Page 31 of Kane's Kingdom

"I know what I am."

"And if it comes to me or them?"

"It already did."

She closes her eyes. The first sob catches her by surprise. She presses a hand to her mouth, but more follow, years of grief breaking loose in the middle of the ruined cafe.

I stay where I am until she reaches for me. Then I cross the last step and pull her against my chest.

She cries for the Landing. For Red. For the fire and the men who forgot him. Maybe for King too, in the complicated way we both grieve men who hurt us. I hold her through all of it.

When she finally looks up, her face is wet and emotional.

"I've always been here for you.” I tell her.

Her hand closes around the front of my shirt, directly over the pendant. I lower my forehead to hers.

"I can't tell you I'm a good man."

A broken laugh leaves her. "No. You really can't."

"I can tell you that I'll always be a good man to you."

She searches my face. I offer no promise about leaving the club, no lie about becoming harmless and no claim that the world behind those gates will ever be clean. Only the truth I can keep. "I don't need you to be reformed," she whispers.

"What do you want?"

Her fingers tighten in my shirt. "You."

Then she kisses me in the ruins of the Landing, and it feels like grief and homecoming in the same breath.

EPILOGUE

BELLA - THREE WEEKS LATER

Rourke's Landingstill smells like smoke. Even with the burned paneling stripped out and the windows boarded, it's in the floorboards, my hair and every box I carry to storage. The repairs will take several months at best. I'm arguing with a contractor about the wiring when Kane appears in the doorway.

"You busy?" he asks.

"I'm just being told the phrasecatastrophic failureshouldn't worry me."

The contractor sighs. "That was about the panel."

Kane's mouth shifts and he looks downward, stifling a laugh, and I point at him. "Don't encourage him."

"Wouldn't dare." He waits until the contractor leaves, then holds out his hand. "Come with me."

"Where?"

"The compound."

I fold my arms. "You're getting all presidential again."

"Yeah, I am." Something quiet in his face stops me from pushing, so I take his hand.

The clubhouse is full when we arrive. It isn't full the way it is on a Friday night. But every patched brother stands in the common room, cuts on and beers in their hands. Judge is near the church-room door, with Tank and Cash beside him and Wilder, Gray and Colt filling out the line beyond them.

Griz is there too, while Chains stands near the wall, silent and unreadable. Nobody explains why I've been brought here before Kane walks to the center of the room.