I tabbed through them, crime scene photos I had never seen spilling into the beam of my flashlight. Angles of the charred house I hadn’t been allowed to re-enter. A bloody handprint was smeared across the white fridge in the kitchen. My mother’s fingers were visible beneath a linen sheet. My throat tightened, but I forced myself to flip through every single page. Witness every single image and burn them into my brain. My family’s deaths would not be forgotten.
The police reports were riddled with black bars—entire paragraphs redacted. It made my blood boil. What were they trying to cover up? Witness statements had large red stamps across them that read “WITHHELD.” At the back of my father’s tab, there was a single loose photo.
Detective Parsons was standing in my family’s front yard the night of the massacre, a sick smile spread across his face. My chest went cold. It felt like someone had ripped my heart from it. I slammed the file shut, barely registering that my breathing had gone shallow and quick.
A faint creak sounded from the bar above. I froze, every muscle locking up. Before I could even think, I was racing up the stairs and out of the basement. My movements were sloppy as I shut the double metal doors tight and locked them back into place. Then I fled from the alley, not looking back to see if I had been caught.
CHAPTER THIRTY
kaius
Rain fell in sheets,hammering against the rows of black umbrellas like drumbeats. The Lovelen graveyard was a patchwork of cracked stones and leaning monuments, the type of place where, over time, names were forgotten but the haunted lies never were. I was surprised to see how dark the sky had been when I stepped outside. It wasn’t typical for it to rain this hard in early May. But Mother Nature had decided she would mirror the heartbreak that was ripping through the Knights.
My boots sank into the sodden ground with each step, water pooling in the depressions left by mourners before me. The coffin was deep mahogany stained nearly black. It was already halfway lowered into the grave, the Knights’ symbol that was carved into the top standing out as water collected in the divots, as if the symbol refused to let go of the man inside.
Surrounding the grave stood the core of the Lovelen club and their families. Men and women dressed in black, their faces a mask of studied restraint. Some lowered their heads in genuine grief. Others kept their chins up, eyes darting between the living, avoiding the casket altogether. In the Knights, a funeral wasn’t just for the dead—it was about taking stock of who remained and who could be next.
Detective Parsons of the Lovelen PD was here. His tan trench coat’s collar pulled high against his neck, gaze not fixed on the grave but on Nolan from across the crowd. Astoria clung to Nolan as he held an umbrella over her, not letting a drop of rain touch my sister. Her eyes were transfixed on the coffin, haunted and distant as if she was reliving the events of the past month over and over again. She pulled her injured arm closer, the dark-blue sling blending into her dress.
I moved my gaze back to Parsons. It seemed off that a detective was here at a private funeral, but my father had too much pride in him to have Parsons removed. I caught a flicker of a nod pass between Parsons and Nolan. Too subtle for most to notice, but if I had, my father most certainly did. He noticed everything.
And by the red color creeping up the back of his neck, he had seen the entire thing. Standing tall at the head of the grave, his suit immaculate despite the weather, he didn’t bother a second glance at the coffin. His gaze swept the crowd like a blade, lingering just long enough to make the person shift uncomfortably before moving on. When my father’s eyes found me through the rain, they held a silent order.
Follow me.
I broke away from the crowd just as the priest had instructed the mourners into the beginning lyrics of a hymn. The background noise faded as we crossed the cemetery insilence, boots crunching on wet gravel until we reached our family’s mausoleum.
The structure rose from the far corner of the graveyard like a sentinel carved from shadows, its stone walls weathered from years of the harsh weather conditions, but still its commanding presence remained. Unlike the plain, tilting headstones around it, this structure was built to be remembered—a testament to the wealth, lineage, and a stubborn refusal to be forgotten my father had instilled in the Knights.
Tall fluted columns framed its arched entrance, each etched with intricate carvings of swords, chalices, and swirling lines. Curling ivy and hemlock crawled around the columns like a silent warning to anyone passing by. The door was a heavy slab of wrought iron, its once black surface now dulled to gunmetal. At its center was the Knights’ crest. It was sharp to the touch, as if it had been carved to endure long after flesh and blood had rotted away.
The roof was domed and crowned with a weathered statue—an angel with downcast eyes and wings spread wide. Through time and the beating sun, the face had worn into something unreadable.
This was the kind of place that didn’t just hold the dead—it kept our secrets too.
As we stepped inside, the air changed. It was cold enough to bite, and the scent of candle wax and old stone was thick. My father shut the door behind us, and the sudden quiet felt heavier than the rain outside.
“You saw it,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
I leaned against the marble wall behind me, letting the flickering candlelight throw shadows across his face. “Saw what?”
I knew my ignorance would irritate him, but I didn’t much care. Not when it came to Nolan. He stepped closer, waterdripping off the tips of his suit jacket and pooling at his feet. “There were too many eyes on each other and not on the grave. Too many hands buried in their pockets, like they’ve got something to hide.”
He took a deep breath, slow and deliberate. I didn’t dare speak when he was explaining what he observed. My father continued, “The Knights have always had many enemies outside these walls, Kaius, but the ones who will ruin us will come from the inside.”
His words were like the sound of a lock turning, a truth that was obvious to all but never spoken. It was unsettling to hear.
“We are an empire built on loyalty.” He began to pace down the narrow aisle between the stone crypts. “It is the only thing that keeps the blood from staining our hands. You break that rule, you’re not just betraying a man. No, you are betraying centuries of tradition. You’re pissing on the graves of every Knight who gave his life for the club. To keep the secrets that continue their legacy.”
The way he said it, loyalty wasn’t just a rule in the Knights of Lovelen, it was a religion. Something you worshipped over in the dark of your room when you questioned if it was worth continuing on with the club life. Not that I had a choice in leaving. I was born a Knight, and I would die one as well.
My father stopped pacing, his eyes locking on mine. They were hard and unyielding. He made a slow slicing motion across his throat. “Nolan is already dead. He just hasn’t realized it yet.”
He turned his back to me, studying the nameplates on the wall as though they might whisper advice for him to follow. “There is a rot in the foundation, Kaius. It’s slow, but it’s spreading. Parsons is too cozy with Nolan, and Nolan’s debts aren’t to us anymore. Sooner or later, one of them is going totest the limits of the Knights. And when they do…” He let the words hang like a blade suspended in the air.
I didn’t let him finish the sentence. The rain was louder when I stepped outside, running cold down my neck and spine. Funerals in Lovelen were never just farewells. They were warnings. I knew it then, standing in that graveyard with my father’s voice still echoing in my mind. The Knight we had just buried wasn’t the only one fated for the dirt.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
