Page 2 of Healed

And yet I knew the answer.

I’d always known the answer.

I just didn’t want to face it.

But the truth was, Vienna wouldn’t want to live in a world without me. He may have kept his distance all these years. He may have given me freedom in his own way. But he knew I was alive. He knew he stood a chance.

The ugly truth was staring us all in the face.

Without me, Vienna had given up the fight before it had even begun.

This was his version of suicide.

And that was the real reason Rachel and the other old ladies were crying. This was the real reason Dante was swearing and smashing up his own clubhouse. The reason every member here seemed to be breaking in two with grief before they’d even found out the full story.

We weren’t allowed to say it out loud. We weren’t supposed to discuss the past. But the truth was, Vienna loved me. As much as we avoided it, as much as we skittered around it and pretended it didn’t exist, the truth was now hitting all of us in the face.

He loved me. And he wouldn’t survive without me.

“What happened tonight, Gabriella?” Dante demanded, seizing me by the shoulders.

“I… I…” I swallowed heavily.

“Because I’ll tell you what fucking happened here. We were attacked by Riders. Vienna left to find you, despite knowing we had other charters on the way. He told us you were fucking with him! I need you to fill in the blanks here, because somewhere between your club and you arriving here, my right-hand man is missing.”

Missing…

The Devils were attacked.

Nico… What have you done?

Dante let go of me with a savage snarl, almost hurling me away from him.

And, once again, the world seemed to blur as I lost myself in my mind.

However, slowly, painfully slowly, snippets of conversation filtered in again.

“Dante, stop!” one of the men hissed, grabbing his arm as he went to throw a chair across the room. “Brother, this isn’t the fucking answer!”

“Do you know what this means? Do you know what’s going to happen to him?” Dante roared back, making the men flinch.

He threw the chair anyway. It crashed against the wall and splintered into pieces.

I drowned them out.

We all knew what it meant.

More furniture flew. Bottles smashed. I barely noticed it. All I could feel was the numbness creeping through me.

Because my own truth was beginning to rear its ugly head, making me question everything.

Did I really want to live in a world without Vienna?

My entire life flashed before my eyes, memories swirling behind my lids as moment after moment, every precious, stolen minute we spent together tormented me.

All I had tried to do was keep him safe. The last ten years of my life had been about Vienna, about keeping him alive. And it had all been for nothing. It had all been—

“Enough!” a voice suddenly boomed, snapping me back into the present. I cast my eyes towards the bar, seeing Rachel ringing the last orders bell before standing on a stool and glaring at the men.