Page 52

FIFTY-TWO

BANE

I sit at the club’s bar, my fingers wrapped around a glass of whisky I’m not drinking. The ice has melted, diluting the amber liquid into something weaker.

Quinn told me to feel my fucking feelings. To sit in them. To let them do their worst.

I have a better idea.

I could drink myself into oblivion. Numb it all out. Let the alcohol cauterize the gaping wound Moira left in me. It would be so easy to slide back into old habits. To drown in the dark instead of facing it.

But what’s the point?

Tomorrow, the pain will still be there. The hole inside me will still be a bottomless, black fucking void that not even the best whisky can fill.

So I sit. I breathe. I let it settle in my chest like a second heartbeat—pounding, pulsing, demanding my attention.

Punishment.

This is what I deserve. To be left. To be hollowed out and wrecked.

Quinn’s whip could tear the flesh from my back, and it still wouldn’t compare to this. This pain is deeper, a sickness in my soul I can’t sweat out or bleed away. This is the kind of agony I’ve spent my whole life outrunning.

And now, I have to sit in it.

Like a good little boy taking his medicine.

I stare down into the glass. My reflection stares back. A stranger. A man who let the only good thing he ever had slip through his fingers.

Moira.

No, that’s not true. She wasn’t the only good thing I’ve had and lost.

A face flickers behind my eyes. Another loss. Another woman I failed.

My mother.

I inhale sharply, forcing my fingers to unclench from around the glass before it shatters.

I spent years resenting her. Hating her. Believing she abandoned me. That she left me behind without a second thought.

She hadn’t.

She loved me. And I was too much of a selfish, angry little bastard to see it.

I close my eyes, swallowing against the tightness in my throat. She was good. Too good for the life she was handed. Too good for the son she had.

I never let myself grieve her. Not properly.

Grieving felt like a privilege I hadn’t earned.

I was a shit son. I didn’t fight for her. Didn’t tell her what she meant to me when she was alive. And by the time I was ready to stop being a fucking coward, it was too late.

Am I making the same mistake with Moira?

Did I not see her?

The thought grips me like a vice, squeezing so tight I can barely breathe.

I should’ve seen it. Should’ve fucking felt it in my bones. She wasn’t right today. Her eyes were wild, her body vibrating with an energy that wasn’t hers. I was so obsessed with keeping her and holding her down and making her stay that I didn’t stop to ask the one question that mattered.

What did she need ?

Not me. That’s for fucking sure.

She ran from me like the devil was at her heels. Like I was the devil.

I drag a hand down my face. It’s not the first time I’ve been someone’s worst nightmare. But this—this is different.

Because she wanted to stay. I know she did. I felt it in every desperate kiss, every shuddering breath, every broken gasp of my name.

But she still left.

I frown, the pieces shifting, rearranging. Something doesn’t fit. Something is wrong.

The excuses she threw at me weren’t real. They crumbled the second they left her lips. A woman like Moira doesn’t run from what she wants. She grabs onto it with both hands and holds the fuck on.

So why did she let go?

Something else was going on.

I grit my teeth. The answer is there, just out of reach. Taunting me.

I slam the whisky back in one burning gulp and set the glass down with a sharp crack.

But I don’t move.

My instincts scream at me to act. To track her down. To hunt, to chase, to take what’s mine . That’s what Dad always said to do, right? You want something, you take it. It’s what I’ve always done. It’s what I know.

But what if that’s not what she needs ?

The thought sits in my stomach like a stone, heavy and unwelcome.

I don’t know the answer.

And it fucking kills me.

For the first time in my life, I have to stop. To think and try to understand instead of react.

I fucking hate it.

I feel Caleb’s eyes on me from behind the bar before he even says a word. I’m aware of everything tonight—the weight of my own body in this chair, the burn of whisky down my throat, the fucking hollowness stretching wide inside me. So when he finally speaks, it doesn’t startle me.

“Hey, man,” he says.

I lift my head. My body is slow and heavy, like it resents being pulled back to reality. I meet his gaze, and he immediately hesitates, stepping back a little like he just realized he approached a caged animal.

“Uh, sorry,” he mutters, glass in hand, rubbing at it with a clean white towel. “Didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“No, it’s fine.” My voice is rough, and I sigh out a breath, running a hand down my face. “Just noodling on a puzzle I’m not sure I can solve tonight. What’s up?”

Caleb keeps rubbing at the glass, even though it’s already bone dry. “Well, the other day, Moira mentioned you do some volunteer work at the prisons? I was wondering if you ever go down to the state prison near Waco.”

My mind sharpens, the mental haze clearing just enough to latch onto something that isn’t Moira. A problem that isn’t my own.

“Is that where your father’s at?” I ask.

He nods but doesn’t look at me. Just keeps polishing. “Yeah.”

I watch him for a long beat, noting the tension in his jaw and the way his fingers tighten around the glass like it’s the only thing holding him together.

“Have you changed your mind about visiting him?” I ask.

He shrugs. Stares down. The silence stretches long enough that I could leave it there and let it drop. But I’ve been a pastor long enough to recognize shame when I see it. I know that look. I see it in the mirror every goddamn day.

“It’s my fault he’s there,” Caleb says in a rush. “And I— I just don’t know how to face him.”

I don’t press. I’ve heard it before—people thinking if they’d just done something, just reached out, they could have stopped a desperate family member before it was too late. As if they had some kind of divine foresight, like they were supposed to know what was coming.

“That’s okay,” I say. “You know that, don’t you? I know everyone was pressuring you the other night. But it’s fine if you don’t know how to feel right now.”

Caleb exhales, the sound short and sharp, like a laugh that got choked on the way out. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard, eyes darting to the left. I catch the sheen in them before he looks away, the flicker of tears he’s trying his damnedest to fight.

Fuck.

The way his pain sits right there, just under the surface, makes something claw up my throat. Seeing his pain so close to the surface drags up mine. The grief I’ve been pretending I’m dealing with when all I’ve really done is shove it further down.

Quinn was right.

I am a fucking coward.

The man standing in front of me is doing a better job confronting his demons than I am.

“I guess that’s what you’re doing right now, huh?” I say, clearing my throat. “Talking to someone.”

Caleb lets out a short, wet laugh and swipes his forearm across his eyes. The universal fucking sign of men everywhere trying to pretend they’re fine.

“I could take a trip down to Waco and check in on him,” I offer.

The words are out before I fully think them through, but I don’t regret them. Not when the alternative is sitting in my own misery, waiting for answers that won’t come. At least this is something tangible. Something I can fucking do .

“Yeah?” Caleb looks at me, eyes wide—the first time he’s looked me in the eye this entire conversation. “Oh my god, man, you’d save my fuckin’ life. That would be amazing. I just want to know he’s okay and—” He swallows again, looking away. “And for him to know that I love him. That I’m pulling for him. And that I’m so fucking sorry.”

I nod, feeling the weight of his words, of his guilt, of his pain. They settle into the air between us, heavy and unspoken.

They’re his words, but they might as well be mine.

Wherever you are, Moira, I love you. I’m pulling for you. And I’m so fucking sorry.