---
Part I — Elena
The morning smelled of smoke and salt.
Wind swept through the burned-out refinery, carrying the ghosts of what had just happened.
Elena stood at the edge of the wreckage, wrapped in Cole's jacket, her fingers buried in the folds like it was armor. Around her, the Reapers worked in grim silence — hauling bodies, clearing the yard, patching up wounds with whatever they could find.
She'd never seen so many men move like that — broken, quiet, loyal to something they couldn't explain.
Everywhere she looked, there was fire-blackened metal and blood on gravel.
And in the middle of it, Cole — shirt half torn, arm wrapped in a bandage, issuing orders in that steady, low voice that made even the chaos bend around him.
She couldn't stop watching him.
When he finally walked toward her, the morning light caught his face — tired, blood-specked, heartbreakingly human.
"You okay?" he asked, voice rough.
Elena managed a nod. "You?"
He gave a hollow laugh. "Ask me when the adrenaline wears off."
She hesitated, then whispered, "Cole, last night… that could've been it. You could've died."
He looked away, jaw flexing. "Would've been cleaner than this mess."
"That's not funny."
"It wasn't meant to be."
They stood in silence — smoke curling between them, the ruins around them still whispering with heat.
Finally, Elena said what had been burning in her chest since the gunfire stopped.
"You said you were getting out. You meant it, didn't you?"
His eyes lifted — blue steel gone soft. "Yeah. I did."
"Then do it. Leave all this. Please."
Cole's gaze flicked to his crew — men who had followed him through hell and back — then back to her.
"Walking away from this life isn't just leaving a job, Elena. It's cutting out a piece of yourself."
"Then let it bleed," she said quietly. "At least you'll still be alive to heal."
For a second, she saw it — the crack in his armor. The man underneath the myth.
He reached up, brushed a smudge of ash from her cheek. "You don't know what you're asking."
"I know exactly what I'm asking," she whispered. "A chance."
---
Part II — Cole
They buried three Reapers by the cliff that night.
The sea below was black glass, reflecting the cold stars.
Cole stood apart, wind tugging at his jacket. The waves crashed against the rocks, the sound deep and hollow, like the pulse of something ancient.
He'd lost brothers before, but this — this was different.
Because every death felt like a debt.
And every debt led back to the same shadow — the one behind the Vultures, the one feeding them intel, money, weapons.
Deke came up beside him, lighting a cigarette with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.
"You really think this is over?"
Cole shook his head. "Not even close."
"Then why'd you tell her you're out?"
Cole exhaled, eyes fixed on the horizon. "Because I want to believe I can be."
Deke gave a short, bitter laugh. "You? Out? The day you quit riding is the day hell freezes."
"Maybe it already has," Cole muttered.
They stood there a moment, letting the ocean swallow their words.
Then Deke's phone buzzed. He frowned, showed the screen to Cole.
UNKNOWN NUMBER. ONE MESSAGE:
> You took my men. Now I'm coming for yours.
Cole's pulse hardened. "Trace it."
"Already on it."
He looked back at the smoke rising from the refinery far in the distance. His promise to Elena echoed in his mind — When this is done, I'm out.
But as the night wind howled across the cliffs, he realized something cold:
It wasn't done.
Not even close.
---
Part III — Elena
By the time she got back to the safehouse, the horizon had turned purple with the promise of dawn.
She should've slept. She couldn't.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw flashes of last night — the fire, the gunfire, Cole pulling her out of the smoke.
But more than that, she felt something she didn't want to name: the pull.
She walked to the window, watching the sky lighten over the trees.
Cole's bike was still gone.
Her hands tightened on the sill.
She wasn't naive anymore — she knew his kind of war didn't end cleanly. But she also knew one thing with terrifying clarity: if he went back into that fire, she'd follow.
Because love, for her, had already stopped being safe.
It had become a choice.
And she'd already made it.
---