Prologue 2

Or… maybe not so impossible. Not really. Because if Ace let his mind wander, he could easily see how life with Liam might be. They’d find a city somewhere far from Denver, maybe up in Canada, where The Fallen Angels had no strong, established connections and would never find them. Liam would work in a café somewhere, and Ace would… well. Ace would do something. He wasn’t bad with his hands and with engines, so maybe he’d be able to find work as a mechanic, and anyway, he had some money socked away for a rainy day that’d last them a good long while. They’d have a tiny apartment together, and they’d be able to sit on the sofa and watch TV and laugh and talk. Then they’d be able to climb into bed together and make love, or cuddle and talk some more, or just go to sleep, peaceful and safe, without worry or care that one of Ace’s MC brothers would come bursting in with no notice, and find them naked in bed.

So, yeah. Maybe life with Liam wasn’t so hard to imagine after all.

But the big, honest truth was that living openly as a gay man was – hands down – the most terrifying thing that Ace had ever contemplated. And seeing as he hadn’t even flinched at killing people, or negotiating with drug dealers and pimps with a gun to his head, or beating the living hell out of rival MC gang members, the fact that he was petrified at admitting his own sexual orientation was a bit astonishing. But it was what it was.

And what it was was this: Ace wasn’t ready to be true to himself, and to be an unapologetic gay man. He could be himself in secret little hotel rooms with Liam, and that was amazing. It was the most amazing thing that he’d ever had in the whole of his hard, rough life; it was the only real sweetness or tenderness that he’d ever known, and he loved it like he loved nothing else.

But being gay out there, in the big, bad world?

No.

No fucking way.

So Ace stiffened his resolve, and he proceeded to smash any hope for them that either one of them might have. He didn’t want Liam thinking that there was even the smallest chance here, since it would be dangerous for both of them if Liam made any attempts to communicate or reconcile. The only way forward that was safe was to beat this whole thing down into the ground, and leave it there, dead and destroyed.

And that meant breaking Liam’s heart. It meant making Liam hate him.

And it meant that Ace would be breaking his own heart in the process.

But it would keep them both safe, and right now, that was all that he’d let himself see.

I have to keep Liam safe and alive and whole. Because if the boys do anything to him, I’d fucking die long before they ever got their hands on me too. Hell, if they hurt him as bad as I know they would, I’d beg for them to slit my throat, I swear it.

“I don’t give a flying fuck what you think a family looks like,” Ace said, his voice as cold as liquid nitrogen. “You ain’t anything like enough to make me turn my back on the club, and I don’t give a fuck if you can’t accept that. I’m walking out of this hotel room in less than a minute, and once I do, you never existed. Tomorrow, you'll get a massive transfer of cash to your bank account from an anonymous sender. Use it to leave Denver, if you want, or buy a house, or whatever the fuck makes you happy, but understand this: that money buys your silence. It makes you forget that I ever knew your name. It makes you forget that I ever saw your face. You hear me? I walk out this door, and you’re nothing. You’re dead to me.”

The force of the ugliness of the words hit Liam like a sucker-punch to the gut, and he sat down on the bed, his legs weak. Numb, he watched as the man that he loved zipped up his overnight bag, and threw it over his muscled shoulder. Liam opened his mouth, shut it again since he didn’t know what to say anyway, then he realized that he knew exactly what he wanted to say after all.

“You’re going to regret this, Ace,” he said hollowly. “And when you do, remember this and remember it always: you chose them over me. You did this to us. I wanted to run, I wanted to be with you. I’d have given it all up to start over with you, and I’d have done it in a heartbeat. So when you figure out that you just made a huge mistake, don’t you forget any of that. I know that I won’t.”

Ace curled his lip to hide its shaking. “I won’t regret this. Ever.”

Unable to look at Liam for one second longer, he turned on his heel and headed for the door, hating himself so much in this moment, but knowing that it was really just the beginning, and that he’d just hate himself more as time passed.

He was almost out and away, but not quite. That was when Ace heard the small, quiet voice behind him:

“I won’t forgive you for this. Never.”

And Ace knew that he’d never forgive himself, either.

Never.