And the worst one reaches my ears from a prospect who shouldn’t be listening to gossip at all.
“They say the pawn shop girl swung first.”
“They say Brittany pushed her in the lake.”
That rumor sticks because it’s easy, and Hell loves easy. People already decided what Brittany is. They don’t wantevidence. Bethany already made her a villain. They want a villain that fits the shape of their prejudice.
The search at the lake renews with a new target. When it comes up short, it closes around me while I’m on autopilot. Defeated on both fronts, we pack up and ride home.
Back in Hell, back at the Lockup, our clubhouse, where things are supposed to feel stable, like we have control, law enforcement calls.
Casual. Curious. Not accusing yet. That’s what scares me. When they get polite, it means they’re building something.
Pearly Gates posts a prayer vigil on their church page.
For the Kings of Anarchy MC’s missing sister.
I stare at Bethany’s empty side of the house that night and feel something ugly twist in my gut.
I didn’t love her. I didn’t even like her most days. Hell, she was a bitch who I rejected in highschool. So, she trapped me like a wild animal into a marriage with her daddy’s blackmail. And she called that love. But I didn’t wish her gone like this. Not like a ghost story.
And if someone took her, if someone’s using this, if someone plans to hang it around Brittany’s neck, they just made the wrong enemy.
Hell might love a rumor.
But I don’t.
Chapter 33
Brittany
The first night back in Hell, Kentucky, I don’t sleep.
I lie on my side in Lottie’s basement room, staring at the little window near the ceiling where moonlight slips in like it’s nosy, and I can hear the house settling around me. Pipes tick. Floorboards pop. Mason’s soft toddler snore drifts down through the vents like a reminder that real life keeps going even when yours cracks in half.
I keep waiting to hear motorcycles, boots on the porch or a police door slam, like the whole town is going to show up in the dark with a rope and a story they already believe.
Every time I close my eyes, I see Bethany’s face right before it happened. Not screaming. Not wild. Just calm. Like she’d already decided the ending, and I was the last page she needed to tear out.
I remember her fingers in my hair, the pain bright and mean, her grip strong enough to drag my head back and make my eyes water. I remember the slap, hot and sharp, the way it turned the whole world into a bright white ring for a second. I remember the words she used like they were tools, like she’d practiced them in the mirror until they came out smooth.
Trailer trash. Backwoods whore. Gold digger.
I remember the board in my hands because my body moved before my brain could be polite. Because something inme finally snapped from being watched and whispered about and threatened in half-smiles. I remember the sickening thud when it connected and the way she went down, not dramatic, not flailing, just a hard stop like somebody turned her off.
Then I remember kneeling beside her, shaking so hard my teeth clicked, my hand hovering over her mouth to feel breath because I didn’t know what else to do. I remember the relief that hit me when she exhaled, and the nausea that followed it, because relief shouldn’t exist in a moment like that. I remember the blood at her hairline and how my stomach rolled when I realized it was real blood, not something you can shrug off with a laugh.
I ran for help.
I did the right thing. I did what a decent person does.
And when I came back, she was gone.
Now there’s a new kind of quiet in town, the kind that ain’t peace. It’s that waiting hush right before a storm rips through and takes what it wants. It feels like everybody in Hell is holding their breath at once and listening for the same thing.
A body. A confession. A scapegoat.
At dawn, the first rumor comes through the basement door before my feet even hit the floor. Lottie is on the phone upstairs, voice low but tense, and I hear my name in the spaces between her words like it’s being dragged over gravel.
