PROLOGUE
220 Words
The gates of The Cage slammed shut behind her.
No fight. No goodbye.
Just the soft hum of a car engine, carrying her away from the place where everything began—and everything ended.
Jax stood in the gravel, arms at his sides, blood still drying on his knuckles. The whole world was quiet, like it was waiting to see if he’d break.
But he didn’t.
Not on the outside.
Inside, though?
He was already crumbling.
Taylor was gone. Ghost was buried. The weight of both losses sat in his chest like lead. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think past the ache that had hollowed out his ribs.
He walked through the compound like a stranger in his own kingdom. Past the bar. Past the table where the three of them once laughed. Past his own room, untouched.
Straight into Ghost’s.
It hadn’t changed.
The bed still unmade. His jacket still on the hook. The smell of leather and smoke and everything Jax never wanted to forget clung to the air like a warning.
He sat down on the bed.
Elbows on knees.
And let the silence wreck him.
No one saw. No one would.
But in that room, with the ghost of his best friend and the ghost of the woman who loved them both—
Jax Maddox came undone.
- Writer
