I press my forehead against the steering wheel, and I let it come. All of it. The grief. The rage. The love that won't leave, no matter how hard I try to tear it out.
Because I know. I already know.
I'll never get over her. Not in ten years. Not in sixty. She's woven into every part of who I am, every memory, every plan, every version of the future I've ever imagined. Removing her would mean removing myself.
But I found my limit. And she crossed it.
Harper is not a deal. She's not a role to play. She's not a thing you put down and pick up when the timing is better.
She is the love of my life. And the love of my life just chose someone else.
And this time, I have to choose myself, for my own sanity.
My brothers can’t lose me. Wyatt can’t either.
I start the truck. Pull out of the driveway and don't look at the house in the mirror.
I drive home in silence. No radio. No phone. Just the dark road and the empty seat beside me and the championship buckle sitting in the cup holder, catching the moonlight.
I won the world title today.
It doesn't mean a goddamn thing. Because I just lost the only thing I’ve ever wanted.
My Goldie.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Ace
One Week Later…
I haven't slept in six days.
Not properly. I get maybe an hour at a time, lying in a bed that still smells like her.
I've thrown myself into the work. Up before dawn. Out on the fence lines, checking every inch of wire that Paulie used to check, doing his rounds because nobody else knows them as well as I do, and I'm not letting them fall apart. I train in the barn until my arms give out. I ride Seven until we're both soaked with sweat. I sit in Hunter's office and listen to plans for Carson, for Ranch 42, for the war that's building under the surface of this town, and I nod in the right places and offer my input and pretend that the man sitting in that chair is whole.
He isn't. I'm running on caffeine and rage and the dim, distant hope that if I keep moving fast enough, the grief won't catch me.
It catches me anyway. Every night. In the dark. When there's nothing left to do and nowhere left to go, and the house is quiet, and my phone has no messages from her because she's not mine anymore.
She texted once. Two days after. I stared at her name on the screen for eleven minutes and then deleted it without reading it. I regret that. I do. But I have to let her go and focus on the present and my future without Harper.
Today, the focus is Gianna.
Hunter agreed to the meeting three days ago. She delivered Carson, gift-wrapped and breathing, exactly as promised. He's in one of our spare ranch houses, being guarded by Xander. The fact that she managed to extract a man the Greeks had hidden and hand him over without a single shot tells me everything I need to know about Gianna Milano.
She's not playing. She's performing at a level that most of the men in our world can't touch, and she's doing it in heels.
And now, I'm sitting at the table with Colten to my left, Hunter at the head, and Romeo across from me. Jett and Tate are posted at the front. We’ve got guards at every post with a view of this house.
We hear the cars before we see them. Two black SUVs pulling up the dirt drive. I watch through the window.
Gianna steps out first.
Red heels on the gravel. Black tailored trousers. A black silk blouse, open just enough to show the ink running up her sternum and across her collarbones. Tattoos that climb her neck. Her black hair is pulled back tight, showing every angle of her face. Red lipstick that matches the heels. Dark glasses she pushes onto her head as she looks up at the ranch.
She takes it in. The house. The barn. The land stretching out behind it. I watch her eyes move across the property. Four men exit the cars behind her. Three are security.
