Chapter 156 Finish him
Ryder's POV
I pointed my gun at Dante's head. His eyes went wide, understanding dawning even through the pain and blood loss.
"You talk too much," I said, my voice cold and steady. "That's always been your problem, Dante. You can't help but run your mouth."
He tried to speak but only managed a wet gurgling sound. Blood bubbled up from his lips.
"Maybe it's because you use drugs," I continued, keeping the gun pointed at him. "Maybe being a junkie has fried your brain. Because you were actually really foolish with your plans when you came here tonight." I crouched slightly so he could see my face clearly, so there was no distance between him and what I was about to say. "You had one play. One clean play. And you buried it under so much greed and ego that you could not even see it falling apart around you."
His hand twitched, like he was trying to reach for something. A weapon. Help. It did not matter. He was too weak to reach for either.
"You really thought you could somehow marry Sage and be made president of the Steel Wolves like some fucking tyrant?" I shook my head. "That you could just waltz in here, force a wedding at gunpoint, and everyone would accept you as their leader?" I looked around the yard at the bodies his men had left behind and the bodies Diego's crew had added to the count. "Look at what it got you. Look at where your plan ended."
Dante's breathing was getting worse. Each breath sounded like he was drowning. Which he was, in his own blood.
"It's just a damn motorcycle club," I said. "That's all it is. A brotherhood. A family. What was so special about becoming president that you had to kill so many people? That you had to frame others? That you had to destroy lives and manipulate everyone around you?" I let the question sit for a moment because I genuinely wanted to understand it, even now. "What was it worth to you, Dante? All of it. What was the number you put on all those lives?"
He tried to speak again. His mouth moved, forming words I could not hear over the wet rattle of his breathing.
"What?" I leaned closer, pretending I cared what he had to say. "Sorry, I can't hear you. You're drowning in your own blood."
His eyes were desperate now. Pleading. He was asking for mercy he had never shown anyone else. The same mercy he had not given Jaxon earlier. The same mercy he had not given any of the men lying dead in the front yard tonight. He was looking up at me like he had somehow earned the right to ask for it and could not work out why it was not coming.
I thought about all the people who had died tonight because of him. All the blood soaked into the grass of this property. All the chaos and destruction he had set in motion just to satisfy an ambition that had no bottom to it.
I thought about Sage, standing under that arch with a gun pointed to her head, her whole body rigid and her eyes finding mine like I was the only fixed point in the yard. I thought about Jaxon bleeding out on the porch floor with his sister's hands pressed against the wound and her voice breaking every time she said his name. I thought about Vincent, who had never wanted any part of this and had died in a parking lot because of poor choices.
My last words to him were simple.
"Fuck you, Dante."
Then I aimed at his head and pulled the trigger.
The gunshot echoed across the backyard. Dante's head snapped back, and then he went still. The hand that had been clutching his stomach fell loose against the grass.
I stood up and looked down at his body. This time there would be no miraculous survival. No friend arriving at the last second to pull him back from the edge. No more calculations, no more schemes.
He was done.
I heard Sage's voice cut through the yard, desperate and raw. "Where the hell is that ambulance! Please! He's dying!"
I turned around. Diego was kneeling beside her now, his hands joining hers, pressure applied directly over the wound with the practiced steadiness of a man who had kept people alive before and intended to do it again. He had removed his suit and the sleeve of his shirt was completely ruined, soaked through with Jaxon's blood, but he seemed not to be bothered by it.
But even from where I stood, I could see it might be too late. Jaxon's face was now very pale looking. His eyes were closed and he was not moving and the only sign that he was still with us at all was the faint rise and fall of his chest.
Sage was crying, her whole body shaking as she kept pressure on the wound and talking to her brother in a low urgent voice like she could will him back from wherever he was drifting to.
I stood there with my gun still in my hand and Dante's body at my feet, watching the woman I loved try to save her brother with help from the man she was supposed to marry.
And I could not help but wonder what would happen next. Whether she would still go through with it. The agreement was still binding. Diego had just saved all of our lives and his hands were covered in Jaxon's blood from trying to save one more. Whether she would come back to me, or whether duty and gratitude would settle into something else over time. I did not know. And standing in the aftermath of all this death, I was not sure I had the right to hope for an answer.
That was when I saw someone running like something else was happening again.
One of the Steel Wolves brothers came sprinting around the corner of the house, his face flushed and his eyes wild.
"Ryder!" he shouted as he ran toward me. "Ryder, come quickly!"
I turned to face him fully, my stomach dropping. "What is it?"
"It's Tommy," the brother gasped, out of breath from running. "He was shot!"
My world tilted. Tommy. My younger brother and the only family I actually had.
"Where?" I demanded.
"Front yard. He's bleeding out. We need help now!"
I looked back at Sage and Diego, still working on Jaxon. Then at the brother waiting for me to follow.
"Go," Sage said without looking up. "We've got this. Go help your brother."
I ran.