What was the point?
Kat was gone. Frankie was gone. Everything I’d been working toward, it was all gone.
“Fine,” I said quietly.
Gunner, Ace, and Big Ben released me.
I walked toward the basement door, my hands covered in blood, Zero’s and mine. My face throbbed, my ribs ached.
Jack followed. “Derek, this is bullshit. I’ll talk to Cash—”
“Don’t,” I said. “Just leave it.”
“But—”
“I said fucking leave it, Jack.”
He stopped at the top of the stairs, watching as I descended into the darkness.
The cell was small. Concrete walls. Metal bars. A single cot in the corner.
I walked inside. The door slammed shut. The lock clicked.
And then I was alone.
I stood in the center of the cell, staring at my hands. Covered in blood. My knuckles split open, raw and bleeding. My ribs screamed with every breath.
But none of it hurt as much as the look on Kat’s face when she asked if it was true.
The devastation. The fear. The betrayal.
I sank down onto the cot, my head in my hands.
She was gone.
And she wasn’t coming back.
I’d lost her. Lost Frankie. Lost everything.
Because I was exactly what I’d always known I was.
The darkness pressed in around me, suffocating and absolute. My ragged breathing sounded harsh in the silence.
And for the first time in years, I felt the tears come.
I didn’t try to stop them.
What was the point?
I’d already lost everything that mattered.
Hours passed. Maybe more. I’d lost track of time in the darkness.
The tears had dried on my face, leaving salt tracks through the blood. My hands had stopped shaking. The rage had burned itself out, leaving nothing but emptiness behind.
I heard footsteps on the stairs.
Slow. Measured. Deliberate.
