I rubbed my face, trying to fight the emotions pushing to the surface. Allie helplessly watched as he resumed walking. The door opened and shut, and he was gone with his weird as fuck friend that’d given me one of the dirtiest beatings of my life. Fucker didn’t have to take it that far. I was practically sore everywhere.

Allie went to me and buried her face to my chest, coating me with her tears. We sank to the floor together, and I stared out the dusty, broken window, wanting nothing more than to reset time. Except, I wasn’t sure what I’d do to change it. Everything wrong that happened had led me to this girl. She was worth every single obstacle.

Her and Kayden both.

They saved me from a meaningless existence, and they were breathing more life into me with each passing day.

“We’re going to be fine,” I told her reassuringly. “We’ve got each other. The worst has passed. It’s just us now, Allison. I got you.”

Only a few minutes later the sounds of sirens filled the air, and I knew all of this was finally over.

I was never going to agree to another motherfucking plan again.

Twenty

Heath

Ryker became a wanted man.

For several months after he fled, he was everywhere. All over the news. In the papers. Everyone was talking about him. They called him a murderer. Stories from felons who had served time with him in prison began speaking out about all the fights he’d provoked. They created a picture that he was hungry for violence, and it absolutely enraged me.

“He was protecting himself in there,” I’d said to Allie once when it was starting to get to me. “He learned that if he wanted to be left alone, he had to show others he was a fighter. He wasn’t hungry for violence.”

“I know, Heath,” she responded quietly. “They’ll say whatever they can to ruin him.”

They did, and soon Allie and I were no longer the talk of the town. He was. And Allie was pitied for being the victim of a crazy murderer. It was hard hearing it, but there was nothing I could do to defend him. I had to pretend he was the man they painted, otherwise the spotlight was back on us and our barely solid story.

I’d explained to Allie in great detail everything Ryker had told me to do. I described the notebook. The cash houses. They money we’d buried. I told her about the man that recognized me at the farmhouse, and what Marko did to save me from being discovered. I told her now that the gang was no more, whatever danger that might have loomed over us was over.

As more time passed, Marko and I began watching over the streets. We paid attention to every issue that arose, to every act of violence that took place. And, using our men, we put a stop to any gang that had begun to form. We intimidated them, and we even fought violence with violence when intimidation was deflected. Sometimes violence was the only way to control it, otherwise the town would have been what it was once before.

I’d made a home here, and there was no way I was going to let this place lapse again. I wasn’t going to leave my hometown, and I was not going to allow my family to grow up among gang violence. Hedley without the Syndicate was salvageable, and we did what we could to salvage it.

“You’re exhausted,” Allie had complained. “You need to relax a little more and let Marko handle things.”

She was right.

I was completely drained after all that happened. Not just physically, but mentally too.  I had a war to fight inside my head. Months passed and slowly I began to mend myself. I’d tried so hard to remain consumed in anger after my attack, believing that it was the fuel that would drive me to find the man responsible for trying to kill me. But discovering it was Matt, and knowing he’d been taken care of, there was no more reason to hold on any longer.

I began to let go.

Change was in the mind. It was done in small steps and became successful only when you believed it could happen.

I was changing, and I didn’t just do it for myself.

I did it for my family.

*

“You gonna apologize to me?” Marko asked Allie, smiling down at her as I wrapped the man’s hands up in boxing tape.

Allie sighed and looked around at all the people crowding around the ring. This was her way of not acknowledging Marko’s existence, and I couldn’t help but smirk at Marko. He frowned at me, determined not to let this go.

“Ignoring me won’t solve anything,” he proceeded to say to her.

“I’ve apologized to you ten thousand times for the last couple months,” she retorted.

“One more time right before I fight,” he demanded.

Shuddering at the snake tattoos crawling over his torso, she muttered forcefully, “I’m sorry for suspecting you and hating you for the wrong reasons – it’s not to say I don’t hate you for other reasons though –”

“That’s not a part of the speech, Allie.”

She rolled her eyes. “And I’m sorry for doubting your loyalty. You are the best friend Heath could ever ask for and… you’re…”

“I’m what?” he expectantly pushed, putting a finger to his ear and leaning into her as I laughed.

“You’re the most loyal, most amazing, most perfect man in the entire universe.”

He shut his eyes as she said this completely rehearsed farce bullshit, and he pretended to take in her words like he was some kind of god that deserved to be pampered with compliments.

“Your girlfriend’s warming up to me just fine, Heath,” he then said.

“Then you’re delusional,” I replied, but it wasn’t entirely true. She had warmed up to him because she knew he could be trusted. I’d stressed to her how wrong she’d been, and she hated being told she wasn’t right for once.

Typical woman.

Marko laughed. “Yeah, maybe.”

“No maybe about it,” Allie told him, shooting him a glare. “And if you ask me to say sorry to you one more time, I will tear your balls off and force feed it to you.”

His brows shot up and he pointed at her and looked at me in shock. “She’s been spending too much time with the boys, I think.”

I shrugged. “I don’t mind. She’s gotten tough.”

“I gotta be tough around you assholes,” she mumbled.

That was true.

Marko then turned his body toward his opponent. He stared long and hard at the large man on the other side of the ring. I wasn’t sure what he still got from fighting when it wasn’t necessary. He said he needed a good rush every now and then. I tried to remember what that was like, but having a domestic life now that involved a woman I wanted to marry, a house that needed taking care of, and a son that demanded attention, it was hard to identify with him now.