Page 52 of Complete Me
“I’d die before I let anything happen to her, brother, you know that.”
“I do. Which is the only fucking reason we’re all not driving up right now to pick her up ourselves. What do you need?”
It’s not until he asks that I realize what I need, and he’s the man who can get it to me.
“I need you to work your magic and get me the names and information of everyone ever involved in the Iron Wolves MC. No detail is too small.”
“Give me a few days max.”
“Done.”
“Reid?”
“Yeah?”
“Take care of my sister. And when you find them, I’m going in with you.”
“Sawyer . . .” I argue.
“No. Ten years ago, you said you owed me, and I brushed it off because I never wanted anything in return. I want this. We bury these assholes together. Promise me.”
Fuck.
“Get up.”
“Fuck off.”
“You’re coming with me. We’re going to put on some gloves and we’re gonna go until you can’t lift your arms to bring that drink to your mouth.”
“I said fuck off, Sawyer.”
He’s not having it, though, just like always. He shows up every day, forcing me to eat and drink water, giving me some spiel about getting out of this bed and stopping drinking. But drinking is the only thing that dulls the pain and emptiness of losing Lena.
His heavy footsteps stomp on the concrete floor of the bedroom I’m staying in at his family’s distillery, but I don’t bother to move from where I’m sitting on my ass with my hands loosely holding the neck of a bottle of whiskey between my bent legs. I don’t flinch when he snatches it out of my hand, or when he grabs my face roughly with his fingers, squeezing my cheeks together.
“She’s gone. There’s nothing you can do to bring her back. This isn’t how she’d want you to live.”
“There’s nothin’ to live for anymore.”
“Then you wade through the fucking darkness until there is. But you don’t give up.’Cause someday you’re gonna find your light and all this suffering will be just a distant memory.”
His words hit their mark, even if I don’t fully believe all of them. No light will come for me. But Lena wouldn’t want me to live like this, and I need to push through for her, because she can’t.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
“I expected to have to carry your stubborn ass out of here so excuse me for being a little shocked.”
“Whatever. Where are we going?”
“Knockout.”
Sawyer forces me to his gym twice a day every day until my arms can’t lift the alcohol bottle to my lips anymore, just like he said he would. We train hard, and he takes every single hit I throw his way, fighting my demons.
“Who was she?” I finally ask after a few weeks.
