It’s a cruel twist of fate when your life seems to be working out better than it ever has before, then it’s shot down in the blink of an eye, and a squeeze of a trigger.

Amidst the chaos that ensued, it was silent.

Despite the shouting around me, there was no sound.

All I could see was the blood, and Sadie’s beautiful face marred with a terrified expression.

Her screams start to pierce my ears as reality rushes at me faster than the speed of light. That reality slams into my chest, stopping my heart and taking a piece of me that I’ll never be able to recover from.

My brother. My blood…

“NO!” I yell, rushing forward and skidding on my knees next to Ruck’s body. “Someone call for help!” I yell desperately, my chest constricting so hard I can hardly breathe. “So much blood,” I mutter under my breath, scooping his limp, lifeless body up and holding him tightly in my arms.

Despite begging for someone to call an ambulance, desperate for someone to be doing something, I know it’s all in vain.

Ruck’s dead.

There’s no comeback from a bullet to the brain at such close proximity.

There’s nothing in the world that could save him now. Just like I couldn’t save him for all these years.

“I’m sorry,” I cry, rocking him back and forth. “I’m sorry, Ruck.”

I should have seen how everything was affecting him. I should have spent more time with him, helped him cope. He hasn’t been right for a long time. The little signs, they were all there. It was too much for him. The war with The Wolves, the constant threat hanging over us, living life as a party, and then being nailed to a fucking cross and having to survive and relive everything they did to him for every waking moment. I was naïve to think we could get the old Ruck back so easily. The crank in his system must have messed him up, too. It pushed him over the edge. It’s a long time since he’s been the Ruck I’d once known. He tried to make it work, but he was always a round peg in a square hole. Maybe nothing would have worked for him. Maybe he needed professional help. But now it’s too late, and he doesn’t have to live with any of that pain anymore. He couldn’t live with that pain for even one more day.

But now I do.

And this hurts more than any physical pain I’ve ever endured. It’s a raw pain that feels like it will break your bones. That it will destroy you the second you look away and let your guard down.

His blood soaks my clothes and coats my skin as I hold him tighter, refusing to let him go. I think of everything I should have said or done, and everything I shouldn’t have.

JJ kneels next to me with his hand on Ruck’s shoulder and cries.

He knows there’s no recovering Ruck from this.

We know.

We’ve seen enough bullet wounds. Fired enough guns. Taken enough lives.

JJ looked on Ruck as a son. A child he never had, until Sadie came back into his life, that is. And I feel his pain. I feel the pain of a man that’s lost a child. But I also hurt with the pain of a thousand brothers.

“Sadie…” I frown, talking to JJ but not taking my eyes off Ruck. “Where is she?”

“With Lia.”

“Is she okay?” I ask. Despite everything she has survived before now, this is a situation that no one could just brush off. My mind starts to think logically. Shutting off the emotional side and dealing with business, all the while holding Ruck’s lifeless body in my arms. “And Lia…”

“I don’t know, Ram,” is all he says, wiping tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand.

“We’ve gotta get him out of here.” I glance around for the first time in I don’t know how long. Time is irrelevant. It’s slipped through my fingers, just like Ruck. Everything else is insignificant right now. The bar area is empty other than Tex and Vinny who stand close, wearing solemn expressions. “Tex, call Jimmy, we need to get Ruck out of here.”

“Now?” he questions, stepping forward, his face screwing up in disbelief.

“Yes,” I snap.

JJ grabs my arm. “I don’t think—”

“He’s not staying here. He wouldn’t want to. We’ll have Jimmy come for him, and take him to the mortuary.”

“It’s only been—”

“I don’t give a fuck how long it’s been, he’s my brother, and I say we need to get him out of here!” I yell through gritted teeth. Fighting back any emotion, building a wall around it, locking it out for now, because if I don’t, Ruck and me will be in a box in the ground together.

I sit in the yard and stare at the ground beneath my feet as the sun starts to come up and lighten the sky.

Nothing.

I see nothing but Ruck’s face just moments before he pulled that trigger.

I feel nothing but pain from the hole he’s left in my heart and my life.

He was my brother, and now he’s gone.

What am I supposed to do with that?

Should I process it? Cry? Grieve? Of all the things I should be doing, I do nothing. Because I’m numb to the world around me.

“You should try and rest,” Tex says, offering me a cigarette. I slide it out of the packet, and he flicks the lighter, holding it for me to spark it up. He sits next to me and places a hand on my shoulder, squeezing tightly. “Ram,” he says softly, almost tentatively.

“Don’t bother, Tex.” I sigh, blowing smoke out of my nose while taking another drag of the cigarette.

“I’m sorry, man.” His voice catches in his throat, and he coughs to cover his emotion and removes his hand, dropping his elbows onto his knees with a sigh.

“Me too, Tex.” I nod. “Me too.”

“You wanna be left alone?”

“I don’t know.” I take a deep breath, narrowing my eyes in deep concentration as I look across the yard. “I don’t know anything anymore.” It feels weird. Wrong. Everything feels wrong.

“Well, look. I’m here. JJ’s here. You just call, and we’ll be wherever you need us.”

“Yeah, appreciate that.” I almost finish my sentence with the word, brother. We all call each other by that name, but somehow, now, it doesn’t seem appropriate. “Where’s Sadie?”

“Lia took her home. They were both pretty upset.”

“I should go to her.” I jump up off the bench realizing that throughout this whole ordeal, I’ve been focusing on how I feel, how my world has just been flipped upside down. But Sadie, she must have been terrified.

“Let me drive you.” Tex stands too.

“No, I’m gonna ride.” I wave him away. “I need to ride, Tex.”

“Okay, but be careful, yeah?” he says, his words loaded with meaning. There’s still a vague threat from The Wolves, and a distracted Vice President is a vulnerable one.

“Tex, my man, if anyone is gunning for a fight, now of all times, they had better fucking be ready for the fight of their lives. I got nothin’ to lose, man.”

“Listen to me.” He roughly grabs my face in his hands. “Don’t let me hear that from you ever again. I know this fuckin’ hurts. It’s gonna hurt for the rest of your life. I’m not gonna tell you that it’ll be alright because it’s never gonna be the same and that’s not alright.” His voice cracks at the picture he’s painting. A future without Ruck. And it’s a white-hot poker stabbed viciously through my heart. “But you are still alive. You are not on your own. You have us, your brothers—not by blood, but by choice. You have Sadie. She’s your future, man,” he tells me, holding my gaze, searching my eyes for some kind of recognition. “So you take as long as you need, but don’t you ever let me hear you say you got nothing to live for. You’ve got a lifetime ahead of you. Ruck wouldn’t want you to waste it.”

“You’re right.” I hold his wrists, nodding before pushing him away and stepping out of his hold. “But I can’t see that far ahead, Tex. I can’t see any further than the end of the yard right now.”

“I know. It’s still raw. It hurts like fuck—”

“It doesn’t hurt. I feel numb, Tex. Numb to the motherfucking bone.”

“You need time, Ram.”

“Yeah.” I tap his shoulder as I walk off toward my bike.

“Check in in a couple of hours, okay?” he calls out behind me, and I raise my hand in acknowledgment. That was enough talking for me.

I don’t want to talk anymore.

I don’t want to listen.

I just want to ride.

I ride until the tank is pretty much empty. Then I fill her up and ride again. The open road gives me silence, space, and more thinking time than I thought I needed. The sun has come up and has started to go back down again, and I’ve ridden roads I never even knew existed. This is freedom in its purest form. Freedom from responsibility, from expectation, from people. But most of all, it’s freedom from myself. From what I’ve become, from what was expected of me.

Inside me felt quiet, but tight. I was knotted together in a silent ball of intense grief, and even after riding for hours upon hours, I still don’t know how to undo it. It seems that for every direction I turn in, the knot gets tighter until it feels like it’s choking me.

I pull into JJ’s drive and sit there for what feels like forever. I can’t move—either that or I don’t want to.

I’m lost.

I have no direction. No desire. No sense of who I am at this minute in time. Before last night, I owned my life. I made it move in the direction I wanted. Took what I thought I was owed, and made changes for a better life, for my brother and me.

My brother…

Sadie pushes open the screen door, and I glance up at her. The sorrow in her eyes, the quiver of her bottom lip, the broken way she holds her body, is enough to bring the swelling emotion to the surface.

She’s my truth, my transparency, and the catalyst to my undoing.

I break.

She runs toward me, and as she wraps her arms around my neck, pulling my head tightly to her chest, I cry.

I cry like I’ve never cried before.

And it hurts. So fucking much.

My body shakes as loud sobs fill the impending night’s warm air. I cry into Sadie, my tears coating her skin, my heartache filling her ears. And she cries back. Her grief for me overriding all fear she felt when Ruck held that gun to her head. My tears slow for a minute when I recall that scene.

Fuck, I hated him for that, for doing that to her, for putting her in that position. He didn’t know what she had gone through in her life, and now he never would. But if he had, would he have tortured her mind for that small amount of time? Would he still have given her that memory to carry around like a lead burden, on top of all the other weights she has to bear if he had known about her past? If he had known her?

But he had burdens too. And he carried them like a champ. It was hard. We had a hard life before the Souls, but I thought it was getting better, I thought…

“I’m so sorry, baby,” Sadie whispers into my hair. “I’m so sorry.”

I look up into her eyes and feel her apology in my heart. “I’m sorry, too.” I wipe my cheeks with the back of my hand, and she steps back, giving me space that I’m not sure I want. “Climb on,” I tell her, nudging my head toward the back of my ride.

She looks at her bare feet, then back to me, and I take in her appearance. Knotted hair, dark circles around swollen brown eyes, and that kills me. The pain in her eyes hits me almost as hard as the pain in my heart. “I should probably wear some shoes?” She smiles tentatively, as though she feels she shouldn’t really be smiling at all.

I nod. “Tell Lia you’re with me.”

“Okay.” She walks back toward the house, but slows and turns to look at me. Her chest rises and falls heavily with a sigh as she looks to me sadly.

“I know, Raven. I feel it too,” I tell her.

I was running out of strength. Physically, I could go on forever. Emotionally, I was ready to fall.

I ride through the darkness with Sadie on the back of my bike. It’s the only thing that feels right in all of this. Her by my side. Her arms around my waist. I knew this was where she was meant to be from the very beginning. I tried to push her away, but I couldn’t. I wanted her on my bike and in my bed, and from the very first moment I set eyes on her, that fierce raven-haired beauty that was seeking revenge and owning that moment, had to be mine. I was naïve to think I had a choice in our connection. It was fate, and there was no stopping it.

But Ruck, I should have stopped that. I should have seen it coming…

Tears and regret cloud my eyes and restrict my throat, so I pull up a dust track to the top of a hill and park up.

I just need a second…

Hopping off, I stand near the edge where the hill drops off steeply. I lower my head and take several deep breaths to try and calm the racing emotions in my body. I’ve never felt so conflicted. I’ve never felt pain and regret with such intensity that it threatens to swallow me whole.

When Sadie went missing, and The Wolves had Ruck, I was mad. Really fucking angry beyond all comprehension. But I was scared, too. So fucking scared that I would never get them both back alive.

Sadie places her hands on my hips behind me and rests her head between my shoulders.

“I don’t know what to do.” I shove my hands in my pockets and shrug.

“I know.” She nuzzles in closer, wrapping her arms tightly around my waist.

I take Sadie’s hand, unwrapping her from my waist and leading her away from the edge of the hilltop. We sit against a rock, her curled up into me, me holding on to her as if she were my lifeline. We stare up into the dark night sky, and I try to make sense of everything in my head.

What I’m battling with most is guilt.

“I should have stopped him.” I swallow hard, feeling the pain of the words that have just cut my tongue. It starts to consume me. The overwhelming guilt of not doing something sooner, of not seeing how badly he needed me, someone, anyone, to acknowledge the turmoil he was in.

“You couldn’t have done any more, Ramsey. You—”

“Don’t make excuses for me, Raven.” I pull my arms from around her and sit up, tucking my knees to my chin. She mirrors my posture, and we both stare out over the view.

“I was always responsible for him, you know? I parented him, to a degree. That’s what happens when your parents are assholes. He looked to me, for everything.” Sadie sits quietly, letting me talk it out without interruption. “I had to be independent. I had to make choices for both of us. He never had to do that. I never made him stand on his own two feet because I felt like it was my responsibility. I should have pushed him to be more independent. Maybe—”

“Ramsey.” Sadie sighs. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was my fault. Don’t you see?”

“No.” She turns toward me. “I don’t see. You did everything you could for your brother. Your whole life, you put him first. You put your life on the line, and you risked everything for him on many occasions. There was nothing you could have done last night.”

“I should have seen his pain!” I yell, my voice breaking with raw emotion.

“Maybe.” She shrugs. “Maybe he hid it so well that no one could have seen it. Maybe he didn’t even see it himself.”

“I saw it. On several occasions. But I didn’t do anything.”

“What could you have done?” she asks.

“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “Something, anything.”

“You’re hurting, Ramsey. I get that. You’re gonna blame yourself because Ruck’s not here to tell you otherwise. Would he blame you? Deep down, do you think he would want you to be beating yourself up over something that you had no control over?”

I think on her words. The strength that she shows and her belief in me make me wonder what I did to deserve such a woman in my life and at my side. Last night hurt her too. Not in the same way, but she’ll carry it around with her for the rest of her life. But she’s here. At my side. Reassuring me. “Don’t you blame him?” I turn to her.

Her eyes soften as she shakes her head gently. “No, Ramsey. I don’t blame him.”

“He held a gun to your fucking head.”

“I know. But his internal war was bigger. I’ll never forget last night as long as I live. The picture of…” Her voice drifts off, and she swallows hard. “Ramsey. We’re dealt what we’re dealt. You deal with it, or you die.”

“How did you get to be so strong?” I ask her. I have so much respect for her courage, her fierceness after everything she’s been through. She’s been exactly where I am. She lost her brother. Not in the same way, but she didn’t just lose her brother, she lost her mom too, and had to deal with everything else she went through that night. She’s still standing. Still fighting like a goddamn warrior.

She laughs under her breath and looks me in the eye. “Sometimes being strong is the only choice you have.”

“You’re not alone anymore, Sadie.” I kiss her hair.

“I know.” She smiles up at me. “Neither are you.”

I lean back against the rock with Sadie tucked into my side. “Ramsey?” she questions quietly.

“Yes, babe.”

“It’ll be okay.” She runs her fingers along the edge of my cut. “It won’t ever be the same, but it will be okay.”

We sit for a long time, watching the sky grow darker, making sense of everything and nothing at the same time. Just when I think I have everything balanced in my head, I’m fighting back tears with the very next breath.

“I can’t imagine my life without him in it,” I say out loud, as much to myself as to Sadie.

“I know.” She lays her palm on my chest and glances up at me. “You’ll always have your memories—no one can take those from you. Think of the good times.”

“He never really fit into the MC lifestyle. But it was when I remember him being happiest. I don’t know if he would have ever fit into any lifestyle. There was always a quiet unease with him. Maybe it was my fault. I don’t know.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she says quietly.

“I don’t remember him ever laughing as a child. There wasn’t much that was fun about our life. His first fourteen years of life were fucking hard, even though I tried to shelter him, I couldn’t always be there,” I mutter to myself. I tried to always be there, to protect him from our parents and their selfish ways. But it wasn’t enough.

“You don’t get to see the stars without the darkness, Ram.” Sadie cuddles in closer and holds me tighter.

We’ve both lived in the darkness, and despite it all, with her by my side, I can see the Fire in the Stars.