“You sure about this?” Op asked as he stood in the doorway to my bedroom, watching me pack my shit together into as little space as possible.

I nodded. “Ain’t nothing left for me here, Op, you know that. Meyah has always been it.”

He took a deep breath, folding his arms across his chest. “Yeah, I know, it’s just a shame to lose a brother. It’s like a member of the family is fucking dying.” He shook his head.

I grinned, shoving the last few things into my duffle bag before zipping it up. “I’m not fucking dying, you dramatic bastard. You know where I’ll be. Come visit sometime.”

He walked inside and patted me on the back. “Let me know when you’re ready to head into town, I’ll round the boys up.”

“You ask Dice if he’ll help me out?”

Optimus stopped and looked over his shoulder at me with a smirk. “You know Dice, that shit’s right up his alley.” Leo appeared in the doorway as Op was heading out. “You boys have got fifteen minutes… don’t kill the kid before he leaves.”

“I make no promises,” Leo replied, his face straight, looking me directly in the eye.

I had a lot of respect for this man. He’d been there at times when I’d struggled and reminded me that life wasn’t fucking easy. That we all made mistakes. Sometimes the same ones over and fucking over again, but it wasn’t about how many mistakes you made, it was about how quickly you picked yourself back up and tried again.

“You come to lecture me?” I asked seriously, dumping my bag on the ground and moving into the bathroom to grab my things from there.

This had been a decision I’d been considering for a while now, but I’d pushed to the side, hoping for some other kind of magical option to appear. I didn’t make it lightly, but that hadn’t stopped the boys from all giving me hell for it.

Did I want to leave these people who had given me a second chance and a second home when I thought I was a complete fucking failure? No damn way.

But there came the point where my priorities changed. That point was when I fell in love with Meyah, and then watched her almost die. It’s hard to explain to someone how it feels to have your heart ripped from your chest, but that’s the pain I went through for more than three days as I sat beside her bed in the hospital, telling her I needed her, that she wasn’t allowed to leave me yet.

I thought about all the time I’d wasted with her in Arizona and me in Alabama, and the minutes and fucking hours we’d spent apart when we could have been together.

They were completely wasted. And I didn’t want to waste another day.

I’d already had my parents torn away from me in the blink of an eye, and then spent years wishing I’d had one more day, a minute, or even a few seconds just to tell them I loved them.

Then Romeo and Phee had been taken, and I was never going to get those six years back, no matter how hard I tried.

I just couldn’t do it.

Time was too precious, and I wasn’t going to spend hours and fucking days away from Meyah when I could be there with her.

“Why would I lecture you? You love my niece probably more than any other person in this world,” he fired back as I stepped into the room. He stalked in and took a seat on the edge of my desk.

“I think her mom or Huntsman might have something to say about you making those claims,” I argued, a smile tugging at my mouth.

“It’s not gonna be easy…”

“The best things never are, or everyone would have them,” I threw back, standing taller and waiting for him to come back.

Instead, he just laughed and shook his head. “Gonna miss your fucking ass around here, kid,” he said before taking a deep breath. “It’s hard ‘cause I don’t want you to fucking leave, but I know at least Meyah will have someone with her, protecting her, and making her feel safe. Which is going to be an uphill battle after what happened.”

I lifted my chin. “I promise you, I’m never letting her out of my sight again.”

He grinned and pushed off the desk. “Yeah, good fucking luck with trying to tell her that.”

We both moved toward the door. There was emotion building in my throat as I looked around the bedroom where I’d spent the last four or so years. I’d changed a lot in this place, and these guys had shown me what it was to be a brother when I felt like that was something I’d ultimately failed at.

They had my back when I had no one.

They fought for me when I was standing on my own.

It hurt to walk away.

I wasn’t ashamed to admit it.

“You ready to finish this last bit of business?” Leo asked, patting me on the back as we slipped out into the hall.

I rolled my shoulders and narrowed my gaze as we walked down the stairs to find all my brothers there waiting for me—including Romeo. There was one thing I’d left unfinished, but before I left, I was going to make sure no one had to go through the torment I’d felt.

“Hurry up, will you,” Dice demanded as I reached the bottom step. “The guys told me how old this broad is, and I’ve been looking through Penthouse magazines for half an hour trying to get it up.”

The boys all laughed, and I patted Dice’s chest as I walked by. “Think happy thoughts.”

The way Dice slipped into the barstool beside her and fluttered his eyelashes, you’d think he was almost a bitch. But you know what, it did the trick.

She laughed and giggled and touched his arm like he was some kind of damn gentleman.

The kicker? She wasn’t even drunk.

Lady didn’t drink.

Surprising, with the husband she had, you’d think she would have been continuously drunk. But maybe she was just fucking stupid.

Or scared…

It wasn’t long before Dice’s hand was trailing up her leg, and she was eagerly spreading them. A few moments later, he was leading her out the back, and I couldn’t help but grin as I headed for the bar and asked the waitress to call her husband.

My old buddy Kent.

As if on cue, twenty minutes later he stormed through the door, looking around, his fists clenched as he stalked up to the waitress and demanded to know where his wife was.

The bristles on the back of my neck stood up. I wanted to drag the bastard out the back, and get this shit the hell over with, but I also wanted him to know he wasn’t the only one who could play his fucked up little games.

As I followed him down the hallway, hiding in the shadows as he stomped forward, looking into each room he passed until he reached the exit door which was open, the noises from outside already floating through the air and bringing a dark grin to my face as I moved quickly up behind him.

The moment he saw what was going on outside next to the dumpster, his mouth opened ready to let loose no doubt a roll of expletives, but before he could, I pressed my gun into the back of his skull, and he froze, his eyes matching his big fucking mouth.

“Don’t fucking speak,” I warned, my voice low.

There were times in this life where I’d had to do things I didn’t like to share, and that Meyah would probably never know about.

I had blood on my hands, plenty of it. But I’d never taken the life of someone who was innocent. Kent would be no fucking exception.

He was far from innocent, and the stories I’d heard from people after I got out of there, the things he’d done to them or to people they cared about—there was a special place in hell reserved for men like Kent, and I just happened to have his ticket.

“Kent, my good friend,” I whispered with a light chuckle. “Fancy seeing you here. I saw your wife sitting at the bar, my buddy Dice took a fancy to her, you don’t mind him borrowing her for a minute, do you?”

I knew he could see them, he was standing just outside the door, his eyes focused on their bodies, hearing his wife moaning in utter delight and asking for more. I could practically hear his heart thumping hard and his breathing getting heavy as his anger grew.

“Your face is going red, Kent,” I taunted quietly. “Are you not enjoying this as much as I am? Is this causing you some kind of fucking pain, asshole?”

“What do you want?” he asked through gritted teeth, trying to act tough, but I saw the way his hands shook. He was the big man on campus when you were handcuffed and locked in a jail cell when his word was the only one they would believe over an inmate who he’d decided he didn’t like for no fucking reason.

“I’ve heard stories, Kent. About you. Your heavy hand. Your bad attitude. And me and the boys… well, we don’t take too well to people like you terrorizing our fucking town.”

One of the girls we’d talked to had admitted her brother had gone to county jail for a couple marijuana charges. He should have done three months. He ended up doing life… because Kent and his buddies beat him up one night, and he had internal bleeding.

He died alone in a jail cell.

Because this asshole didn’t like him? It made me fucking sick.

That could have been so easily me.

“This is where your reign ends,” I whispered, taking joy in the way his eyes moved past me to where my brothers began to fill the hallway, each and every one of them. They had my back. They stood beside me, they were the true meaning of family. And it was going to be as hard as hell to leave them. But Meyah was my future, and I was lucky that even though I was walking away, they still stood behind me one hundred fucking percent.

“You know, Kent, I’m leaving town,” I told him, digging my gun further into his neck, forcing him to cringe in pain. I grinned.

His eyes widened, and the jackass who thought he ruled the world was gone, in his place, a fucking idiot who thought no one would ever come after him. As proven by the way the front of his pants suddenly gathered.

“So I have to thank you because you’re giving us this one last bonding experience to share.” I patted him on the back and made sure he heard me loud and clear, moving my mouth right beside his ear. “Digging graves is a real team effort.”

Check and fucking mate, asshole.