Chapter 21

Ares

Fucking hell.

Everything had gone in a fraction of a second, our targets lying on the concrete floor next to the poker table. Even the one I wanted to keep alive.

I had been distracted. Mia’s voice chants in the back of my mind, pleading with me to come back to her when I have to focus, stay sharp, and know my priorities.

I intended to shoot Nero in the shoulder to avoid him pulling the trigger where I was waiting at the end of. But the call had messed with my plan, and Nero was suspicious, so we had to act, and in the midst of it all, the bullet went straight into his rib, resulting in the fucking Italian spasming on the floor, with barely enough time to get intel out of him.

Vox was the first in the room, followed by half of the brothers, the other staying on the outside to look out for any unwelcome visitors. My VP stared at me, clenching his jaw, and even the voices and rushed movements around us couldn’t cover his silent questioning. I could hear him think, shouting at me in his mind, “Why the fuck did you aim here?”

But I already knew the answer.

Because the man I had hunted, tracked, and shot in front of me, served on a fucking silver platter, had become the least of my priorities.

“Ares? Please answer me, or I swear I’m going to kill you right freaking now—” Mia’s blurred voice shouts from the phone I had put in my back pocket.

She must think I’ve been shot.

“Fu-fuck you…Malone….you’ll regret this—” Nero says, agonizing under me, blood pumping out of him at the speed of light. He would die soon and badly. That was the only relief from my mistake. But the intel, fuck, I need the intel.

“I’m here, Mia, don’t—” I tell her, keeping my voice even.

“Ares, God, it’s you, you…I thought, please, don’t hang up…” Her tone is panicked.

Vox steps toward me. “Is Rose alright? Did something happen?” His brows furrow and his gaze is sharp and violent. I shake my head, signaling to him with one hand. “Everything’s fine.” He nods, his gaze suddenly softening, circling the body spread beneath us.

“I’m okay. I have to go now.” Not giving a fuck that all my men were staring at me with wide eyes.

“Please, no, don’t. Come home, please, I have a bad feeling—” she pleads, her little voice reaching places in my chest it shouldn’t have.

“Mia, it’s alright. I’ll be home soon,” I try to reassure her.

“No, you don’t get it, I….I need you, Ares, please,” she murmurs, her voice breaking.

“I…”

Speechless.

Mia had taken my dark iron heart and had cut the metal with her soul, making my world fall from its axis.

“Prez, we gotta start the interrogation. He’s got an hour max,” says Carter, kneeling next to Nero and pushing his index finger into the guy’s wound, making the bastard cry like a baby.

"Ares,” Vox says, pulling me back to reality. He zeroes in on me, as if he could read my fucking mind. “We’ll deal with him.”

He knew.

He knew I had to leave. But leaving them with the prey we had hunted all together for months, which was supposed to be the ultimate reward I wanted to personally handle, was bittersweet. New. Unfamiliar.

I had never let personal matters over the club ever since I became prez. Perhaps because I couldn’t make a distinction between me and the club. I was the embodiment of it. And yet, my little tornado had made her way into my twisted soul and wrecked my world, leaving me there, so fucking torn yet already all too aware of where I really wanted to be.

Business over women.

Fuck it.

“Take all you can get, skin him alive, then burn his body up the valley,” I order Vox, locking our gazes and feeling a sense of relief because he had known this torment all too well before me.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” I tell her, hearing a sigh of relief on the other side of the call.

Then, without a second more, I turn my back on the prize I thought would give me the satisfaction I need and drive back home to my woman, repeating in my head the four letters words that have become a vital need to be said out loud.

Mia

He was alive, but still, I couldn’t stop crying, knees up under my chin, rolled on his side of the bed, thinking I could have lost him. My breathing stopped the minute I heard the gunshot and then came back when I heard his voice again. I knew he was busy, I knew this was an important operation, and yet, I had this feeling that he needed to come home, that we couldn’t be apart tonight, that something monumental was about to happen.

Twenty minutes after the call, I heard his bike pass our gates. The clock indicates one a.m., the moon shining through the beige curtains as the only source of light around me.

I couldn’t wait.

I needed to see him.

Now.

Make sure, with my own eyes, that he wasn’t hurt.

So, I shoved the covers away and ran the stairs to the main entry door, a few heads turning to me as I exited our large cabin in my tiny pink nightwear. They all looked away within a second, remembering the cost of gawking at their boss’s wife.

The air was cold and small drops of rain were exploding on my burning skin as I watched, barefoot in the gravel, Ares remove his helmet and get off his bike. A good five meters were separating us, the wind brushing trees and branches, echoing around us like a blanket, stopping the time.

“You came back,” I say, realizing I’m out of breath.

“You called.” His tone is low and grounded, his body covered in his black gears, making him look even more impressive than usual.

“Why…? I thought the club was your priority above anything else.” A shiver runs down my spine as the cold of the night brushes against my skin.

“It was.”

“Was?” I bite my lower lip.

“Mia.” He makes one step toward me at the same time as I take one step back.

“Ares, I…I thought I’d lost you tonight. I don’t think I have any more tears to shed if you can’t—”

“You wanted to see if I had the guts to choose you, Mia. All along, I couldn't put my finger on it. Why my wife wanted so badly to run away when she seemed so content in our home?” He shakes his head. “I was too fucking blind to see.”

“To see what…?” My heart pulses under my ribs, threatening to jump out of my chest and land on the ground between us.

“All your life, you thought you had to live up to the expectations of others, and it took me months to understand that you don't want someone who just wanna be with you, princess. You need someone who's willing to chase you when you run. To catch you when you fall. To love you even when you don't love yourself.”

His words were burning me with the most intoxicating fire I had ever touched.

He saw me.

He really saw me behind the smiles, the confident facade.

“So run, Mia, run as fast as you can, deep into the forest,” he points with his gloves before removing them slowly, “and watch me catch you. Watch me earn your heart.”

“Ares…”

Was it for real? Did he really want me, all of me? Even the disgusting part, the eating disorder, the abandonment issues, the fear of rejection… Even all of them?

“Now, Mia,” he commands me.

I was right. Something monumental was about to happen, and it had nothing to do with the club launching an operation on whatever enemies they were fighting.

It was about us.

About his ultimate gesture to show me that he was in it for the long run.

That he was willing to say the words I needed to hear so badly to finally let go.

Glancing at the forest on my right, the dark leafy green swallowing the moonlight, the wind slapping my face and making my breath as clear as snow, I gasped and ran to the darkness.

Only this time, I wasn’t running to escape.

I was running to get caught.