Page 71 of Tick Tock, Boom!

“You should take it easy on him,” he said, gently releasing me.

I crossed my arms. “Why should I?”

“He hasn’t had it pretty these last few years,” Knuckles said, voice softer now. “He’s lost it a couple times. They don’t call him Tick Tock for nothin’. It’s only a matter of time before he goes off again.”

“And that matters to me, why?”

Knuckles looked at me and blinked. “You don’t know?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what?”

He ran a hand over his jaw, muttered a curse. “So fucking stupid.”

“What?”

“Woman, you were a ghost to him for a long time. He thought you were dead. We all did.”

“Dead?” I repeated, barely above a whisper. Tick Tock had mentioned that before, in the kitchen before he passed out.

Knuckles nodded toward the room. “When word finally got to us about what happened at the old clubhouse, we got word that Rancid was killing any man still loyal to Bulldog. Macabre came to us, told us the house,yourhouse, had been lit up. When no one could find you...”

“He assumed I was dead,” I finished for him.

That explained why I never heard back from him. Why I thought he’d disappeared all those years ago. The reality slowly seeped in, and I fought not to break in front of Knuckles.

He continued. “We buried ashes, Natalia. Fuckin’ ashes. He didn’t talk for nearly a month. Then after that he went mad. He was on a killing spree, and no one could stop him. Not until Jameson arrived, did he even start calming down.”

My breath caught. My hand pressed to my chest, trying to still the storm rising in me.

“All this time…” I whispered.

“I’m sorry this happened, and I get why you left. We all do, especially him. Your Pops and all. Fuck, I’d put a bullet in him too. But you can’t blame the guy. Barrel was a traitor. It was either him or Tick Tock. And your man... he acted on instinct. I’m sorry about your father, but you should know... he wasn’t one of the good ones.”

A tear slid down my cheek before I could stop it. I wiped it away quickly.

“I’ll be back,” Knuckles said after a moment. “But please don’t put another bullet in him while I’m gone.”

I managed to smile softly. “No bullets.”

He walked away, his boots echoing down the hallway, and I stood there, gathering my breath.

Then I stepped into the room. The light was dim, the machines beeping softly. He looked peaceful now, stripped of all his armor, his jaw slack, his brows relaxed.

But he was different. His hair was no longer black, but salt and peppered. And it looked good on him. It made him look like he’d lived. Like he was worn, battered, but strong. A man who’d survived too much.

Lines carved his face, age and pain were written into every crease. His lips, those same lips that once murmured my name in the dark, were dry and cracked.

I took a shaky step forward.

He hadn’t left me. He’d mourned me. And I hated that I didn’t know. That I’d let all this time slip by believing he’d forgotten me. Replaced me. Left me.

But none of it changed the fact that he’d still killed my father. And maybe my father deserved it. Maybe he was as far gone as they said. But he’d been mine.Myblood.

How could I love someone who destroyed the last piece of my family?

A tear escaped and I brushed it off quickly. It had been a while since I last cried. A while since I let myself grieve. But this time I wasn't mourning my father. I was grieving the ten years that had been lost.

Tick Tock stirred and I jerked back. The early shift had arrived, and a nurse walked in just in time. I took that excuse to leave. To disappear down the hall before I did something stupid. Like stay.

---