Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 105709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
“What was he holding?” Toke asks.
His question prickles under my skin. “Nothing.”
Toke nods slowly. “Then what he needed to say, he took with him.”
Ripper swears under his breath.
I look back at Beast. “You’re gonna drive yourself insane going ‘what if’ over this and over your old man,” I tell him. “Nyx made a call. Candle’s heart made a call. You throwing us at Russians didn’t tie that rope or clog that artery.”
His eyes flash. For a second I think he’ll snap, but he doesn’t. He just looks tired. Proper, bone-deep tired. The same way Melissa looked when she whispered she couldn’t fight anymore. I knew deep down that she'd wear his choice, the same way most do when their loved one takes the same path. Is the saying true that all suicide does is hand your pain onto someone else? Or is that another selfish statement to make against someone who struggled to fucking surface from the weight of the world.
Beast's hand moves toward the gavel for the first time since Candle's passing. “If my brother feels like death’s a better option than asking me for help, that’s on me. On us. On the culture we built.”
Frost nods once. “Then we fix the culture,” he says. “We don’t fix it by rewriting what killed Candle.”
Bull grunts in agreement. “Old man went out watching the game, Prez. We won too. You know how fucking jealous Ripper is of that? He’d rather that than bleed out in a ditch.”
Ripper flips him off silently, but there’s no real heat in it.
Beast huffs a humorless sound, somewhere between a laugh and a choke. “Yeah. He would.”
Toke leans forward, resting his tattooed forearm on the table. “Henry died as a chief,” he says. “In his home. With his whānau close, even if you weren’t in the room yet. That is not less than a bullet. It is just…different.”
“Nyx died alone under a foreign tree,” Toke continues, not flinching from the ugliness. “That is not shame. That is pain he hid. Pain we did not see. We carry him by doing better with the next brother who starts to slip. We carry Henry by learning when a fight is done, even if we didn’t choose the end.”
Beast scrubs both hands over his face, rough. When he drops them, his expression’s carved into something closer to acceptance. No peace. I doubt he’ll ever know peace. Just…a ceasefire with reality.
“Alright,” he says. “Alright.” He looks around the Chapel, at every patch, the empty chairs that should be full. Candle’s old spot. Nyx’s. “We call it. No more chases for Candle. We deal with real threats, not ghosts. We honor him by not spinning out on fantasies.”
A few short laughs, because yeah, we’ve all heard his wilder theories.
“And Nyx?” Beast’s voice drops. “We honor him by making sure nobody else thinks they gotta go hang themselves behind a motel ‘cause asking for help makes them less of a man.”
His gaze hooks onto mine again, hard. “That goes for you too, Hux.”
My throat works. “Yeah, Prez.”
I’m not about to sit on a circle mat with Toke and talk about the way Nyx’s neck looked caved in. Or the taste of bile in my mouth when his weight hit me. Or how fast I checked his pockets, like maybe he’d left a note that made any of this make sense, and felt like a grave robber when I didn’t find one.
I’ve spent a lifetime hiding under noise, under girls, under speed and dumb jokes. Under chrome and rumble and the next distraction. Might be why Melissa’s eyes cut straight through it and make me feel like I’m walking around without skin.
Beast pushes back from the table. The chair legs scrape harsh over concrete. “Church is closed,” he says. “But this door?” He slaps his hand on the Chapel wood behind him. “It stays open. Any hour. You need me, you come through it. You need Toke, you find him. No more brothers dying in the dark on my watch.”
Beast finally lifts the gavel, slamming it down on wood.
We all stand, chairs scraping in a broken chorus. Patches shift. Boots scuff.
As we file out, I glance back at Nyx’s empty spot.
I picture him there, grinning, talking shit, slapping my shoulder too hard. Then I see him under that tree again, wrong.
Maybe Beast is right. Maybe the only way we win this one is by dragging the ugly into the light, one fucked-up piece at a time.
Because none of us are bulletproof.
Not one.
Nineteen
Melissa
Three months. Three months since Auckland's lights faded in my rear-view mirror and Westbeach's familiar coastline welcomed me back. My phone buzzes against my hip through my apron pocket. I fish it out, catching Karian's eye and nodding toward the customers lined up at the counter. Since branching out to Eastbeach, the bakeries have kicked off so much that we're looking at expanding here, buying the place next door.