Battles of the Broken (Sons of Templar MC 6)

And smoke inhalation wasn’t something easily recovered from. The effects could end up being more severe than actual burns. I kept that in mind while battling nausea and dizziness.

I didn’t tell Gage because he was only just starting to treat me like the world wasn’t going to break me.

Which meant he was starting to break me again.

My wrists were red from the handcuffs used last night.

And I loved it.

No way was I going to risk that beautiful pain for something that Gage couldn’t control anyway.

“I’m good,” I told him, finding concern in his blank stare.

He frowned at me, as if he could see something more. But then he yanked me in for a brutal kiss before tucking me into his side and looking at my latest project.

No one else was allowed to look at my works in progress. It was like gazing at my insides during open heart surgery, seeing all those ugly pieces before someone covered it with skin.

But Gage had seen all my ugly pieces.

And there was no hiding from him.

“Wow, baby,” he murmured, eyes running over the canvas.

It was David’s face. Which wasn’t unusual, considering most of the paintings in the room—the ones we’d actually saved, that hadn’t been damaged from the fall—were all the broken beautiful men I loved. Gage and David.

Most of the ones of David were memories I’d snatched from him laughing, smiling, living.

This one was different.

This was his face, curled into a feral grimace, much like the one I’d seen on the dealer who’d sold him his death when he was pleading for a fix that day in Gage’s warehouse. One half of his face was painted in brutal detail, down to the tiny mole on the corner of his lip. The other half was melting, as if fire were making the paint drip and sizzle. Bones of his face were exposed, crumbling, decaying. The part of him no one had seen. Not even me.

I was seeing it now, ten years too late, and that was because of Gage. And that was the greatest gift he could give me, understanding what lived underneath David’s skin so I didn’t torture myself quite as much for not noticing it.

“Is it too ugly?” I asked, biting my lip. It was unlike anything I’d ever done. I’d painted my own ugliness, but also made it beautiful.

“Yes,” Gage said immediately, and my stomach clenched, not just from the ever-present nausea. “And that’s what makes it magnificent.”

I smiled and glanced up at him. “I love you,” I whispered.

He smiled. Actually smiled. “I love you too, Will.”

The moment was utter sweet perfection, so it only made sense that bitter ugliness would soon tear through it.

Gage

He was comfortable.

That’s what did it.

Because the fire had scared him more than anything in his entire life—he hadn’t been scared when he’d found his daughter, because the worst had already happened; he hadn’t had the luxury of fear, only the punishment of sorrow—but it had also relieved something in him. Relaxed it.

Because that was it. The thing everyone had been waiting for.

Bracing for.

But they were fucking wrong.

And being wrong in their world wasn’t just dangerous. It was fatal.

They were in church.

The women were all outside, cackling, drinking, and playing with the kids. He’d caught Lauren nuzzling Brock and Amy’s kid and it had hit him in the gut. With the thought of her holding their baby, treating it with every ounce of love and care it deserved. Showing him the beauty of hope. Of family.

It hurt because his little girl should’ve been in that family.

It killed because she wasn’t.

And Gage wanted to burn the world to the ground for that fact alone.

But Lauren was showing him that destroying the world wasn’t his only option.

It would hurt, but everything in his life did.

And it would be worth it.

“Lauren doing good?” Cade asked as he sat at the ahead of the table. “She looks a little pale.”

Of course the fucker would notice that. He noticed everything.

Gage did too.

So he’d seen her gray pallor getting worse over the past week. Watched her curves lessen slightly as she only took small bites of the meals they’d shared, lying about having a big lunch.

It worried him. But he also did the math, and it got him doing something he never should’ve been doing.

Hoping.

Thinking about his woman growing with his baby.

Giving him another reason not to destroy the world.

“She’s fine,” he clipped, sitting down, not ready to voice his hope till Lauren told him.

“Good. No way could the world handle it being any other way,” Cade said dryly.

They’d been there when Gage tortured every person who may have had something to do with the fire. Watched him refuse to give mercy.

And they just knew him.

“Still can’t believe that’s your girl,” Asher said, looking to the sounds of the laughter.

Gage’s entire body stiffened as the demons she tamed when she was in his presence reared up immediately.