Page 36 of Glorious Ruin
“Hey.” I lowered my voice into a commanding, yet steady tone. I wasn't talking to him as his fiancé right now. I was talking to him like a former champion. Like a veteran who knew how to survive a locker room war. I shifted, turning my body entirely toward him. “Look at me.”
Silas opened his eyes, meeting my steady gaze. “It’s going to be messy,” he admitted, “He’s going to take cheap shots, and try to bring my dad into the promos. It’s a shoot-feud, Cal. I don’t know if I have the energy to fight a real war right now.”“You do,” I said firmly. Reaching over, I wrapped my hand around the back of his neck, pressing my thumb deep into his tense muscles. “Listen to me. Feuds like this? They happen. You are the top guy now, in the main event picture. You’ll be carrying this company, and that means you’re going to have a target on your back from guys who think you don’t deserve it.”
“I didn’t injure his uncle on purpose,” Silas whispered, the old guilt that never properly healed, flaring up in his eyes once again.
“I know that. Hell, the whole locker room knows that.” I squeezed the back of his neck to ground him. “Rico is using you as a scapegoat because he’s pissed off at the world, but you have to roll with it. You go out there, be the professional, and you out-wrestle him every single night. If he throws a stiff punch, you throw one back harder. He tries to walk over you, you run over him. You carry yourself like the fucking legend you are.”
Like a lifeline in the middle of a hurricane, my unshakable belief in him seems to have brought him some reprieve. He leaned into my hand, a shaky breath escaping him as the tension left his shoulders.
“And if he steps out of line,” I added, my voice dropping a lethal octave as I brought my face closer to his. “I’ll break his fucking jaw in the locker room.”
A small smile tugged at Silas’s mouth. “My hero.”
“Always.” I leaned in to kiss his forehead just as the tug began its pushback from the gate.
The travel gods were not on our side.
Our flight out of San Juan was delayed by two hours due to a mechanical issue. Then, we hit a massive storm cell over Florida, diverting us to Atlanta where we sat on the tarmac, trapped in a metal tube, for anotherthree hours.By the time we finally landed in North Carolina, retrieved our bags from the carousel, and dragged ourselves out to the rental car lot, it was past midnight.
We were both exhausted, irritable, and running on nothing but fumes.
“Give me the keys,” I grumbled, holding my hand out as we stood in front of the black SUV.
“I can drive, Cal.” Silas swatted my hand away with a scowl. “Your knee is practically the size of a grapefruit.”
“And you took a suplex off the top of a ladder,” I shot back, entering his personal space and snatching the keys right out of his hand. “Get in the passenger seat, Silas. I’m driving.”
“You are a deeply stubborn, irritating man,” he muttered while tossing his heavy duffel bag into the back.
“And you love it.”
The drive toward the dense, wooded outskirts where the Reed compound sat was pitch black. There were no streetlights, just the endless canopy of Carolinapines and winding asphalt. We bickered like an old married couple the entire way, our patience worn paper-thin from our travels.
“I cannot see a single goddamn thing,” I complained, squinting through the windshield. The high-beams barely cut through the darkness. “It’s like driving into a black hole. How do people live out here?”
“It’s the country, babe.” Silas rolled his eyes as he rested his head against the cold glass of the window. “You use your headlights.”
“It’s a hazard. When we turn onto the dirt road for the land, it’s even worse. You seriously need to talk to Maverick and Scott about getting some floodlights or lampposts put in along the driveway. It’s nearly two miles to the gate.”
“They’re going to say no, Maverick likes privacy. He believes lights will attract people.”
“Fine,” I snapped, my grip tightening on the steering wheel. “Then I’ll put the fucking lights up myself. I’ll hire a contractor tomorrow. Our house is on this land now, and I’m not chancing driving into a ditch every time we come home from a late flight because your dad wants to live like a hermit in the 1800s.”
Silas’s head turned, his face lit by the dim green light of the dashboard. The irritation I had felt radiating from him faded, replaced by a sense of warmth and connection. I realized then what I had said:Our house.I wasn’t a guest anymore, I was claiming his home as my own, putting down roots.
“Okay.” He smiled softly, the fight completely draining out of him. “You can put lights up.”
When we finally reached the wrought-iron gates of the Reed land, I punched in the code. The massive gates swung open, revealing the long, winding gravel drive that led through the property. Eventually, the trees parted, showcasing his father’s estate on the right and Scott’s further down on the left. Nestled at the very end, overlooking the entire property, was the house Silas spent months remodeling for us.
“Don’t go to the house yet,” Silas said suddenly, sitting up in his seat, instantly alert. “Pull down the right path. Toward the training garage.”
I slammed on the brakes, the tires crunching loudly on the gravel, sending up a cloud of dust that enveloped the vehicle. Had he lost his mind? “Silas, it’s after one in the morning. We’veve been traveling for fourteen hours. All I want is a shower and to sleep in a bed with you for two days straight. Can we please just go home?”
“Just pull down to the building, Cal. Trust me,” he insisted. His voice was tight and his eyes pleaded with me to listen.
I let out a loud, dramatic groan, dropping my head against the steering wheel for a second before shifting back into drive. “You’re so lucky I love you.”
I navigated the SUV down the narrow path until the headlights illuminated the corrugated metal building sitting isolated in the woods. From the outside, no one would ever guess it was a fully functioning, professional wrestling facility, complete with a regulation-sized ring, a gym, and medical tables. His father and uncle had built it decades ago to be able to train while at home.
