by K. C. Lynn
There’s a huge scene as we make it outside—cops swarming the grounds and men who I’ve never seen in handcuffs. A few of them are headed for the warehouse before they see Kolan charging toward them with me in his arms. “Go, go, go!” he yells in warning.
“Where’s Stone?” Cooper asks, following our pace.
“With the bomb.”
“What?”
“There was no time to diffuse it,” Kolan explains, his voice tight and strained as he moves us faster.
I try to beg Cooper to go after him but I can’t speak through the sobs racking my body.
Once we get far across on the other side of the road, where all the police vehicles are, Kolan releases me. “Take her,” he says, thrusting me at Cooper. “I’m going back for him.”
Just as he turns around the explosion happens—bright orange flames lighting the sky in the distance behind the warehouse. Though far enough away, the sound is still deafening, but not as deafening as the screams that rip from my throat and shatter through the air around me. The agony that strikes my soul brings me to my knees.
“NICK!” I scream his name over and over again until my throat goes raw and pain overrides everything else. “Oh god, oh no.” Harsh sobs cause my body to tremble with despair, stealing my breath.
I watch Kolan run in the direction of the destruction. Cade, Jaxson, and Sawyer following him.
“Stay with her and wait for the fire department!” Cooper orders one of the deputies before pointing at the others. “You guys get the rest of these assholes out of here.” Then he runs after the others.
The deputy Cooper ordered to stay with me drops down beside me, wrapping a blanket around my shoulders, while the few other cars drive off. However, I feel no warmth from the heavy fabric. I feel nothing but a gripping pain at the center of my chest, radiating through my entire body. I stare at the spot where the guys disappeared from, praying and waiting for them to come back.
As minutes tick by the little bit of hope I held on to dwindles. But then I spot them—their figures emerging through the dark smoke—all of them walking back sluggishly. I begin counting each person since they’re too far away to make out clearly, and when I count more than five I get to my feet and run.
As I near the group, one person begins moving faster than the others, heading right toward me. A sob flees me, my heart already knowing who it is, and I hurtle myself right into Nick’s waiting arms. “Oh thank god,” I cry.
Picking me up off my feet he holds me close. “I’m so sorry, Kate. So fucking sorry.”
Leaning back, I cup his face and stare into his blue-gray eyes that are brimmed with guilt and unshed tears. “No, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have left this morning, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing matters but this.”
He says nothing in return but his mouth fuses with mine, melting away the fear and despair that was just flooding me.
If I had known it would be our last kiss, I would have held on and never let go.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Nick
As I stand outside St. Michael’s hospital, I consider getting back in my truck and driving away. The amount of emotions battling inside of me has me breaking out in a cold sweat.
Jesus, Stone, just get in, do what you need to do, and get the fuck out of there.
After much thought I decided I had to do this. For my sake, for my future, for Pop, and…for Katelyn. Just the thought of her has guilt tearing through me, adding to the storm inside of me.
I fucking hated leaving her, especially without an explanation. After helping Cooper wrap up the case, I left to take care of shit I need to deal with before I can attempt to give her what she deserves. What I’ve wanted to give her for so many years.
And that’s laying these demons to rest. Or rather, the painful memory of the only woman I once loved.
“Can I help you, sir?” a nurse at the front station asks.
“Uh, yeah, is there a Mira—”
“Mr. Stone.” I look over at the petite Mexican nurse, standing at the end of the hallway. She smiles. “I recognize you from your picture. I’m glad you changed your mind and came.”
My picture?
I nod, having a hard time finding words at the moment.
“Come with me.” I follow her down the hall and into a room. “We just finished packing up her things. She didn’t have much with her when she came. I donated the few clothes she had to the women’s shelter down the street.” I’m only half-listening to what she says. Looking around the place, I get a weird sense from knowing my mother was here only a few days ago, dying alone.
My throat begins to feel tight at the thought and I hate it. Hate the guilt I feel when I should feel none when it comes to her.
“Why don’t you have a seat, Mr. Stone.” She gestures to a chair in the corner then grabs a small wooden box and brings it to me. “These are the things she treasured most. Your letter is in there. I’ll give you some privacy while you look.”
“Thanks.”
She leaves the room, shutting the door behind her. I stare down at the box, nervous to open it. With a heavy breath I lift the lid and see an envelope with my name on it. Underneath are a few pictures and a newspaper clipping of me when Ryder and I cracked that big case involving Emily’s father, proving she thought about me at least a few years ago. Picking up the photos I see one of her and Pop when she looked to be a teenager, her and my grandmother that I never met, and a few of us from when I was a kid. My arm is around her shoulder as she kisses my cheek. I looked happy, something I don’t remember feeling as a child. In the other photo her arms are around me, a big smile on her face, but her eyes look how I always remembered them—glassy, bloodshot, and distant.
I grab the envelope addressed to me, my hands fucking shaking as I take out the piece of paper and start reading.
Nicholas,
You’ll probably never read this letter because I’m too scared to give it to you, but I figured why not write it anyway. I need to purge this guilt I’ve felt most of my life.
I know you must hate me, and I don’t blame you. I hate myself too most days, and now I’m suffering a fate I deserve. But I want you to know a day hasn’t gone by where I don’t think about you. As hard as it might be for you to believe, I’ve thought about you every day since that god-awful night twenty-one years ago. You’ll never know how sorry I am about forgetting to send someone for you. I was not in my right mind, and I got even more messed up to bury the pain from leaving you. I thought I was making the right choice—that you were so much better off without me. With the lifestyle I lived and the men who came in, I was destroying the one person I loved most in the world. And no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t find it in me to get better. Then I had an opportunity—a place some would call hell—and I took it, thinking I deserved nothing better. It was a mistake I’ve regretted all my life.
A week after I left, and was sober enough to realize what I had done, I called around, praying you were okay. I was relieved to find out you were with my dad, the greatest man I’ve ever known. And I knew you’d be okay, safer than if you were with me. I knew he would give you a good life.
I was a lost girl after leaving my dad, for someone who I thought loved me but never did. I made so many mistakes I didn’t think I could go back home. How different our lives would have been had I set aside my pride and gone back to my dad, who I missed dearly.
From the moment you were born you held my heart, you were the only good thing I’d done since leaving, and although I can’t take credit for the man you’ve become I want you to know how proud I am of you. From afar I’ve watched you grow up to be everything I knew you would be. A hero. Just like you were mine for those short years, always protecting me with an intensity far bigger than your years.
If there is one thing I could teach you from all this it would be to hold on to the people who love you and never let go. Don’t take them for granted. The world is so big and lonely when you have no one. Live without re
grets because life is too short.
I’m not going to ask for forgiveness because I know I don’t deserve it, but… I love you, Nicholas, always and forever.
Love, Mom.
The last of the words blur before me, the searing pain in my chest erupting like hot lava. Burying my head in my hands, I do the one thing I haven’t done since I was six years old. I cry, not only for myself but also for the woman who left me. A woman who hated herself, and it was that hatred which destroyed us all. So many emotions barrel through me—anger, resentment, but most of all, guilt. If I hadn’t held on to my anger all these years I could have tried to find her and help her. If only she would have come to us when she was sick. So much senseless regret for nothing. If there’s one thing I’m mad at her for, it’s that. But I refuse to hold on to it any longer, I refuse to let this destroy my life like it did hers.
“Mr. Stone?”
I quickly swipe a hand down my face before lifting my head and looking at the nurse while she stares at me with sympathy I don’t want.
“Are you glad you read it?”
Am I? Right now I’m not so sure, because it changes nothing. She’s gone and nothing can be made right when it comes to her.
“I don’t know,” I reply, my voice gruff.
“Fair enough. You want to keep that?” she asks, pointing at the box.
“Yeah.”
“Good. I know Lila would want that.”
“Where’s her body?” I ask, thinking about it for the first time.
“We sent her to be cremated. That’s what we do when there’s no family. The state pays for it.” She pauses, her voice quiet. “I was going to spread her ashes somewhere I know she used to like to go, but if you want them…”
I nod without hesitation, especially thinking about Pop. “Yeah. I want them.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Nick
If I thought reading that letter was the hardest thing I’d ever do, I was wrong. What would be the hardest is watching Pop read it. Seeing his pain, the same one I harbor inside of me, and watching a grown man break down is fucking hard, especially someone like Pop. His head falls in his hands much the same way mine did, his broad shoulders shaking with his pain.
“I loved her so much, Nicky. I would have done anything to help her.”
“I know, Pop. Me, too,” I say gruffly, clapping his shoulder. “And I think she knew that. I think that’s why she never came to us. She didn’t feel like she deserved it.”
And that thought alone is fucking painful.
“I tried so hard to do right by her.”
“Her decisions aren’t your fault. They aren’t either of ours. We can only help people if they allow us.”
“I know, but it’s hard not to feel guilt. She was my baby.”
“I know.”
“She was a good person, Nicky, just…lost.”
“And I know that, too.”
He sits up, scrubbing a hand down his face before looking at me, the pain in his eyes hitting me square in the chest. “Do you?” he asks. “Do you know that now? You’ve been so angry and with good reason, kid. Don’t think for a second I blame you for that. It’s easier for me because I remember her before she was sick. Bright, vibrant, beautiful, with a heart of gold. She would have given you everything she had even if she didn’t have much at all. Drugs do terrible things to people, make them become something they’re not. It’s more than selfish. Addictions are a disease, as destructive as any other illness out there.”
I nod, swallowing past the excruciating burn in my throat. “Yeah. I know.” Running my hand through my hair, I let out a heavy breath. “Look, Pop, I know I’ve been a shitty grandson.”
He waves a hand through the air, cutting me off. “Nah, stop that. You’ve been great, boy. I’m damn proud of ya.”
“No, I haven’t been. I’ve kept myself away for so long because… I was scared,” I say, having a hard time admitting that. “But I don’t want to live like that anymore. I don’t want to end up alone like her, and I definitely don’t want you to either. There’s nothing we can do to change what happened with her, but I can make sure it doesn’t happen to us.”
“That’s why I’ve pushed about Katelyn. She loves you, Nicky. A whole lot. A love like that doesn’t come by every day. I was lucky enough to have it once but it was shorter than it should have been. Don’t waste another damn second to grab hold of her. She needs you as much as you need her.”
I nod. “I know and I plan to, but I needed to right some things first and one of them is with you.”
“There’s nothing to right with me, boy. I love you and nothing could ever change that.”
The fact that he forgives me so easily only has me feeling even more guilt. “I know, that’s why I want you to come to Charleston with me. Come live by Kate and me so we can take care of you.”
His eyes bulge in surprise. “You’re moving there? But what about your job?”
“I haven’t talked with the chief yet, I’m headed there after I leave here, but I’m going to put in for a transfer to the headquarters in Columbia, which isn’t far.”
I know chief is going to be pissed, but I don’t care. Katelyn’s life is there and I’m not asking her to leave it. I have nothing in Florida but my job, and Ryder of course. Losing my partner will suck but I’d give up anything for Katelyn.
“Ah hell, I don’t know, Nicky. Like I said before, this is all I know. My life is here, my memories of Lila and Helen…”
“You’ll always have your memories of them, no matter where you go. Sometimes change can be good. We’ll set you up with a nice place, maybe even some land since I know you like the solitude of country living. We’ll be closer to each other. We’re the only family we got, and I want to start making up for lost time. I’d move here but Katelyn’s business is there and she belongs there. She’s surrounded by good people. Charleston is actually a pretty nice place, I think you’ll like it, and you’ll have George to shoot the shit with.”
He grunts. “Haven’t seen that crazy bastard in a long time,” he says fondly. His eyes meet mine thoughtfully. “Yeah, okay, I’ll come. But not because of George or anyone else, they are just bonuses. I’m coming for you and Katelyn. I’ve missed you over the years, and if there’s a chance I could see ya more often then I’ll take it.”
“We’ll definitely see each other more. Things will be better for us, I promise.”
He grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me in for a strong hug. “Thanks for asking me. I love you, boy.”
“I love you too, Pop.”
He backs up, wiping his eyes again. “All right, now just one question.”
“Shoot.”
“What happens if Miss Sassy Pants doesn’t take your stubborn ass back,” he says with a grin.
And if that isn’t the kicker.
“I won’t take no for an answer. I’ll work my ass off everyday until she says yes.”
His grin spreads, a chuckle escaping him as he claps my shoulder. “That’s my boy. Use that stubbornness of yours for something good.” I grunt, thinking she’s a hell of a lot more stubborn than me. “So you headed to Florida soon?”
“Yeah, but I have one more thing I need to take care of here first before I head out.”
And that’s to make sure Keith Slade pays for what he did and never has the chance to hurt Katelyn again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Katelyn
Three weeks later
The steaming mug of tea in my hand does nothing to warm the cold loneliness I’ve had inside of me since finding out Nick left without so much as a good-bye. I knew the chances of him staying were slim but to not even say good-bye? Last time he at least left a letter. And what about that kiss when I thought I’d lost him? The kiss that destroyed every other kiss we’ve ever shared.
I thought it meant everything would be all right, but turned out it was a good-bye kiss.
The bastard.
“Can I please kick his as
s?” Kolan asks, pulling me from my depressed thoughts as he sits in my living room across from me.
I give him a sad smile. “No, but thanks.”
He grunts in disappointment. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
“You’ll be the first one to know.” I promise, feeling my smile slip. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a downer lately. I’ll be fine.”
One day.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“All right, enough about me, tell me what’s been going on with you. Have you decided what you’re going to do now that you’re not fighting anymore?”
The case involving the illegal fighting ring that Logan was messed up in, turned out to only be half the story. It seems Bruce Warren also had a side business betting on the legal fights, just like Victor suspected, and he had a lot of money on Kolan to lose his next fight. One where he would have owed people in the mob more money than he had. When he realized Kolan would win, holding his title for heavyweight champion, he tried to find a way to stop the fight before he could lose everything he had. Except, his plan to get rid of Kolan before the fight could happen backfired.
The evidence Victor had was discovered under a floorboard in his house. In it was a flash drive with all the people’s bets, including some big names in the EFC, and Ricky Spencer, which is obviously why he helped by keeping his mouth shut when he knew Kolan didn’t hurt Nikki. A videotape was also retrieved of Bruce Warren paying Nikki off after her statement to Cooper. Victor was the one who recorded it and in return lost his life while trying to save Kolan’s. Something I’ll forever be grateful to him for.
At least everyone is now paying for their part and my brother’s reputation has been salvaged…mostly. There will always be people out there who only want to see the bad in others, something both Kolan and I grew up with, but the people who matter know the truth and that’s what’s important.
