Page 61 of Glorious Ruin
“I did. Now, shut your phone off. We’re going home.”
The silence that followed was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.
We weremarried.
We wereout.
We were free.
15
TUESDAY AFTERNOON — THE REED LAND, NORTH CAROLINA
Now playing: Push It - TWENTY88
Aswepulledthroughthe heavy iron gates and navigated the gravel road toward Scott’s house, the reality of what we’d just ignited began to set in. You could almost hear the fallout from inside, before we even killed the engine.
Josie and Cadence scrambled out of the backseat, exuberantly chatting about our impromptu morning, while Silas and I followed silently. We walked side by side to the house, the newfound weight our rings held settling against our skin.
When I pushed the front door open, I expected a fight. What I got was an ambush.
The house was in a state of absolute madness. Every piece of technology that had contact with the outside world was ringing simultaneously. The landline’s shrill tone echoed from the kitchen, the tablets on the coffee table flashed with incoming notifications, and every cell phone buzzed in cacophony. Presley, Tate, the Board of Directors… The flood had arrived.
The second my boots hit the foyer rug, a massive shadow lunged from the living room. Maverick. He didn’t yell or ask questions. His body moved with the blinding speed of a heavyweight who had completely lost his grip. Before I couldprocess the movement, his hands fisted the fabric of my hoodie, and I was off my feet.
With the force of a freight train, he drove me back until I hit the drywall so hard the framed photos along it rattled. Any air that had been in my lungs left in a sharp wheeze. Maverick had me pinned, his forearms pressing painfully into my collarbones as his face hovered inches from mine, his features contorted.
“What the fuck did you do?!” he roared, the sound vibrating right through my sternum. “My phone hasn’t stopped ringing for an hour! Every suit in the UWF is calling because they can’t get a hold of the two of you! I can’t believe you’d pull a fucking stunt like this! Posting that shit and then shutting your phones off?!”
I froze. I couldn’t help it. It was an immediate, involuntary reaction. On television, I was the fighter, the monster, the man who thrived on violence. But outside that squared circle in the real world? I wasn’t confrontational. In fact, I hated it.
So, being pinned to a wall by a man I respected, a man who wassupposedto be family, triggered a paralyzing shock in my nervous system. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. I just stared at Maverick’s eyes as my mind blanked out.
“Get your fucking hands off him!”
The voice ripped through the hallway, drowning out the phones ringing.
Silas didn’t ask Maverick to step back, or bother with trying to reason with the man. He acted with the instantaneous force he normally spent his life trying to suppress. His hand grabbed Maverick by the shoulder and shoved him—hard.
The momentum of a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound athlete shoving him sent the older man stumbling backward, his grip ripping free from my hoodie. I slumped against the wall, gasping for air, sliding down an inch as my legs went weak.
Silas stepped directly between us, throwing his arm out to shield me from his father. His chest heaved, his jaw was set, and his eyes were dark with a rage I’d never seen directed at his own blood.
“You do not touch him!” Silas screamed, getting right in Maverick’s face with barely an inch between them. “I don’t give a fuck how mad you are, you don’t ever put your hands on him!”
“He’s destroying your career!” Maverick shouted back, shoving a finger into Silas’s chest, treating him like a rookie who stepped out of line, rather than his son. “He’s making a mockery of the gold! Of this family!”
“I did it!” Silas shoved Maverick’s hand away, matching his father’s energy blow for blow. The dynamic was jarring. There was no father-son deference here. This was two alpha dogs fighting for dominance in the same yard. “I posted it! I married him! I’m the one who took his fucking name, Mav! Deal with it!”
“Enough!”
Scott’s voice boomed from the kitchen, carrying the authoritative weight of the actual patriarch. He stepped into the hall, wedging himself between his industry-legend brother and his nephew with his hands raised. “Maverick, step back. Now. Silas, lower your voice. Both of you, stop.”
Silas was trembling, his hands balled into fists at his sides. He glared at Maverick for one more blistering second before he turned on his heel.
“I’m out of here,” Silas spat. He didn’t look back as he marched to the front door and yanked it open.
I remained pressed against the drywall, my heart beating at a frantic pace against my ribs. Still stunned, I was unable to force my brain to signal my legs to move. I watched Silas walk out, feeling like the world was spinning off its axis.
