He had promised me safety, and I had to trust him, even if it meant facing the demons I’d tried so desperately to bury. Taking a shaky breath, I finally forced the words out—the names of my tormentors, the monsters who had stolen my innocence and left me a shell of my former self. “Zephyr from the Brotherhood of Bastards and Beast, but I don’t know what club he was affiliated with. He never wore colors. There were two others with them, Nemis, a brother from the Gods of Mayhem, along with Lynch from the Silver Shadows.”
The names hung in the air, heavy with the weight of my suffering, and the certainty that Jackson would deliver the brutal justice I craved.
Nav spun around, his eyes wide with disbelief, a curse escaping his lips. “Lynch?” he roared, his voice laced with a fury that matched my own. “I’m calling King right fucking now!”
Jackson sneered, a predatory glint in his eyes. “If that motherfucker from Gods of Mayhem is in the clubhouse, tell King I said to sit on him. That fucker is mine.”
The rage simmering beneath Jackson’s calm façade was a terrifying, exhilarating sight. He was no longer the gentle protector I remembered, but a force of nature, a storm about to be unleashed. And for the first time, I felt a flicker of hope, a dangerous certainty that this time, those who had wronged me would finally pay.
“Karlyn,” Phantom said, getting my attention. “Sweetie, what happened next?” Phantom’s gentle tone was a lifeline, a stark contrast to the jagged truth I’d just spilled. She reached for myhand, her touch firm and comforting. “It’s okay, Karlyn. You’re safe now. You don’t have to carry that burden alone anymore.”
The sincerity in her eyes, the genuine empathy, was a balm to my fractured soul. I nodded, the word“safe”feeling foreign on my tongue, a fragile concept I was still learning to embrace. Jackson’s grip remained firm, a silent promise of protection that echoed Phantom’s words, and for a fleeting moment, I felt a sliver of peace pierce through the layers of fear and pain.
Jackson nuzzled my neck, his hold softening slightly. “What happened to you, with Steele, with your parents... it’s not your fault. You are not to blame for any of it.”
His words, though meant to comfort, felt inadequate against the enormity of the pain I’d endured. But as I looked at the surrounding faces—Jackson, Phantom, Sypher, Nav—I saw not pity, but a fierce, unwavering loyalty. They saw my strength, my resilience, not my brokenness, and in their eyes, I found a flicker of the hope I’d almost extinguished.
Chapter Twenty
Declan
That same night in Diamond Creek,
Walking out of my office, I was fucking bone tired. With King’s club shit, my wife due any fucking minute, and the unsolved murders—three now, not just two—I was running on fumes. Each unsolved case felt like a personal failure, a chink in the armor I was desperately trying to maintain around this town, around my family. Turning off the light, I didn’t bother locking the door. What was the point? The whole damn station felt like a sieve tonight. Deputy Christopher Wyatt, bless his naïve heart, was on duty. All I wanted was to head home, to feel the solid, comforting weight of my pregnant wife against me, to pretend for a few hours that the world wasn’t unraveling outside our door.
“Heading out, Sheriff?” Wyatt’s voice, still bright with the optimism of a rookie, grated on my nerves.
“Station’s all yours,” I grunted, gathering a few files I’d been wrestling with. The hope of simply leaving, of escaping the stench of burned coffee and desperation that permeated the building, flickered and died as the phone rang. A groan escaped me, a low rumble of pure, unadulterated exhaustion.
Wyatt snatched it up. “Diamond Creek sheriff station, Deputy Wyatt speaking.”
I was already at the front door, my hand reaching for the cool metal of freedom, when Wyatt’s voice, now strained and a little shrill, pierced the quiet. “Hang on, Dec!”
Fuck.My gut twisted. I was two steps away from sanctuary, from a few precious hours of normalcy before the next tidal wave of shit crashed down. Turning back around, I felt an icy dread seep into my bones, competing with the gnawing guilt about leaving my wife alone for so long.
“Someone better be fucking dead,” I growled, my words tasting like bile, “’cause I’m tired and I want to see my wife. And right now, seeing her feels more important than anything you’ve got to say.”
The hypocrisy of it burned. I was the law, the protector, and here I was, wishing for death to keep me from my family. Wyatt’s face, already pale, seemed to drain of all color.
“Simon found a body behind his shop. Well, part of a body.”
“What do you mean, part of a body?” My words felt thick and unreal in my mouth. My mind, already stretched thin, refused to process the implication. Part of a body. Not just a whole one, neatly contained. This was escalating, becoming something far more monstrous, and the weight of it settled on my chest, a crushing pressure that made it hard to breathe.
Just then, the station’s second phone rang, a jarring, insistent bleat. For a split second, I considered letting it go. Let Wyatt handle it. Let someone else deal with this escalating horror. But the thought was instantly, violently, squashed. My responsibility. My failures. Walking over to the nearest desk, my hand felt heavy as I picked up the receiver. “Sheriff O’Rourke. What do you want?” The anger in my voice was a desperate shield against the rising tide of panic.
“Dec,” I clearly heard Ryder’s voice, tight and grim. “You’d better get the fuck over to the bookstore now. Found a severed head by the back door.”
“Could you repeat that?”
“Just get the fuck over here before my wife or kids see this shit. I’ll meet you in the alley.” With that, Ryder disconnected the call.
Looking at Deputy Wyatt, I was about to have him call everybody back in when he carefully placed the phone receiver back on its stand and muttered, “That was Trudy. She was taking out the garbage when she found an arm by the trash cans. What the fuck is going on, Sheriff?”
My gut clenched, a cold dread seeping through the exhaustion. A severed head. An arm. A foot. This wasn’t just a bad night; it was a descent into the abyss. Something sunk to the pit of my stomach, telling me it was different from the bodies of the women on the Powell Ranch. A new murderer, one more gruesome and sinister.
“Wyatt, get everyone back to the station. And get them here fast. Then head over to Trudy’s place. Tape off the area and don’t fucking touch anything.” My voice, raw and tight, held a forced authority, a thin veneer over the rising panic.
The files I clutched in my hand, a pathetic attempt to cling to order, felt suddenly useless. My night had just begun, and already, the darkness had clawed its way into the heart of Diamond Creek, promising a reckoning I was dreading with every fiber of my being.
