Page 132 of Ride or Die

Padding quietly back to my chair, I glance over at Tommy and Billie to see them still fast asleep. I sink back down into my chair and heave a sigh, feeling every bone in my body sag.

“Everything okay?”

I startle from Clara’s voice, turning my head to find her eyes looking up at me, searching mine through the muted light in the room.

With a smile, I reach across and gently smooth a lock of her hair back from her face, the bruises forming beneath her eyes causing anger to flare in my gut. Apparently he headbutted her. Knocked her clean out. My hand flexes with fury, balling into a fist at the thought.

“Yeah, everythin’s just fine.” I lean in close, pressing a soft, gentle kiss to her forehead, careful not to hurt her.

“I’m sorry I tried to leave,” Clara says on a whisper so soft I almost miss it. “If I hadn’t… none of this would’ve happened.” The emotion in her voice causes her words to cut out, her shoulders shuddering with the sobs she’s trying to contain. “You told me we were safe at the ranch. I should have listened…”

“C’mere, darlin’.” I grab her hand, urging her up, and she comes willingly, her soft body folding down onto my lap, nestling into me, and I hold her close while she cries against my chest, letting it all out.

“You were doin’ what you thought was right, what you thought was safest for you and your babies,” I whisper into her hair, kissing her head. “You’re the strongest, most fiercest, most protective mama I know, and I am so fuckin’ proud of you.”

Clara buries her face into the crook of my neck, sniffling as her tears continue, soaking through my shirt. I rub my hand up and down her back, soothing her as best as I can.

“It’s over now, baby,” I tell her. “You ain’t gotta run no more. No more lookin’ over your shoulder, no more wonderin’ where he is or whether he’s gonna find you, no more nightmares. He’s gone. Forever.” I kiss her temple, lips lingering as I murmur against her skin, “You got me now.Allof me. I swear to you, I ain’t goin’ fuckin’ nowhere.”

Clara pulls away then, her glassy eyes searching mine. “Do you… do you mean?—”

I nod, answering her question before she even has to finish asking it.

“Cole.” She sighs, eyes flitting between mine like she’s looking for the lie.

“You and those kids mean more to me than any ride,” I tell her honestly. “I ain’t willin’ to risk anything comin’ between us ever again.”

Fresh tears brim in Clara’s eyes.

“I meant what I said, baby.” I cup her cheek, looking deep into her pretty blue gaze. “You got me now. All of me.”

Wrapping her arms around my neck, Clara crashes her lips to mine in a searing kiss that leaves me breathless and takes away every last shred of lingering doubt. And I don’t know what I’m gonna do now. I never planned for this day. But I know I’m making the right decision because Clara and those kids are all I need in this life and the next.

EPILOGUE

TWO MONTHS LATER

Cole

“What’s this about?” Cruz hops out of his Bronco, hitching up his pants and adjusting his utility belt as he takes a look around, scanning the area.

I jump down off the tailgate of my truck, tossing my empty beer can onto the ground.

“Boss wants your advice on something’,” I say casually over my shoulder as I lead the way into the overflow barn.

“Better be good,” Cruz mutters. “I’m missin’ the damn Astros game.”

The barn is dark inside, the dusk light filtering in from outside barely illuminates the space enough to see a few feet in front of you. When I hear a scuffle, followed by a grunt and a low, pained groan, I turn, my eyes adjusting to see Cruz keeled over in pain, his arms held behind his back by Jagger while Austindisarms him, making quick work of disassembling his pistol and tossing the pieces onto the ground.

“What the fuck?” Cruz shouts, looking from me to Austin, to Webber standing by the lone chair in the center of the barn, the very same chair Butch’s traitor was killed in a few months back.

Jagger wrestles Cruz’s lofty frame across to the chair, kicking his feet out from under him and forcing him to sit down, and within a matter of seconds he’s bound by his own cuffs, chest heaving with hard breaths, eyes blazing as they stare up at me full of nothing but fear because of course he knows. It was only a matter of damn time.

If I’m honest, I think I knew. Or, at least had my doubts. But I never had anything concrete. Now, with the added benefit of twenty-twenty hindsight, it all makes sense and goes back to the night at the motel, when Cruz told me it was nothing but some drunk trying to get into Clara’s room, where the kids were. It wasn’t no drunk. It was Cain. I saw it myself with the shitty CCTV footage we were able to bribe off the night manager of the Sleepy Nites.

When Cruz was conveniently driving by, not long after Clara’s tire blew. I get chills every time I think just how badly that could’ve ended had the road not been unexpectedly busy with the traffic coming and going from the Rattlesnake turnout.

There were a few other uncanny coincidences, but I didn’t know if maybe it was just my mind playing tricks on me—CTE-induced delusions finally catching up on my ass—but then the day at the slaughterhouse all but made up my mind. When the asshole I was led to believe was Cain was saying somethin’. A whispered word or two before Cruz put a bullet through his head. Was he about to tell me the truth, that he wasn’t Cain, that Cain was still out there, and that this fuckin’ dirty-ass cop was the one helping him?