It was goodbye.
All I leave behind
Present Day
I quietly open the balcony door, taking care that no one hears me. The less they notice me, thebetter. It’s become a frustrating challenge. There was a time when I could easily slip away, utterly unnoticed by anyone. Now I can’t take a fucking piss without everyone knowing. And it has nothing to do with being thefront manfor Sons of Sin and everything to do with everyone wanting to control my life. Well-intentioned or not, it’s been unwanted from the beginning, and I’ve become more and more irritable with each passing day.
I’m thankful for the layout of Bastian’s loft.
Loft? What a joke. The guy turned an old sugarcane warehouse into a twenty-four thousand square foot “loft” with a fucking garage nearly the same size to house one of his addictions. Cars.
But as it happens, the layout works for me right now. There are two doors to the balcony, although “balcony” is a bit of a stretch as well. One leads to his and Verity’s bedroom that you couldn’t pay me to go into. The other leads to a small conservatory-type room instead of directly into the central part of the house. He has it designed so that you don’t have to go through the main living area to get back downstairs.
I hit the bottom stair when voices filter through the space, coming from the very hallway I need to go down. I nearly turn around, prepared to wait them out back on the balcony until I realize who’s talking.
“Goddammit, Zoey, I am so fucking tired of this shit,” Jax growls. “Maddox is not your fucking problem.”
“What do you want me to do, Jay?” she sniffs, and my spine becomes rigid. I fight every instinct to go to her. “I can’t shut off how I feel.”
“I’m not going to keep watching you do this to yourself. You’re not eating or sleeping because you’re worried abouthim.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. He’s not okay, and no one will listen to me. Is it wrong of me to care?”
“No, Angel, it’s not. I know you love him.”
“Not like I love you, Jax. I swear it’s not the same.”
“You think I don’t know that, Zoey? You think I’d still be here if I thought otherwise? It’s not about that. I accepted that you have a bond with him a long damn time ago. This is about watching you stress out every fucking day over something you can’t control. This is about watching you withdraw because you feel helpless. I almost lost you because of him once before.”
“Jax, where are you going?” she calls out, sounding desperate.
“I’m leaving before I put my fist in his face again.”
“It’s not his fault,” she says, sounding like she’s moved farther down the hallway.
A loud bang sounds through the space. “Are you fucking kidding me now? It’s exactly his fault, Zoey. He doesn’twantto get better.”
I take a chance and peek around the corner when it gets quiet. They’re still there. His large, tattooed arms are wrapped around her tiny frame. I pray she doesn’t look this way because my resolve for what I need to do will fall to pieces once those icy orbs meet mine.
I need to keep my resolve. I won’t keep doing this to her or Ryder. What otherchoicedo I have when they will never let me go on their own? The quicker I remove myself from their orbit, the better they will be. They can place their energy and focus on their families.
After another minute, I watch Jax scoop her up as if she were nothing more than a child. Against his six-and-a-half-foot stature, that’s exactly how her five-foot frame appears. He carries her into the bathroom without another word.
Soon as the door clicks, I make my way down the hallway, grabbing a set of keys out of a bowl on a table near one of the exits. I open the door that leads to another set of stairs that goes to the garage. I’ve heard that Bastian once had these stairs sealed off but realized that having the only interior access to his garage wasn’t such a great idea when the elevator was out of commission for a few weeks. Turns out, even Sebastian Delrie can’t snap his fingers and produce an engineer to fix an elevator out of the forties.
Taking the steps two at a time, I reach the garage quickly. Now I need to figure out which one of the damn vehicles the mystery keys belong to. Knowing Bastian, I will also need to disable the tracking system.
I look at the keys in my hand and find myself grinning. I don’t hate Bastian. I never did, and probably never will, but taking his prized fifty-nine BelAir gives me a satisfaction I wasn’t expecting to feel.
I walk to the car, dragging a finger over the polished hood with a sad smirk on my face. One more thing, I’ll fuck up for someone because, after tonight, Sebastian won’t look at his precious cars the same.
“Going somewhere?” a deep, dark voice calls out behind me.
I don’t flinch or even turn towards the lurker. “Took you long enough to say something,” I mutter. “I thought boogeymen were better at hiding in the shadows.”
“You knew I was there,” he tells me as I finally turn around to face him. I expected to be met with anger but see only...sadness. Not something I thought he was capable of. “You gonna answer me,fratello?”
“What are you going to do if I don’t? Kick my ass? I think we’ve established I’m not the little bitch y’all thought I was. Choosing not to fight back is not the same as not being able to.”
