Page 20 of Hidden

I love you, Luke.

The memory of her voice, the whisper of her words, crept under my skin, igniting the familiar itch for her. For what we were.

Thousands of memories—her, my club, the moments we shared—they blurred together, shattering the illusion of peace, breaking through the invisible barriers we had erected after that night.

And now I couldn’t hold it back any longer.

Something had shifted within me.

I wanted her love. I wanted her tears. And I wanted her remorse.

For once, I wanted her to address what had happened. I wanted her on her knees, begging me for forgiveness.

And, I wanted the privilege of calling her mine once more.

Before I even knew what I was doing, my feet propelled me forward, and I was jumping over the fence, crossing over the grass and further into enemy territory.

I had been here enough over the years that I knew the comings and goings of every gang member. The Riders didn’t operate the same way as the Devils. They didn’t all live on one big compound. They were spread throughout their territory, with only the president’s house and the clubhouse being in this area.

More’s my fortune, because it made slipping closer to Gabriella that much easier. It made avoiding the enemy that much simpler.

That way of thinking was exactly what had me climbing onto her balcony, a place I had no business being.

The metal railing was cold beneath my hands as I hauled myself up, my boots landing softly against the stone. I paused for a moment, listening out of instinct more than necessity, but the night remained still. No alarms were raised, no footsteps echoed in the distance, and no one came running to drag me back to where I belonged.

For all they did to keep Gabriella locked away from me, they failed to secure the one place I kept returning to.

A sinister smile played on my lips.

Good.

Straightening slowly, my gaze fixed immediately on the glass doors leading into her bedroom. The curtains were only half drawn, offering her just enough privacy from the outside world, but never quite enough to hide her completely. Not from me. Never from me.

“You really like me, don’t you, Luke?”

“No. Iloveyou. And that’s enough.”

It hadn’t been enough. It was never enough. Not for her and not for her club.

And now, this silent stalking was not enough for me.

For years, I had respected that boundary. I had stayed back, kept to the shadows, followed the same silent routine we had fallen into without ever acknowledging it aloud. I had watched from the edges of her life, taking what little she chose to give me—a flicker of light, the movement of her shadow, the quiet reassurance that she was still alive, still breathing, still there.

Still mine.

My jaw tightened at the thought, something sharp and unwelcome cutting through me.

She wasn’t mine.

Not anymore.

That had been her choice, and I had let her make it.

That was the part that sat wrong, that twisted something deep in my chest until it felt almost unbearable. I hadn’t chased her. I hadn’t dragged her back to where she belonged. I hadn’t called on the club to retaliate, to burn everything she cared about to the ground for what she had done to me. I had let her walk away from it all. Let her stand there in front of both clubs and tear me apart piece by piece while I took it, while I did nothing, while I let her go.

Because I loved her.

Because I thought that if I gave her space, if I gave her time, she would come back to me on her own.