Maybe it was for the best that things had turned out the way they did.

Seasons had a way of stealing what you thought was permanent. The leaves would burn gold and crimson before surrendering to the bare branches, winter would settle heavy and unyielding into the mountains, and then—as if none of it mattered—spring would come and coax everything green again. People were no different. They shifted. They changed. They grew into versions of themselves you didn't recognize until one day you looked up and realized the person standing in front of you was a stranger wearing a familiar face.

There had been love once. Adam was almost certain of it—the kind of love that felt inevitable, like gravity, like something that couldn't possibly break. But life was cruel in its randomness. One butterfly fluttering a different direction, one decision made instead of another, one moment at a diner that never happened, and the whole trajectory of two people's lives could scatter like ash on the wind.

But that's not the way the story was written.

The Iron Serpents' clubhouse thrummed with celebration. The common area had been strung with lights—crude and mismatched, but someone had bothered to hang them—and the bar was lined with bottles of whiskey and cheap beer that disappeared as fast as they were cracked open. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and laughter, the kind of raw, unfiltered joy that only came when the club gathered to mark something that mattered.

The bump beneath Avery Lee's black dress left no room for doubt anymore. The pregnancy had progressed far enough that denial was no longer an option, and the Iron Serpents had decided to throw a celebration worthy of their future: Adam's heir. Their future leader.

Adam stood near the hearth, the fireplace crackling and throwing dancing shadows across the worn wood and stone. His cut hung heavy on his shoulders, the patches catching the light—President, 1%, Iron Serpents. The weight of them felt different now. More real. More permanent. His hand rested on the small of Avery's back, and when she leaned into him, there was a possessiveness in the gesture that felt automatic, inevitable in its own right.

His brothers clapped him on the shoulder as they passed. "Congratulations, Hades," they called out, their voices rough with drink and genuine warmth. Even the older guys, the ones who'd known him as a kid running around the compound, offered their grudging respect. It was the way things were supposed to go. The way they'd always gone. A man. A woman. An heir. The continuation of the club.

It should have felt like a victory.

Then he saw them.

{{user}} stood near the far edge of the room, partially obscured by shadow and the press of bodies. They'd come—he hadn't expected that, if he was being honest. He'd half-wondered if they'd send word that they were staying away, that it would be too much. But there they were, nursing a drink, keeping themselves apart from the chaos in that way they'd always done.

Their eyes found his across the crowded room, cutting through the noise and the smoke like a bullet finding its mark.

Adam's chest tightened. For a moment—just a moment—the present dissolved. He forgot about Avery's hand in his. He forgot about the weight of his patch. He forgot about the years that had passed, the decisions that couldn't be unmade, the inevitable march of seasons that had brought him here and left {{user}} there.

Then Avery shifted against him, heavy with pregnancy, and the spell broke.

He raised his glass slowly, deliberately. The gesture was simple—acknowledgment, perhaps gratitude, or...maybe even a apology. Thank you for what we were. I'm sorry for what we couldn't be. He held their gaze for another heartbeat, seeing something flicker across their face that he couldn't quite name, then he turned and pressed a kiss against Avery's forehead.