing proposals in mirrors, believing he could be worthy of something pure. The second hand moved, marking the death of hope.

Ten o'clock.

Three hours. Three hours I'd sat here like a trained dog, waiting for scraps of affection from someone who'd decided I wasn't worth showing up for.

I looked at the sign again. In our handprints, black and lavender intertwined. The empty space below seemed to accuse me now—Summer would never press her tiny palm there.

She wasn't coming.

She'd never forgive me for drugging her. For stealing her choice. For forcing those vows past her unconscious lips while she floated somewhere unreachable. The mask of kindness had slipped away, revealing what I'd always known—no one could love a monster.

I was beyond forgiving.

I'd crossed every line, broken every boundary, violated every sacred thing about her and called it love. I'd taken her wedding day and made it about my need instead of her choice. I'd turned her into my victim and then demanded she be grateful for the cage I'd built around her.

I'd stolen her voice, her safety, her right to say no—and then sat here expecting her to show up with a smile and forgiveness I'd never earned.

She owed me nothing.

I'd played at being worthy while the truth rotted beneath the surface. Every gentle touch had been tainted by what I'd done. Every moment of tenderness was built on the foundation of violation. I wasn't her husband—I was her kidnapper in a wedding suit, expecting absolution for sins.

I’d fucking do it again. Every twisted, unforgivable thing. Because losing her was worse than being the monster who stole her. Because I'd rather be hated by her than forgotten. Because my love was a disease that infected everything it touched, and I was too selfish to find a cure.

What replaced him was something I recognized. Something that had been waiting, patient and hungry, beneath the thin veneer of domesticity I'd tried to wear.

Then I began.

The first shelf went down under my fist, wood splintering with a crack that echoed satisfaction through my bones. No pain—nothing compared to the emptiness spreading through my chest like infection. The display case shattered under my boot, glass exploding across the floor, each shard reflecting my rage back in fractured pieces.

I tore through our bakery like the storm I'd always been. Light fixtures crashed down, sparks showering the wreckage. Cabinets ripped from walls. My fist punched through the back wall, again and again, until knuckles split and the white drywall was streaked with dark stains. I couldn't feel the wounds. Couldn't feel anything but the sweet relief of destruction.

The industrial mixer went next, my shoulder screaming as I flipped it over, three hundred pounds of steel crashing to the tiles. The sound of metal splitting and gears breaking filled the air—a symphony of ending. I dumped the velvet pouch into my palm, four pendants catching lightning through the windows. Beautiful containers for monsters I'd killed for her. Sick gifts from a sick man who thought he could buy love with revenge.

I hurled them across the ruined bakery, hearing them clatter into debris, disappearing into the wreckage of everything I'd been stupid enough to believe in.

My hand raised toward the sign—our handprints pressed together in wood, black and lavender intertwined. Summer's empty space staring back like an accusation. I could end it. Could erase the last proof that I'd ever believed in something beyond myself.

But I stopped. Destroying that would be like ripping out the last thread connecting me to what I'd briefly become. The sign would survive when everything else turned to ash. Our handprints, permanent proof of a moment when I'd been more than just a rageful appetite.

The rain drenched me the moment I stepped outside. I didn't bother covering my head. Let it wash away the formal wear, the flowers, the stupid hope that had brought me here. Let it drown whatever weakness had made me think I could be worthy of love.

I gunned my bike through red lights, engine screaming through empty streets. Not toward my apartment—nothing waited there except rooms that would echo with her absence. The clubhouse would have noise. Water cascaded from my hair to the floor when I pushed through the doors. They were all there—waiting. The room transformed with lights strung from the ceiling, champagne bottles in ice, glasses waiting to be filled.

An engagement party. For us. For a proposal that had died in my fist three hours ago.

The brothers and their women had spent their day decorating, planning, celebrating a love story that existed only in their heads. They'd bought champagne. Hung lights. All for a man who'd forced marriage on an unconscious woman and then sat in a bakery like a lovesick fool, waiting for forgiveness that would never come.

The brothers and their women stared at me, excitement dying on their faces as they realized I was alone. A dripping figure, broken flowers clutched in my fist, regret pooling around my feet.

"They’re here! Wait—" Joslyn's voice cut through the space, then died as her eyes met mine. Her blue dress matched her nails, roses clutched in her hands. Her expression crumbled like paper in the rain. "Where's Oakley?"

I didn't speak. Couldn't. Just let water stream from my hair, my clothes, making puddles on their floor while they stared at the wreckage of what I'd thought I could become. I'd never felt more pathetic—soaked through, holding dead flowers, in front of everyone who'd watched me pretend I could be human.

Stupid. That was what I was. Stupid to think a monster could have a wife. Stupid to believe in fairy tales. Stupid to think she'd forgive me for forcing those vows past her unconscious lips, for stealing her choice while she floated somewhere unreachable.

What kind of delusional fuck puts on formal wear and waits three hours for a woman who'd decided he wasn't worth showing up for? The kind who never learned that some things couldn't be fixed. The kind who thought he deserved love when all he'd ever given the world was death.

Law pushed through the crowd, stopping just short of the water spreading from my feet. "Where's Oakley?"

"She didn't show up." The words tore something inside me, each syllable a small death.

Water dripped from my clothes to the floor, the sound deafening in the quiet.

"She wouldn't do that." Claudia's voice cracked as she pushed forward.

I thought she wouldn’t either.

“She texted that she was going to Daphne’s house earlier today.” Nyla piped up.

My phone buzzed. Chet's name flashed on the screen.

He texted me hours ago. It’s time.

I took off without an explanation as the others followed me. The ride to Daphne's house passed in a blur. My bike almost hit the ground as I sprung off of it, the smell hitting me before I reached the house. The front door hung open, swinging in the wind like a broken jaw. Dark handprints smeared the white porch railing, drag marks cutting through pooling rainwater.

Lights flickered, casting grotesque shadows across walls painted with struggle. Furniture overturned, glass shattered across hardwood like stars fallen to earth. Someone had been thrown through the coffee table. Someone else had crawled, bleeding, across the living room floor, leaving trails that spoke of desperate, failing attempts at escape.

And there, sprawled in the center of it all, was Chet.

Limbs twisted at impossible angles, the smart-ass grin I'd grown used to replaced by empty quiet.

"Fuck." Law's voice cracked like a whip through space.

I stood, staring at what remained of the only man who'd ever followed me into hell without question. The world tilted, spinning off its axis around this new center of gravity. Something erupted in my chest—devastating, like a star collapsing in on itself.

The bat slipped from my fingers, clattering to the floor with a sound like thunder.

"V—" Law started.

I moved, dropping to my knees beside Chet's broken form. His eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, blue dulled to dirty gray. His mouth hung open in eternal quiet, no smart-ass remarks left to give.

I bent over him, trying to straighten the limbs that no longer held tension, my hands slipping in what he’d left behind. His eyes were still open—wide, unfocused, staring through me like I wasn’t even there. I pressed my fingers to his lids, but they fluttered back open, like even in death he couldn’t rest. My thumb left a streak across his cheekbone. I looked away from the eyes that should’ve blinked, should’ve narrowed in pain or rolled at something I said. But they just stared at nothing, and I couldn’t take it—I couldn’t take him looking without seeing.

You were supposed to call me brother.

"V," Law's voice was resigned, closer now.

He pressed a piece of paper into my hand. The note was written in elegant script, handwriting so familiar it made my stomach clench with recognition. Four numbers burned through the paper into my brain.

Come home, 6325.

I crushed the paper in my fist, knuckles turning white. The emptiness inside me filled suddenly with something dark and vicious and hungry. Something I recognized. Something I'd been born in, raised on, shaped by.

My past had taken everything. My childhood. My freedom. My sanity. Now Chet.

And my fucking wife.

"You ready to go back to the past?" Law asked, his voice low, understanding what that question meant. The sacrifice it required. The monster it would unleash.

I looked at the marks coating my hands—Chet's life, drying to rust. I looked at the destruction surrounding us then at the crumpled note in my fist, a summons from hell itself.

For a brief moment, I'd believed I could be something else. Something close to human. For Oakley, I'd tried to be a man who could build instead of destroy. I’d laid the floors in our bakery. I'd installed ovens. I'd picked colors for walls. I'd made those pendants from the boys who'd hurt her, thinking suffering could be transformed into something beautiful.

I'd played at being normal while the monster inside me grew hungrier by the day, fed by every moment of pretending.

The bakery I'd destroyed stood as a monument to my delusion—shattered glass, splintered wood, the jewelry made from dead men scattered in the wreckage. I'd torn it apart with my bare hands when I thought she'd abandoned me. Now I understand it was never meant to be.

Monsters didn't get bakeries.

Monsters didn't get wives.

Monsters got endings written in a tombstone.

I picked up my bat from where it had fallen, grip finding the worn grooves shaped to my hand over years of use. I felt its weight—familiar, comforting in a way the ring box never was. This was who I truly was. This was what I was made for.

The man Oakley tried to resurrect was dead.

I would get my fucking wife back.

My past wanted the monster back? They'd get it.

And they would pay for every second she was gone.