The room goes quiet after that, the weight of it pressing down on all of us. My knuckles are split wide open, blood dripping steadily, and the pain finally cuts through the rage enough for me to register it. Emerson grabs my arm with a firm grip, steady and grounding. “Sit down,” he orders, his voice stronger now with no hesitation. “You’re bleeding like a stuck pig. You need to calm the fuck down and let me check your wound.”
For once, I don’t fight him. My chest still heaves, fury simmering just under my skin, but I let him steer me to the edge of the bed. My head hangs low, sweat dripping down my temples as I try to breathe through the fire still roaring in my chest.
Rowan doesn’t say a word at first. His silence digs into me deeper than any fist could, but then he finally looks up, his voice cracking when he speaks. “I’m sorry.” He swallows hard, his eyesglassy, shifting between us like he’s afraid we won’t believe him. “For all of it. Not believing you. For hurting her. For the way I’ve been acting.” His voice splinters, thick with regret, and I see him spiraling, shoulders curling in as the guilt swallows him whole.
Before he can collapse under it, the sharp crack of a slap cuts through the air. Emerson’s hand connects with his cheek, snapping Rowan’s head to the side. The sound echoes, shocking us all into silence. Emerson, the calm one. The rational one. The one who never loses it. And yet there he is, shaking, tears spilling down his face.
“My dad…” His voice fractures, breaking apart on the words. He can’t finish, can’t force the rest out, but he doesn’t have to. Guilt is written on every line of his face. He’s trying to take it on himself, to shoulder the sins of the man who raised him.
Rowan and I lock eyes for a brief second, and for once, we agree. “That’s not yours to carry,” I rasp, my throat raw.
Rowan nods, his own voice soft but certain. “He’s guilty, Em. Not you. Our fathers are just as rotten as each other, but their sins don’t belong to us. We don’t wear them.”
The words hang heavy, but they feel like truth. Broken, jagged truth—but truth all the same. And for the first time in too long, the three of us are standing in it together.
We need to finish this. There’s no going back now—the gloves are off, and the blood on our hands doesn’t wash away. The silence is razor sharp, thick enough to choke on, until Emerson finally cuts through it. His voice isn’t loud, but it’s deliberate, every word weighted with a precision that makes you stop and listen.
“They don’t know,” he says, his eyes fixed on both of us, hard and unflinching. “Not yet. Bryce. Dean. Any of them. They don’t know we’ve seen the video. They don’t know what Reign left behind. That ignorance is the only advantage we’ve got left.” He pauses, dragging a hand down his face, the tremor in his fingers betraying the calm mask he’s trying to hold. “If we tip our hand too soon, they’ll lock everything down. We’ll lose whatever chance we’ve got at ripping this out by the roots.”
His gaze sharpens, flicking between me and Rowan. “That means we play it smart. Smarter than we ever have. No reckless moves. No outbursts. We wait until the exact right moment and then we hit them where it hurts most—money, allies, their fucking reputation. All of it.” His lip curls, his mask slipping enough for his disgust to bleed through. “We can’t undo what they did. We can’t bring Reign back. And we sure as hell can’t protect Berk the way we should have.” His voice falters, rough at the edges, and he clears his throat before pressing on. “But what wecando—the only thing left—is make sure every one of them pays for what they’ve done to us, for brutalizing Berk, and for killing Reign. Every single one.”
His words sink deep, pressing down on the room until the air feels charged and thin. Emerson has always been the calm in our chaos, the mind that reins us in before instinct takes over. But now his voice carries something else—sharp, merciless, and just deranged enough to finish what we’re about to start. The only thing keeping us alive is their ignorance. They don’t know what we know. Not yet. And by the time they do, there will be no one left to save them.
I lean forward, chest locked tight, the fire still raging from the video, from the lies, from all we’ve lost. “Bryce’s second,” I grind out, voice low, guttural. “He’s the one who tried to take me out. That wasn’t a random hit. That was an order.” My jaw locks so tight I hear it crack, the rage vibrating under my skin like a live current. “They’re trying to eliminate us—or at least Bryce is. One by one. And if we wait, if we stall, they’ll try again. We need to dismantle this sooner, not later. Before they get another chance.”
The room hangs heavy with sweat, blood, and regret, every breath tasting of iron. Rowan clears his throat; the sound is raw and grating, shattering the silence that’s been suffocating us. And then he says her name—“Berkley.” Soft. Careful. Like it’s still his to speak. Like he has the right.
A growl rips out of me before I can stop it, rumbling from deep in my chest. My head snaps toward him, eyes narrowed, teeth bared. “You’ve got a long fucking way to go before you eventhinkabout speaking her name to me.” My voice cracks with venom, every word a warning. His shoulders slump instantly, the defiance in him folding, and he nods, mournful and silent, knowing I’m right. Knowing that for all his guilt, for all his apologies, it’s nowhere near enough.
I turn my glare on Emerson, the rage in me simmering down into something harder, sharper. A blade instead of fire. “Both of you,” I say, each syllable carved with steel. “You’ve got a lot of making up to do to her. More than you can imagine. And if you’re lucky—lucky—she might find it in her heart to forgive you.”
Neither of them argues. They don’t dare. Because forgiveness isn’t mine to give. It never was. It’s hers. And God help them both if she never decides they’ve earned it.
Chapter Two
Berkley
The frantic rush to get back to my hidden hovel barely registers as thought—it’s instinct, survival, the same rhythm that’s carried me for months now. My body moves quickly, but every step feels stretched thin, like I’m trudging through wet cement. The alleyways blur, the streets twist, until finally I slip into the narrow gap that leads to the small, suffocating space I’ve called home these past few months. Only once I’m inside, wedged between concrete and shadow, does the weight of what just happened slam into me full force.
My boys know. The truth is out, no longer locked away in my chest where I thought I could bury it forever. They know how I was touched. How I was violated. How every inch of me was carved into pieces that night and scattered like ash. It’s stupid—I know it’s stupid—but my first thought is fear that they’ll treat me differently now. That their eyes will change when they look at me, that pity or disgust will eclipse what used to be there. That I’ll stop beingmein their minds and become nothing more than what was done to me.
The thought makes my chest cave, breath hitching in short, uneven gasps. Panic rises sharply and unrelenting, like barbed wire tightening around my lungs. My hands tremble as I press them against my thighs, trying to anchor myself, but the ground tilts, spinning with the force of memory. The flashes come quickly andmercilessly—hands where they shouldn’t have been, voices I can’t scrub out, the helplessness that hollowed me out from the inside. My skin prickles with phantom touches I’ll never get rid of.
I haven’t felt this close to breaking in years. Not since that first year after the fire, when panic attacks ruled my nights and left me clawing at my throat for air. I thought I’d moved past it. I thought I’d hardened enough, fought enough, killed enough to bury the panic beneath steel. But here it is again, cracking me open, leaving me seconds away from unraveling in the dark of my hideaway.
Practiced breathing slows the frantic rhythm of my chest, pulling the haze from my vision one careful inhale at a time. I focus on the count—four in, hold, six out—until the ringing in my ears dulls and my mind clears, sharp edges forming again where the fog had settled. The panic loosens its claws, retreating far enough that I can think, though my body still trembles with the aftershocks.
In that clarity, my heart aches for Ronan. I can picture him even now, jaw clenched, eyes burning, convinced I’ve abandoned him again. The thought twists inside me, sharp and relentless, because I know what my absence must feel like to him. But I also know Ronan—he understands, even if he won’t admit it. He’ll stop at nothing to find me, no matter how far I run or how hard I try to keep my distance. That’s who he is. That’s who he’s always been. My only hope is that Rowan and Emerson will keep him flat on his back long enough for the hole in his chest to heal. He’s no good to me dead, not while there’s still so much left unfinished.
But someone tried to kill him. Someone put a bullet in my Ronan and would’ve finished the job if luck hadn’t been on our side. And that someone could come back—could take another shot at him, or worse, shift their sights onto Rowan or Emerson. The thought of it boils my blood, replacing the fading panic with a sharp, familiar rage.
We may have monumental issues festering between us—betrayal, lies, the kind of wounds that never fully scar—but they’re mine. My men. My mess. Mine to punish, to forgive, to love, to destroy, to put back together again if I damn well please. No one else gets that right. No one else gets to touch them.
Now is not the time for division. Now is the time for war. For coming together, for sharpening every weapon, for tearing Dean and Bryce’s empire apart brick by brick, body by body. I’ll make them bleed, I’ll make them beg, and I won’t stop until every last remnant of what they’ve built is reduced to ash. Death by unmerciful death. That’s the only justice left.
But before any of that, I need to get my shit together. My head has to be sharp, steady, untouchable. The panic that crawls up my throat when I least expect it needs to stay buried. I can’t afford to hesitate, not now. Not when what we’ve uncovered has torn away the last of my illusions. First, I need to find my balance again. Then? I need to shed some blood.
There’s nothing that steadies my hands, nothing that quiets the chaos in my head, quite like killing. Call it release, call it focus, call it survival—it’s the only therapy that’s ever worked. And lucky me, there are several names etched onto my list that can meet theirend sooner than expected. Some have been waiting patiently, debts long overdue. Others have only recently earned their place there. Either way, they’ll all pay.