Alive long after the world had said he was dead.
Then dead again before he could come home.
On the table beside the bed was an envelope with Ronan’s name on it.
His hands trembled as he opened it.
Inside was a letter.
"Ronan,
If you’re reading this, then I ran out of road before I found the nerve.
I tried to come back a hundred times. After the crash, I woke up far from here with burns, a head full of fog, and men around me I should’ve never trusted. By the time I got clear, everyone thought I was dead. I told myself you were better off. Told myself I had no right to return after letting you bury an empty lie.
Then I found out Mae was pregnant. That changed everything."
Ronan looked up sharply. “Mae?”
Dean frowned. “Jonah and Mae split before the crash.”
Ember, still standing in the doorway now, spoke quietly. “My mom was Mae Donnelly.”
All five men turned to her.
Mae.
The waitress from the old roadhouse bar two counties over. Fierce eyes. Red hair. Jonah’s one great love.
“She never told us,” Luis whispered.
Ronan looked back at the letter.
"Mae found me two years later. I thought she’d hate me. She did at first. Then she told me about Ember. I wanted to come back, but by then Mae was sick, and Ember needed quiet, not my ghosts dragging danger behind them. The men from my old mess were still looking for something they thought I had. So we hid.
If you’re reading this, then those men may still be hunting. And that’s the part I never knew how to tell you.
I wasn’t running from shame alone.
I was protecting Ember from you."
Ronan froze.
From you?
He read faster.
"Not from who you are now. From who one of you was.
The night of the crash wasn’t an accident. Somebody sold me out. Somebody in our circle told the Varrick crew where I’d be, because they thought I had the ledger. I never had it. But one of our brothers wanted the money badly enough to trade my life for it.
I found proof a month ago. It’s in the duffel.
If I couldn’t get Ember to safety myself, I sent her to the only men I still prayed were worth trusting.
But don’t trust all of them.
One of your five already knows why I disappeared."
The room changed.