A mistake.

It was the one thing as a president I could not afford to make. Not when making one could cost lives. I wasn’t God; I shouldn’t get to decide who dies and who lives, but as I pulled onto the compound, brothers behind me, the ambient noise like a blurred, static fog surrounding me, I realized that playing God was exactly what I had done.

I had chosen who lived and who died. I had played with people’s lives in my hands and decided that the one would outweigh the others. And then, just as I had made the deal, I had gotten greedy and decided to go for them all. To save them all.

And this was the outcome.

“Brother.” A hand touched my shoulder, and the static around me snapped like an elastic band, throwing me back into the real world, startling me as I turned on the person, realizing I had long since parked in the compound.

It took me a second to recognize the messy black hair, tattooed skin, and dark eyes through the red drenching his clothes, skin, and hair. “Jax?”

My heart sank in my chest, looking to his body covered head to toe in splatters of blood and dirt. “Wha—”

“It’s the club. It was attacked.”

No.

“No,” I breathed, launching up and off my bike as I whirled toward the clubhouse, now noticing where the door was hanging off its hinges. All my other brothers had spun around to me, eyes wide as they locked at Jax.

No.

No.

No.

“What do you mean, it was attacked?” Polo roared, stepping forward to grab Jax’s arm off me and drag him toward him.

“I mean it was fucking attacked! Those Black Jack bastards double-crossed us!” Jax yelled, breaking Polo’s hold on him as he shoved him away.

“You were supposed to be bloody looking after it!” Polo lunged forward, but before he could connect, Lamb stepped between them, Jasper grabbing a hold of Polo.

“I did fucking look after it!” Jax bellowed, and Lamb stepped forward to hold him back. “We protected them as best as we could, but they outnumbered us! It was a fucking bloodbath.”

I heard Polo continue to snap back at Jax, but I wasn’t listening. My boots were moving, propelling me forward through the air as dense as water as I headed toward the open door.

I could see the bullet holes next to the hinges on the door, the black stains from explosives, and the splatters of blood along the side and floor before I even made it inside.

“Anna!” I yelled, my voice a sonic boom as I burst through the broken club doors.

I found my rampage stuttered as I was forced to face the clubroom. Everything wasn’t anywhere near broken; the entire room had been fucking obliterated. Holes filled the walls from floor to ceiling so much so I could hardly believe they were still standing. The pool table had a hundred pockets too many. Couches torn into like a rabid pack of dogs had mistaken it for prey. The wooden floors were in pieces as entire planks of floorboards had been ripped up and splintered into a thousand tiny pieces. The bar couldn’t even be called a bar anymore; every single bottle of alcohol was broken, spilling across the shelves, floor, and walls.

“Wolf.” Jax’s voice caught me off guard, and I turned, spinning toward where my brother stood, red dripping through a hole in his shirt, now noticing the deep wound as his form cut through the afternoon, light sinking in through the doorway.

He moved toward me, slightly out of breath as he fought the anemia from his wound exaggerated by his quick sprint after me, but he didn’t make it as a hand clamped down on his good shoulder and spun him around.

“Mallory?” Hunter’s hoarse voice cut faster than mine as his chest panted in heavy, panicked breaths, eyes wide and dilated as they hung on Jax’s every movement.

“She’s fine, brother,” Jax said, gripping his best friend tightly on the arm as he reassured him. “Few bruises, but she’s good. She’s with Charon’s doctor guy. The first room in the back with Anna.”

With Anna.

His slight comment made me almost buckle with relief as the warm heat burst through the apathetic cold that I hadn’t realized had completely taken me over since the second I saw Jax.

“Jax.” Ripper stepped ahead of me, grabbing Jax by the shoulder opposite his wound so he could examine the hole. “You all right, man?”

“It’s fine. It was through and through,” he said, pushing Hunter aside, not breaking eye contact with me for a second.

I couldn’t help the churning feeling in my stomach. The longer his dark eyes searched my face, the longer his mouth opened and shut for words, the longer his body stood rigid as he looked at me. “Listen, about Anna—”

“Jax!” Anna’s voice cracked like a whip across the room.

I spun, turning to see a figure of red as Anna was dripping head to toe in blood, staining her skin, clothes, and hair a thick, ruby red. I was brought back to the night she was stabbed, and my heart nearly stopped beating in my chest as the sheer volume of blood covering her told me it couldn’t possibly be all hers.

Her blue eyes cutting starkly through the smudge color on her skin made me immediately on edge.

Her red boots clicked slowly, one by one across the floor. Pools of blood on the floor and a few stains were the only things left to suggest any bodies once lay there. She didn’t bother to move her hair as the strands weighted in the dry blood fell in front of her face and eyes as she stared at each one of the brothers behind me, one by one, counting the numbers.

I saw the moment she knew the numbers didn’t add up, because whatever little spark in her eyes that was left shut down, and I saw the steel walls I had just managed to knock down go slamming back up.

My heart dropped, punctuated by each of Kay’s words as they replayed in my head.

It makes it difficult for her to open her heart, and she’s opened it up to you. Don’t abuse that, Wolf, because you won’t get a second chance.

You won’t get a second chance.

It was like watching my nightmare come true, a flood of fear and panic taking over my chest as I realized the horrible, horrible mistake I had made.

“Anna—what are you doing?” I breathed, my voice sounding hollow in comparison to her next words.

“Hunter told me everything.” Her voice was quiet but firm.

I watched as she slowly slid down the cuffs of her property jacket, pressing her shoulders back as she slipped the material off them, down her arms, and into her reddened hands.

“Anna,” I pleaded as she held it out in her hands.

She turned to Jax, holding open her hand, and at first, he was confused, but as she gestured to the gun I recognized as Jax’s on the floor beside him, he reached down, wincing as he went to move his primary shoulder before changing arms as he picked up the weapon, frowned, and handed it to her.

“It’s jam—”

With one, long strike, she slammed the gun down against the edge of the table. The noise rang through the room as the bullet stuck in the chamber was dislodged and fell out the barrel of the gun, clinking as the crumpled shell bounced on the damaged wood and rolled before dropping through a hole in the floor.

Jax looked at Anna and me as fear dawned on his face.

Anna lifted both her arms, her cut in one and the gun in the other, the barrel pointed straight at me.

“Anna,” I pleaded. “Jax!” I snapped the second I saw his body move to step into the way. “Don’t.”

Jax looked conflicted as he and the rest of the brothers looked between Anna and me.

Anna dropped the cut on the floor. She clicked back the hammer.

And then she fired.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

Continuously without stopping, bullet after bullet tore into the leather, ripping hole after hole in the jacket over and over and over again. I felt each one in the depth of my chest as I watched in sick, dead silence.

When the click of the empty magazine put an end to her firing, the room was completely silent. Not even the creak of the broken door could be heard as a small line of smoke from the barrel of the gun drifted into the air.

Anna dropped the gun into the shredded leather, and it clattered to the floor.

She turned and looked to me.

And that was the final blow.

Because the fire in her eyes, the spark of desire, rebellion, and affection she always showed was gone. Her eyes were empty as she looked at me. Emotionless.

She was done.

And then she walked past me in silence, heading to the door, and walked straight out of my life.

For good.