“This is the last time I see you!” I screeched.
He rocked to a halt as my emotion scored jagged through the room.
I looked to Tack and jabbed a finger his way again. “You keep your business out of my business.” I jabbed my finger toward Logan but kept my gaze to Tack. “And you keep him out of my life.”
“Millie, baby,” Logan, now talking gently, said as the door opened and Hound and Boz came in, eyes instantly darting around to take in the players. “Come with me to my room—”
“Fuck you!” I spat at him, and looked back to Tack. “Deal with it. You don’t, I will.”
And I was done.
Even as the door opened again and Tyra and the tall, lanky, dark-haired guy that was with Tabby at Wild Bill’s moved in, I started to make my way hurriedly toward the exit.
I was stopped when Logan moved quickly to the side and caught my elbow.
I twisted it out of his hold and scuttled away again, this time running into a table.
“Don’t you ever again put your hand on me,” I bit out.
“Mill—”
“You never again touch me!” I shrieked.
“Baby,” he said softly. “We gotta talk.”
My body snapped straight and my mouth moved.
“Yes, we do,” I bit out. “We absolutely do. While Tack deals with your little problem that’s leaking into my life,” I declared. Logan shot a quick glance at Tack, then back to me when I continued speaking, “I’ll talk.”
Then I kept right on going.
Right on going.
It was time.
Time to fucking end this.
He was going to get it all so I could do what he said he was going to do.
Once and for always.
Put him in my fucking, fucking rearview.
My love for him.
My longing for him.
My grief for all we’d lost.
My sorrow for all we’d never have.
The burden I’d borne as I’d walked through fire for him and he’d thrown it all away, knocking up some bitch and making all I’d sacrificed not… worth… shit.
“I’m as good as gone, High,” I stated. “I’m leaving Denver. But before I go, you get it. You get it all. So you’ll know and I can be done with you.”
“Millie, darlin’, fuck, please come with me to my—”
“I’m not going with you anywhere.” I pointed a finger to the floor. “This is happening here.”
He moved toward me. “Babe, I’m beggin’ you, please—”
I retreated, bumping into things and scurrying out of the way, warning, “Don’t get any closer.”
“You don’t go with me there, I’m takin’ you there,” he warned.
He’d do that. I knew it. These men got what they wanted.
They always got what they wanted.
However they had to do that.
The panic I was holding back started breaking through.
“Don’t get near me!” I yelled, still scurrying, needing to get this done, get out, get gone and not needing to be alone with Logan.
“Baby—”
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, changing direction, watching him change direction with me, stalking me.
“Fuck,” he clipped. “Please—”
“Stop moving,” I demanded.
“Millie—”
He was getting closer.
And I hit wall.
I slithered along it, shouting, “Don’t get near me!”
“Goddamn it, Millie—”
“I can’t have children!” I shrieked.
Logan froze.
I did too.
All of me.
Except my mouth.
“There, Logan! There! You have it all!” I screamed. “I’m infertile. Barren. No go. No way. Never. And I knew you wouldn’t let me go. You’d never let me go. And you wanted kids so bad.” I shook my head, not even feeling the tears filling my eyes. “So fucking bad. You wanted to build a family. A big, fat, loud, crazy, wonderful family. I couldn’t give you that. I could never give you that. And you were mine. You were my Logan. You had to have it all. You were mine.” My voice cracked and I didn’t hear it, didn’t even feel it. I was beyond feeling anything but the need to get this done and go. “It was my job to make sure you had it all. It was my job to make sure you had everything. But you wouldn’t let me go. You’d never let me go. So I made you let me go so you could have it all!”
My throat was burning. My eyes were leaking.
But I saw the look on his face.
Ravaged.
Wasted.
That wasn’t giving him it all.
That was killing it.
And that wasn’t my job.
I’d failed.
Failed again.
So I had to escape.
And thus I ran.
Ripping viciously through unseen hands that tried to grab me, I got to the door of my car, hand on the handle, but I didn’t get it open.
Suddenly, I was pressed to the door, Logan’s hard body pushing in behind me, his arms like steel bands clamping around me.
“Let me go!” I shrieked.
He didn’t let me go.
He shoved his face in the side of my neck.
“Let me go! Let me go!” I jerked unsuccessfully in his arms. “Let me go, go, go!”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Quiet.
So quiet.
But each word was a new wound.
I stilled in his arms.
“You wouldn’t let me go,” I whispered.
“No.” His arms tightened. “No, Millie. I would never let you go.”
I again pushed against his hold.
“Now you need to let me go,” I kept whispering.
He didn’t let me go.
He held me so tight I felt the air leaking out of my lungs.
Then he moved, violently, brutally. He took one arm from around me, drew it back, and slammed his fist into the steel at the side of my car, making a dent, his face coming out of my neck.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he roared.
My body went still but my soul shattered.
“High, brother.”
I heard this like it was from far away.
Tack.
“You are not in this,” High growled.
“Get your woman inside,” Tack said quietly. “It’s cold and starting to snow.”
I stood still.
So did High.
For a nanosecond.
Then he moved me from the car.
For the next however long I did not know I had very little recollection of anything that happened except in that first moment, me arching my back so hard my feet left the ground as High kept hold of me and turned us toward the Compound while I screeched, “No!”
Faintly, I remember struggling. Clawing. Screaming. Kicking. Pushing. Getting loose when he got me back in the Compound and seeing all the brothers of Chaos fanned out in the common room, sentries for Logan, soldiers of their brother, fencing me in.
I made a frantic choice, running toward the blond guy to get through him. I failed. He got hold of me and dragged me right back to Logan.
Logan again took control and I fought it but eventually found myself behind the closed door in his room and it went on.
Me fighting him. Fighting him like I was fighting for my life.
And Logan defending himself against my attacks, doing it gently, doing it in a way he wouldn’t hurt me and helped me not hurt himself, and doing it continuing to contain me as he murmured over and over again, soothingly, “Calm,” and, “Relax, baby,” and, “Stop it, beautiful.”
At my end, reaching it somehow on the bed with Logan, I grunted as I gave one final, colossal buck to pull out of the ironclad hold of his arms, attempting to jerk my legs away from the heavy weight of his clamped to mine.
Then I went slack.
When I did, he slid his hand in my hair.
/> “That’s it, Millie,” he whispered to the top of my head. “Settle. It’s over, darlin’. It’s done.”
“Are Cleo and Zadie beautiful?” I asked his throat in an uncontrolled utterance because even if I already knew, I still had to know, and felt his fingers bunch my hair reflexively.
“They are,” he rumbled. “So, so beautiful, baby.”
“I gave you them,” I told him, fading, finally fucking fading.
“You did, Millie,” he agreed softly.
“I gave you them. I gave you that Daddy they call you that warms you to your bones.”
He pulled me deeper into his arms, shifting into me, taking me to my back, smothering me with his weight and heat, drowning me with his scent, but he said nothing.
Still fading, I murmured, “I gave you them. I gave them you.”
“Baby,” he whispered, the word tortured.
“I gave you up, walking through fire to do it but I did it,” I told him. “I did it in the end. I gave you everything,” I finished, finally, finally fading.
Fading away.
Into nothing.
High
High waited, holding his girl, making sure she was in a place where there was no pain and taking his time doing it.
When he was certain she was resting, gently he pulled away.
Then carefully, he took off her boots, more carefully tugging off her jacket, and he pulled the covers out from under her, dragged them over her, and tucked her in tight all around.
After he did that, he didn’t look at her.
He couldn’t.
He’d climb back in bed with her, which meant he wouldn’t do what he had to do.
So instead, he walked out of the room.
They were all there. Word had gotten out. It did that in times like these. So all the brothers were there. Even Lanie, Elvira, Shy’s wife, Tabby, and Joker’s woman, Carissa, were there.
He looked right to Tack, not missing a step on his stalk to the door.
“She does not leave,” he stated.
“High, you shouldn’t leave either. Not if your shit’s not tight. Snow’s gettin’ bad,” Tack replied.
He stopped, hand on the handle, and looked back to his brother.
“Then do me a solid and get food in ’cause if I get back and it’s too bad to get her to my RV, we’re workin’ the rest of our shit out here and considerin’ what just went down, that’s gonna take some time.”
On that, he walked out into the snow.
He’d taken his truck that morning, knowing the weather was moving in.
So he swung in the cab, started her up, and rolled out of Ride.
The snow was heavy, sticking, but the roads weren’t bad as he made his way to where he needed to go.
He parked out front, prowled up the walk, and pressed his finger to the bell, not pounding on the door like he wanted to and taking his finger off the button only because there could be kids inside.
The door opened, not much, a crack, but she moved into the space and looked up at him.
“Holy crap, Lo—” Dottie started to breathe, eyes wide.
“You didn’t tell me,” he growled, watched her face pale and knew his guess was right.
Millie had shared with her sister.
And her sister did not share with him.
“Logan,” she whispered.
“I wouldn’t give a fuck and you know, woman.” He lifted a hand to stab a finger her way. “You know I wouldn’t give a fuck and you let her do it anyway.”
She opened the door only to wedge herself in it and asked, “Did something happen?”
“Millie’s in my bed at the Compound, passed out, fucked up, gone. She shared, Dot. She told me why she got shot of me. She did it and she unraveled right in front of my goddamned eyes, finally givin’ me that fuckin’ shit and you fuckin’ knew and you said shit.”
Her pale face went white and pain entered her eyes.
“She wouldn’t be swayed,” she said carefully.
“So the fuck what?” High shot back. “You knew and you could have told me and stopped her pain because I sure as fuck would have stopped her pain and you know it.”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t, Logan. She’s my sister. I love her. You don’t know how she was. I couldn’t—”
“I know how she was,” High growled. “Twenty years it’s been and I got that pain passed out in my bed, Dot.”
“No,” she said harshly. “You don’t know. It was bad, Logan. So bad. I couldn’t go against her wishes.”
“You could have and you should have. And you fuckin’ know it,” he fired back.
“You both wanted kids so bad,” she whispered.
“No,” he grunted. “I wanted Millie. You knew it. You fuckin’ knew.”
“Low—”
He leaned away but kept her skewered with his stare. “She live a good life, Dot? Hunh? She move on and find her happy?”
Dottie’s eyes got wet.
High’s gut burned.
She didn’t.
Just like him, his girl lived twenty years blistering in the fire.
“Yeah,” he snarled.
“You don’t know how she was.”
“No, I didn’t. But I found out half an hour ago, woman, which was twenty years too late.”
She flinched.
He liked her, once loved her like the sister she was supposed to be for the rest of his life, but more, he had shit he had to see to.
So he relented.
“I’ll fix it.”
Her eyes got big again.
“Wh-what?” she stammered.
He didn’t repeat himself.
He ordered, “And while I’m doin’ that, you take my back. You get that man of yours to take my back. You get Justine and Kellie to take my back. And you work with me however I gotta maneuver it to guide my girl back to happy.”
A tear slid down her cheek as she stared up at him, lips parted.
When she seemed unable to speak, he prompted, “Hear?”
Her head jolted.
“I hear, Low,” she said quietly.
“Do not fuck up again, Dot,” he warned, then went on, “First up for you, you put the brakes on whatever moves she’s made to get outta Denver.”
Another tear escaped but her lips quirked as she muttered, “Seems we Cross women have a type. Bossy.”
Was she fucking serious?
“I’m not thinkin’ anything at this juncture is funny,” he growled.
She pressed her lips together before she nodded and said, “Right. Of course. Consider the brakes put on.” She tipped her head to the side. “Do you wanna get out of the snow and come inside where it’s warm to boss me around? You do that, I’ll make cocoa and introduce you to my kids.”
He didn’t want cocoa.
He did want to meet her kids.
And fuck him, he was pissed as all hell at her but at the same time he forgot how much he liked the bitch.
“You got an important job, focus and don’t fuck up,” he said as reply.
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
Fuck, the Cross sisters.
Pains in the asses and too goddamned cute for their own good.
Dottie was demonstrating mostly the first part and he was screwed because he was ticked beyond reason and he still liked it.
Christ.
“Get on that,” he muttered, turning. “I got shit to do.”
He moved off her stoop but stopped and twisted back to her when she called his name.
“Missed you,” she said, face soft, voice soft, words easing a nasty sting he’d been living with so long it had become a part of him. “You let go me fucking up, I’ll let go the shit you’ve been pulling the last coupla months. And I’ll start all that by saying I’m glad to have you back, Logan.”
He stared at her a beat and said nothing.
Then he turned from her and walked away, that sting still there, but suddenly it didn’t hurt so goddamned much.
&nbs
p; Not looking back at her house, he got in his truck, started up, made a decision, and took his chance before the snow got worse.
He drove to his RV.
Once there, he packed a bag.
Then he drove to the Compound.
He moved through the space crowded with people who gave a shit and were worried.
As he moved, he asked Tack, “Food in?”
“Yep,” Tack answered.
“Out in my truck,” High ordered.
Tack’s lips twitched.
High ignored that and went to his room, which meant he moved back through the space crowded with people carrying a totally out of it Millie.
Big Petey lumbered in front of him, right there to open the door to the backseat of the cab so High could move in and carefully lay her there.
He shut the door quietly, turned and saw Pete in his space, Tack several feet back, Cherry standing at her man’s side.
“Get home,” he ordered them as the snow fell heavy all around them.
“You good?” Pete asked.
High looked down at Pete.
“I will be,” he stated, and turned, brushing against Big Petey when he did.
He opened his door, climbed in, and drove on roads getting bad to Millie’s house.
He carried her inside, put her in her own bed in a room that had been straightened, probably by Dot, sometime while she was away.
It was picture perfect again.
She was going to have to kiss that good-bye.
High didn’t live immaculate.
And neither did his Millie.
High moved back out to his truck, got his bag and the groceries, and brought them in.
He put the shit that needed to go into the fridge away. He left the other shit wherever he found a place for it on the counters.
Before he took his boots off, sitting on the ottoman to her big chair, he stared at the crate, wondering how she got it back and deciding he’d learn that after they waded through twenty years of colossal fuckups.
He was just glad it wasn’t gone.
He left his boots on the floor where he took them off.
He tossed his cut on her couch.
Then he walked back to her room, climbed under the covers with her, pulled her in his arms, and tangled himself up in Millie.
She felt so good sleeping woven up in him it was like he’d lost a limb and it had miraculously grown back.
He tipped his chin so his face was in the top of her hair.
I gave you up, walking through fire to do it but I did it. I did it in the end. I gave you everything.