Chapter 175 The announcement
Ryder's POV
"Shall we go out and let them know?" I reached for Sage's hand and she took it without hesitation, her fingers intertwining with mine like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Let's make this official," she said.
I looked at her for a moment, at the steadiness in her expression and the quiet certainty in her eyes, and felt really really good.
"Ready?" I asked quietly.
She nodded, taking a breath. "Ready."
We walked out of the office together into the main room of the clubhouse. Every single brother who had been waiting stopped what they were doing and turned to look at us as if on cue.
The room fell completely silent.
Snake was there, leaning against the bar with his arms crossed and his expression unreadable. Diesel stood near the pool table with his cue still in his hand. I counted at least fifteen other brothers scattered throughout the room, all of them watching us with expressions that ranged from curious to thoroughly confused.
They could all see our hands joined and how close we were standing. They could probably read everything they needed to know from the way we were looking at each other. But I needed to say it out loud anyway. We needed to make this real and official and something that was not hiding in the shadows anymore. Because besides the confrontation with Jaxon when he had caught us, most of the brothers did not know the full history. What they knew was Diego and the planned wedding and Sage leaving for Arizona.
I needed to give them the rest of it.
"Sage is back," I announced, my voice carrying through the silent room. "She's home. And we're together."
For a moment nobody moved. Nobody spoke. The silence stretched long enough that I started to wonder if I had misread the room entirely.
Then the room erupted all at once.
"Is this a joke?" Snake straightened off the bar. "I thought she was marrying Diego Vasquez? How can you be together?"
"Does Diego know about this? Do you want to get us all fucking killed?!" another brother called from somewhere near the back.
"He threatened us the first time he was here. Then he came and saved us from Dante and took her to Arizona. How can you repay the Vasquez family like this?" Snake added, his voice tight.
"He has connections and firepower we could never compete with. Why would you even consider this?" someone else said. "Think about what that means for the club."
"The blood sisters will never take this lightly! Please just tell us this is a joke."
The accusations were coming fast and I could not blame a single one of them. From where they were standing, with the information they had, none of this made sense. I opened my mouth, trying to work out where to start, how to explain the full picture in a way that would land correctly.
"Guys!" Tommy's voice cut through the noise from his spot near the door. Every head turned. "Diego Vasquez does not have an issue with their relationship. He let her go. He agreed it was fine."
The room went quiet again for a few seconds, everyone processing that information and recalibrating.
Then it erupted for the second time, and this time the energy was completely different.
"About damn time!" Diesel dropped his cue against the table and crossed the room in a few strides, pulling me into a rough hug that nearly knocked me sideways. "We've been waiting for you two idiots to figure it out for months."
"Congratulations, man." Snake shook my hand firmly and then turned and hugged Sage with the warmth of someone genuinely relieved. "Good to have you back where you belong."
More brothers crowded in around us, pressing forward with handshakes and welcomes and claps on the back that I would still be feeling by tomorrow. Someone appeared with beers and thrust bottles into our hands before we had a chance to ask for them. Tommy was grinning from his spot near the door with the satisfaction of someone who had known this was coming and had been waiting a long time to see it.
"I knew you'd come back," one of the younger brothers told Sage, leaning in over someone's shoulder. "Diego's a good guy but he's not one of us. You belong here."
"Thanks," Sage said, smiling and looking a little overwhelmed by the volume of it all.
I kept my hand at the small of her back, keeping us anchored to each other in the noise and the movement. This was real. We were standing in front of the entire club and claiming each other out loud, no longer hiding and doing things in secret.
"Speech!" someone called from the back, and others picked it up immediately. "Speech! Speech!"
I held up my free hand. "I don't have anything prepared—"
"Then improvise!" Diesel called back, and the laughter that followed gave me a second to find the words.
I looked at Sage. She nodded once, her expression warm and encouraging.
"Okay." I cleared my throat. "I'm not good at this, so I'll keep it simple. Sage came back and I'm not taking it for granted. I'm going to do everything I can to deserve her and to make sure she never regrets choosing to be here."
"Damn right you will," Tommy said from across the room. "Or I'll kick your ass myself."
There was more laughter. Someone turned the music back on and the celebration started finding its rhythm, brothers breaking off into conversations, bottles clinking, and the room filling back up with noise in the way it did when the Steel Wolves were happy about something.
Sage leaned into my side and I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. She fit exactly right there, the way she always had.
"Is this okay?" I asked her quietly, just under the noise around us.
"It's perfect," she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice without even looking.
We stayed like that for a while, answering questions and accepting congratulations. I let Sage handle most of the talking because she was better at it than I was, and I was content just to stand beside her and smile.
Snake approached again with two fresh beers and handed them over with a nod. "To new beginnings," he said, raising his own bottle.
"To new beginnings," we echoed, clinking against his.
Snake took a drink and then looked at Sage with an expression that had shifted into something more serious. The conversations around us began to quiet as brothers picked up on the change in his tone, heads turning and attention being focused on us again.
Snake asked the question I already knew was sitting in every mind in the room. "Why did Diego let you go, especially after he and his men took such a hit from Dante because of you?"