Chapter 49 The Weight of the Ashes
Aria POV
I stood in the middle of the small armory while Jax fumbled with a heavy set of keys, but my mind was still stuck on the image of the bakery sign melting in the gutter. The smell of gun oil and cold metal was thick in the air, yet all I could smell was the ghost of burnt sugar and the expensive vanilla beans that Penelope Henderson used to keep in the locked cabinet behind the counter.
Penelope had spent fifteen years building that shop into a landmark for the neighborhood, and because I had been too selfish to walk away from Grayson the moment things got dangerous, her entire legacy was now a pile of smoking brick and twisted metal.
"You're shaking, Aria, so maybe we should just go back upstairs and wait for the scouts to bring in a better report before you start trying to handle a sidearm," Jax said, and he paused with his hand on the rack of rifles while he looked at me with genuine concern.
"I’m not shaking because I’m scared, Jax, I’m shaking because I’m the reason Penelope is standing on a sidewalk right now with nothing but the clothes on her back," I replied, and I had to grip the heavy wrench in my hand so tight that my knuckles turned white because the guilt was sitting in my stomach like a lead weight.
"She was the only person who gave me a chance when I moved back to this city with nothing, and she didn't just give me a job, she taught me how to feel like I actually mattered, so the thought of her losing her retirement and her pride because of my mess is more than I can stand."
"It wasn't your fault that the Iron Fangs decided to act like animals, since they’re the ones who lit the match and they’re the ones who should be carrying the blame for the fire," Jax argued, though he finally pulled a small, compact handgun from the shelf and checked the chamber to make sure it was empty.
"That doesn't matter to Penelope, and it shouldn't matter to me either, because I knew the kind of people Grayson was involved with and I stayed anyway since I liked the feeling of being protected by someone powerful," I said, while I watched him place the weapon on the wooden workbench between us.
"If I had just stayed in my lane and ignored the Harts, those bikers wouldn't have even known that bakery existed, so every dollar of damage and every tear Penelope cries is on my hands as much as it is on theirs."
Martha walked into the armory right then, and she looked exhausted as she leaned against the doorframe with a wet towel draped over her arm. She had clearly been helping the kitchen staff scrub down the dining hall after the breakfast rush, but she must have seen us heading toward the back of the garage and decided to follow us down to see what was happening.
She looked at the gun on the table and then at my face, and she let out a long, weary sigh as she walked over to stand beside me.
"The radio just picked up a news report from the local station, and they’re saying the fire department is still cooling down the embers because the heat was so intense it warped the structural beams of the buildings next door," Martha said, and she reached out to squeeze my arm but I didn't move.
"Penelope Henderson gave a brief interview to one of the reporters, and she said she’s just glad nobody was inside when the bombs went off, so you need to stop acting like you’re a murderer when everyone is still alive."
"Being alive doesn't pay the bills, Martha, and it doesn't replace the twenty years of memories she had stored in that kitchen," I told her, while I felt a fresh wave of heat behind my eyes that I tried to blink away.
"She’s a human woman with no pack to back her up and no billionaire brother to rebuild her shop, so she’s going to spend the rest of her life trying to recover from something that happened because she was nice to the wrong girl."
"Grayson will set up a fund for her, or he’ll buy her a new building in a better part of town once the dust settles, because that’s how he handles these things," Jax added, and he pushed the handgun toward me so I could feel the weight of it.
"I don't want his money to fix my mistakes, and I’m sure Penelope wouldn't want it either if she knew where it was coming from," I snapped, and I finally picked up the weapon and felt how cold and heavy it was against my palm.
"I want the people who did this to feel as sick as I do right now, and I want to know that I’m never going to be the weak link that lets them hurt someone else I care about."
"You need to be careful with that mindset, because anger is a lot harder to control than a trigger, and you’re not built for the kind of violence that Grayson and his men live for every day," Martha warned, but I just looked at the weapon and then back at the monitors in the garage that were still showing the empty courtyard.
"I wasn't built for a lot of things, Martha, yet here I am in a biker clubhouse while my life is burning down in the city center," I said, and I turned back to Jax with a determined look that made him straighten his posture.
"Show me how to load it, and then show me how to aim, because if the Iron Fangs come through those gates tonight, I’m not going back to that cellar to wait for the smoke to find me."
We spent the next hour going over the basics of the safety and the grip, and even though the noise of the garage was loud with the sound of tools and engines, I couldn't stop thinking about the smell of the bakery in the morning. I kept imagining Penelope standing in front of the ruins, and I wondered if she hated me now, or if she was just confused about why her quiet life had suddenly turned into a war zone.
The guilt was still there, but as I practiced the motions that Jax taught me, it started to turn into a hard, cold knot of resolve that felt much stronger than the sadness.
I knew that things were never going to be the same, and as I tucked the small weapon into the waistband of my jeans, I realized that I had finally stopped being the girl from the bakery. I was someone else now, someone who was willing to pick up a gun to protect what was left of her world, and I just hoped that when Grayson finally came back, he would recognize the person I had become in the hours he was away.