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I didn’t think so.
I think loving the right one could.
Because love warped the right man into something wrong.
Love warped the right woman into something wrong.
And losing that love, that intense, fucked up and life forming love, well that ruined a person.
Experiencing it once was bad enough.
Having to witness it was just as bad.
I stood at the cemetery, tucked into Liam’s side, a place I’d been ever since he arrived at the clubhouse and literally sprinted toward me until I was in his arms.
I didn’t fight him on that.
Because, if I had use of my legs in that moment, I would’ve sprinted toward him too.
Over the past few harrowing, horrible, and grief-filled days we had barely been out of touching distance. He had no more ‘club business’ to attend to now that Fernandez was dead. Now that his brothers were dead.
Now that Linda was dead.
I expected it on some level. Hearing the resignation in her smoky voice. But seeing the woman stride through the gates into the oncoming onslaught, armed with two rifles. She took a lot of them down before she fell.
I didn’t let myself think of anything beyond that, beyond the fact Liam was in pain and he needed me. Jagger was in pain and he needed me. Because at some point, maybe since the start, realized he was Jagger and Liam. Mostly Jagger.
And I’d spent my time falling in love with the man named Jagger while trying to hate Liam.
So the man I used to love and the man I fell in love with were one in the same. And they hurt. Sometimes it was as simple as that, to let go of the bullshit.
So we let go. I stopped with my tirades, accusations. I stopped with all of it. I just stood by his side.
As we had when he’d rode up to the gunfight that seemed like seconds ago and centuries ago at the same time.
He was covered in blood, in smoke, in the death of the day. I was relatively unscathed, considering I’d emptied the clip of the gun I’d been handed. Every woman did. I don’t know how many men we took down before the club arrived, but it didn’t matter. We fought, we protected. Somehow, no one at the compound but Linda lost their lives. She had done it because she was sick of the habit.
I wasn’t sure who killed Fernandez in the end. No one knew. They found him, amongst the dead, riddled with bullets. No face off with the villain, no dramatics. He died, just like the rest of them.
But by that point, the Sons of Templar had not been concerned about how their enemy had died. They’d been too busy trying to figure out how many of their family had lived.
Liam didn’t let me go the entire rest of the horrible, bloody day. It was all a blur, except my hand in his.
It was darkly comical, all the lead up to the war for it to be over so quickly. But then again, looking at the tear stained, blood stained men—the ones that were still alive—this war would not be over for a long time.
I tried to help as much as possible.
Liam tried too.
But help came in the form of hearses and ambulances.
There was nothing else we could do.
Nothing else anyone could do.
It was done.
So we slipped off, made brutal, frantic love, still covered in grime and blood.
I lay tucked up tight into his chest as I pretended to sleep. He pretended to sleep too.
And now we were at the cemetery. Burying brothers. Fathers. Husbands.
My eyes touched Lizzie, clutching her two children, she was dry-eyed and pale as she watched her husband, Ranger—who I’d never met—get lowered into the ground.
Luther would be buried in New Mexico.
As would Blake.
Claw wanted his ashes scattered.
Cade was standing, barely, leaning on his wife for support. He only got out of ICU yesterday. But his wife gave him all the support he needed.
Lucky, the man who was known to be the joker of the group, was not smiling whatsoever, on crutches with a severely broken leg. One that he’d somehow managed not only to ride on but stand beside his wife and fight on when it came to it.
Steg, the previous president of the Amber chapter, had lost an eye.
He too, should technically still be in the hospital.
As should at least half of the men standing in the cemetery today.
As gruesome as they looked, looked better than a lot of bomb victims I’d seen. They were lucky.
I looked to Lizzie and the children again.
Thought about the fact I’d never play poker with Claw, or listen to whatever stupid thing Blake had done.
No, this was not luck.
This was truth. As ugly as it could be.
And it was also victory. Sometimes victory was even more devastating than loss.
This was one of those times.
