Brooke

There’s a feeling when lights are flashing in your face. When people you barely know call out your name like you’re best friends. Where it starts to feel like a dream. It makes things easier to handle. Going through a party with a cool half-smile on my lips.

It’s the same thing I do now, when I realize why Stone has come for me, why he brought me here.

“What makes you think I know anything?” My voice comes out weirdly calm. There’s a panic inside me. A full-scale Big Bang explosion, ending everything that came before. On the outside I must look the same, but on the inside everything has changed.

“Because you told me yourself,” he says, nearly growling. “I called him Keeper, but you called him Innkeeper.”

Fear whooshes in my ears. “When?”

“When you were fuck-drunk.”

I flinch at the harshness of his words. At least I know how much I revealed to him. When we were in that cottage, when he touched me. How had I let something so important slip? But I was so impossibly relaxed. I learned early on to never let down my guard, with anyone. Not for the cameras or the society mavens. Not even for my mother. But the one time I slip, it could ruin everything.

“I never used the name Innkeeper,” he says. “That told me you know the man. And it’s not a fucking surprise, is it? Not in the circles that you run in.”

I swallow past the dryness in my mouth.

The cabin was beautiful but rustic. Raw. He used that to seduce me. This hotel room with its old-world grandeur and strange intimacy? He’ll use this to hurt me. Make me tell.

I wrap my arms around myself.

Daddy came to every ballet recital. He worked late every day to afford my private school tuition. We might not have a normal happy family, but it’s mine.

Stone will protect his crew, even if they did something wrong. That’s the way I have to protect my father. He deserves justice, nothing more. Not revenge.

“He’s somebody to you. That’s why you’re keeping it from me. Family or friend. One of your girlfriends’ daddies.” He gives me a hard look. “Maybe even yours.”

I try not to react, but some things I can’t control, like the way my heart bangs against my ribs. There’s movement on my face, like a flinch. But it feels far away, like my muscles belong to someone else.

“You should just tell me,” he says simply. “You’re going to, in the end.”

The threat is ten times worse because of the calm way he delivers it. If he were beating his chest, it would seem like an exaggeration. But I know the calm, cold reality here. He’s going to hurt me. “Why? Because you’ll make me?”

He watches my face, seeing everything, saying nothing.

I stand my ground, senses humming from his nearness. Or maybe that’s the scotch. “I can’t.”

Still he says nothing.

I swallow. Stone can’t trust anyone, but I can. I trust Detective Rivera. I trust the system, even knowing it failed Stone. I trust my father, even if I shouldn’t. “I won’t.”

Threat runs thick in the air between us. “I’m not fooling around, Brooke.”

“You don’t want to hurt me.” I gaze into his eyes, looking for the man who couldn’t drown me. The man who carved that tiny bird. The one who made up a fairy tale about a rivet.

“No, I don’t want to hurt you.” His tone is soft, but there’s darkness underneath—the darkness of hundreds of hopeless nights. “But I do lots of things l don’t want to do.”

He does those things for the men in his crew. For the boys who were down there in the basement with him. For the ones who might be held now. That’s part of why I respect him, why I love him, but there’s also something broken in it. The way he acts like killing people doesn’t matter. Like it doesn’t break his heart again and again.

My pulse races. “I don’t know anything—not for sure.” It’s the last words that change everything for the worst. The confession I didn’t mean to make. He knows I have something specific. Even his gaze is colder. More resigned. Like he knows this is going to get messy.

Fear arrows through me. Instinct takes over. I whirl around. I bolt past the bathroom, to the door, fling it open.

A large hand smashes it back closed.

I turn around, shoulder blades flush against the door. He stands in front of me, half caging me, dark stubble gleaming under high-cut cheekbones. The door is hard on my back, but my knees are jelly. “Please.”

He shakes his head. “We’ve been on this collision course for two years, me and this Keeper. Longer. There’s only one way out—my bullet in his brain.”

Fear threatens to overwhelm me, but I force it back. I force myself to focus on the handsome, furious face in front of me. “Think about it, Stone. You once said you can’t have a regular life like other people, but you can. You can start now with this one step, seeing that justice is done instead of poisoning your soul with more violence.”

“Poisoning my soul? It’s a little late for that. It’s a black well in there.”

“No,” I whisper.

“There are boys out there being kept like animals. Worse than animals, and what you know could help me find them. Do you not give a shit about that?”

“Of course I do! I want those boys to be rescued. I want justice for them, and for what happened to you. That’s why I forwarded my information about Innkeeper to the police.”

He straightens. “You did what?”

“It’s what the police are there for.” I’m pleading with him, praying he’ll understand even though I know he won’t. “They have resources you don’t. Resources to find the boys, and to help them recover once they do.”

“You think the police aren’t in on it? God! That’ll just tip them all off.” He scrubs his face. He seems angry. But tired, too. So tired.

“Not everybody is corrupt. Detective Rivera—”

“Is one of the good guys? Really? You sure about that?”

“I am.”

“Fuck.” Frustration radiates from his broad shoulders. “You don’t know. You can’t know that for sure.”

“You have to trust somebody sometime.” The words come softly, but they land like bombs. Obvious, because I mean me. I want him to trust me, even though he won’t. Maybe he can’t.

Green eyes blaze under inky lashes just inches from my face. My skin tingles, as if his gaze has weight. Mass. Force. “I have to trust somebody? That’s what you think? Who should I trust? Who?”

My belly twists. It was a stupid thing to say—to Stone, anyway. He was thrown to predators when he was most vulnerable. Failed by every system imaginable. Forgotten. Left for dead. The ultimate lost boy, leading his band of lost boys out of hell.

But he never really escaped. He’s still trapped in hell, or more like the hell’s inside him now. He seems almost to vibrate with it, a furious dark-haired god, tormented and torn.

He trusts nobody. Why should he?

“You need to tell me who Keeper is before they all get tipped off and move those poor kids somewhere we can’t find them—now,” he gusts out, breath warm on my forehead. His hand slides up from my waist in a deliberate threat. Higher, higher. To my throat, his hand hot against my skin.

“You’re scaring me,” I whisper.

“About time.” Soft, heavy fingers bracket my chin. His touch is achingly gentle, even as it threatens. “Don’t make me choose.”

I close my eyes, bracing for the worst. He won’t choose me.

Heavy fingertips tremble along my jaw, tracing a path toward my ear, shifting my hair in a way that tickles.

I steel my spine, replaying Madsen’s grunts like a tape loop in my mind. Is that what he’s going to do to me? It hurt Stone to do that; I know that now. He isn’t some cold-blooded psychopath, even though he probably wishes he were. It hurt him to do that to a bad man; what will it cost him to hurt me?

“Tell me,” he mutters, almost an incantation. “Fucking tell me.”

I want to tell him, to spare him the pain, but I have my own broken heart. Doesn’t he understand that it would kill me? It would kill me to see my father tortured and killed, knowing I could have stopped it. Maybe Stone does know what it would do to me. Maybe it’s worth the sacrifice. I’m collateral damage. “Swear you won’t kill him. Swear you won’t hurt him.”

A laugh, cruel and sharp. “I’m going to rip his balls off his body and feed them to him.”

I shake my head. “Then I won’t tell you who he is.”

A knuckle brushes my neck. Will he choke me? Lock me up? Pretend to drown me? “Do you really want to play this game?”

“This isn’t a game,” I say.

“No,” he growls. “This is a basement of boys, somewhere in this city.”

“Then let Detective Rivera find them. He’ll save them. He’ll bring Keeper to justice. If you only care about saving them, you’ll take the deal. I’ll tell you as long as you promise not to kill him, not to hurt him. This is how you save those boys, Stone.”

He studies me, his eyelids low. It’s a line in the sand. I’m offering him justice. He wants vengeance. Maybe that’s always what would have broken us. The single and brutally important fracture point.

Stone’s hand settles around my throat. He doesn’t squeeze, but it’s clear he could. There’s enough strength in that hand to cut off my air. To break my neck. My breath comes shorter. “No deal,” he says finally, and it sounds like regret. Maybe he does regret what he’s going to do to me. How he’ll hurt me. Torture me. Kill me?

There’s a hitch in my chest. A crack in a foundation that should never have formed.

“Because you have to choose those boys,” I say in a burst of clarity. “Because it’s who you are.”

“Yes.”

“Except you’re wrong. You think you have to give up your humanity to save them, but you don’t.”

“Give up my humanity? You know who you’re talking to here? Other men, they might dream about that soft cunt you let me have. They might want to fuck your pretty little mouth again, but all I want is blood. My humanity is long gone, baby.”

“You’re wrong. It’s too late—I’ve seen you. You’re a good person. You have a good heart.”

He snorts, jaw set, gaze distant.

“I saw it in the river the first night,” I continue. “Every time we were together, I saw it. In the tiny bird you carved.”

“A broken piece of shit.”

“Not to me. I love it.” There’s pain in his gaze, but I don’t shut up. I won’t shut up. “I love you.”

“Stop it.”

I reach up for his hand, still snug and warm around my neck. Instead of pulling it away, I squeeze harder. First with one hand, then with two. I press his hand so tight around my throat that I see black spots behind my eyelids. He’s right; this isn’t a game. Lives are at stake. And I’ll give up mine before I give up my father’s.

Darkness closes around the edges of my vision.

“Fuck,” I hear him say. “Fuck.”

I suck in breath without thinking, my body reacting on its own, air like fire in my lungs, the pressure on my neck gone.

“Fuck, baby.” Gentle fingertips alight on my face. Soft, warm lips come down on my cheeks, my chin, my forehead. He’s raining kisses on me. “Fuck,” he says between kisses. “Fuck.” Then he takes my lips, devouring my mouth like a starving man.

My body ignites. I grab fistfuls of his soft flannel shirt, knuckles against the hard planes of his chest. Pulling myself against him even as I push him away. I’m clinging to him on a stormy sea, wanting his comfort even as I know I’m going to drown.

The tears don’t go away, even when he’s holding me, kissing me. They come faster. A flood. They spill onto my lips, and when his tongue touches mine, I can taste them. Salt. Fear. Grief tastes like the ocean.

“I never could’ve hurt you,” he mutters, moving his lips over my eyelids, sipping my grief. “Not for anything. I would have ripped off my own arm, but you knew that, didn’t you, little bird?”

A sound behind me. The knob turning.

Stone grabs me, pulls me to him, one arm slung around my chest, bracketing me to him. The other around my neck. If he pulled any tighter, he’d be choking me.

But that’s not what this is.

A large form darkens the door before emerging into the soft light of the room.

The big one from before—Grayson. He glowers at us. He’s the one who just got out of prison. He wasn’t released or anything official like that. He broke out. Escaped.

Another man comes in, fists balled at his sides. Knox. The blond one. Sharp as a blade.

They both have that hard look of someone who’s given their share of violence. Taken it, too. My heart breaks for them even as I know what they’re here to do.

“You’re done,” Grayson says, nice and soft.

Stone pulls me against him. “Out.”

Grayson’s voice stays low and calm. “It’s done. You didn’t break her. I don’t think you can, which is interesting, but it doesn’t matter. We can do it.”

“I got this,” Stone says.

A sudden silence firms up around us, cold and hard as ice.

“You don’t,” Knox says, incredulous. “Not at all.”

“Told ya,” Grayson mutters.

“No one touches her,” Stone says.

Another guy crowds into the room, long blond hair nearly white. Stone swears under his breath and shoves me behind him. There’s a snick and a flash. A blade appears in Stone’s hand.

I suck in a breath.

“What the fuck, Stone!” Grayson says, looking harder than ever before. Like every gilded edge in him turns to steel. “You’re gonna fight me?”

“You fought me,” Stone says, sounding just as hard. There aren’t any people left in this room. Only metal and rock. Only me, light as a feather. “When I went after Abby, you stopped me.”

“That was different. You just didn’t want her here. Your own fucking rules. But this girl? She’s holding secrets, secrets that protect them. Since when do you pick their side?”

“I’m not on their side,” Stone says, soft with menace. “I’m on hers.”

“So that’s the way it is,” Knox bites out.

“That’s right.”

“Fuck that,” Grayson says. He picks up a chair like it’s a toy and swings at Stone. With a roar, Stone absorbs the hit. Something cracks—wood? Bone? I scream and melt into the corner.

Stone has hold of the chair. He shoves back. Grayson falls.

Knox grabs Stone from behind. The one with long pale hair goes for his arm.

Stone hits the blond one in the face.

Knox grunts, struggling with Stone. There are more punches. More grunts.

A deep voice— “Fuck!” Stone fights harder than I’ve ever seen, but he’s outnumbered.

I squeeze more deeply into the corner, horrified. The knife flies into the corner opposite me. More punches, more grunts. Fists and thwaps and swear words fill the room.

Stone’s protecting me. From his brothers.

“Stop it!” I yell. “No more!”

It’s a whisper in the wind.

I make myself small, unused to so much fury and violence. A table crashes over, and I jerk deeper into myself. The most vicious fights I see happen with words and cutting glances. Except that night of my sixteenth birthday. This is like that. Only Stone is the one losing.

Somebody else comes in, shorter, smaller. I can barely see this new one behind the blur of fighting men. Only that the room fills up even more.

Will this one attack Stone, too? How many men can he defend himself against?

A blast rips the air—loud and sudden. Massive as dynamite. Instinctively, I tuck my head into my chest, clapping my hands over my ringing ears.

Something exploded.

No—a gunshot! There’s a shooter!

My blood races. Did somebody shoot Stone?

But no, there he is, lip bloody, crowded on one side of the room with his arms protectively over his guys, as if he can ward off bullets. They’re all together, panting, side by side like they weren’t just fighting a moment ago.

“What the fuck!” Grayson says.

A woman with brown hair and glasses comes into the room. She has fine features like a bird. She’s wearing red yoga pants and a long T-shirt with a bright pink and gray flower design. But the most remarkable thing about her is the shiny gun in her delicate hand.

She gestures at the group of them. “Not a move. Don’t even.”

Who is this girl in this place? Is she one of them? Stone only mentioned brothers in the basement.

“You are in so much trouble,” Grayson growls.

A mischievous glint appears in her eyes, but the way she holds the gun says she isn’t playing.

The guys stay back as she moves toward me.

“Gimme the gun, Abby,” Grayson says. There’s an intimacy to his tone. Are they together? Is this the girl Stone threatened? There are undercurrents in this room strong enough to drag me under, but right now it looks like she’s on my side. Our side?

Stone and I have a side.

“This isn’t your fight, Abby,” Stone growls.

“You okay?” It takes me a while to realize this woman—Abby—is talking to me.

“I’m okay,” I say, but my voice comes out shaky.

She turns back to the guys.

“Not cool,” Grayson growls.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you guys killing each other is cool?” Abby asks. “That’s cool?”

“She knows where the boys are,” Grayson says.

Abby stills. “Oh.” She looks thoughtful. Her chest rises and falls. She turns to me. “You know where the boys are?”

“No! I don’t know where they are!” I say.

Abby frowns at them. “She says she doesn’t.”

“She knows who Keeper is,” Knox says.

Abby turns back to me. “You do?”

“I think so, but the police are handling it,” I say. “I gave them evidence.”

“You should tell them who it is,” Abby says.

I shake my head.

“Is it somebody close to you?” she asks, voice gentle. “Brother? Father?”

I look over at Stone. See the gears turning in his head.

“Vigilante justice is never right,” I plead. “Killing is never right. Let the police handle it.”

Abby groans.

The blond one seems to still, like he’s alerted to some faraway signal. Or maybe there’s an actual sound—I can’t hear anything with the way my ears are ringing. Then Stone turns toward the open doorway.

Somebody’s there.

I gasp in horror.

It’s my father, eyes wild, head tipped back, arm twisted back. He’s being held from behind by somebody bigger and stronger.

“Look who I found skulking around out there,” the man says. His dark hair is shaven to a sheen of black against his scalp.

“Daddy,” I whisper.

“Let her go. It’s me you want,” my father says.

“Don’t hurt him,” I say.

I see when Stone gets it, or maybe he already figured it out thanks to Abby’s question. Father or brother. Someone close enough I’d die to protect him. This is Keeper.

“You have me,” my father says. “You can let her go.”

Stone steps out from the group. “Keeper.” If you didn’t know him, the word might sound casual. But I hear the ice. It’s formed into daggers, that ice. Made for slicing skin apart.

“I’m Keeper.”

A thunderous silence falls over the room. The world takes on hard edges. Fear vibrates in my chest.

Daddy looks over at me. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” I turn a pleading gaze to Stone. “Don’t hurt him. You promised.”

“I said I wouldn’t hurt you,” Stone snarls, eyes on my father. “You bring the cops?”

“No,” Dad says.

“He’s alone,” the man who brought him says. “Perimeter is secure. Scanners are clean.”

“How’d you find us?” Stone barks.

Dad nods at my shoulder bag. “Her bag. Chipped.”

It’s not that surprising that they had a tracker put in my bag. I should have expected that. But I thought it would be Detective Rivera who did that. Not Daddy. Not Daddy coming alone.

“Well. We’ve been waiting a long time to meet you,” Stone says. “Years we were down there. But then that’s not a surprise. You knew that.”

“I didn’t know,” Dad says, pale but determined. “Not while it was happening—I swear. I found out later.”

The blond holds out his hands like he wants to hug my dad. The guy holding Dad shoves him at the blond one, who grabs his shirt front with one hand and smashes his fist into Dad’s jaw with the other.

Dad crashes backward into the wall.

I scream.

Grayson is on him, hitting him. The sound sickens me. Knox piles on. Stone hangs back, expression furious. He feels far away.

I look helplessly over at Stone, at Abby. “Do something!”

“I—” She shakes her head, seeming bewildered. She could stop them from hurting each other, but not from this. Not from hurting my father.

“He said he didn’t know! Stone!” I beg tearfully. “He’s my father!”

He sucks in a breath. “Fuck!” He grabs the gun from Abby. He raises it and shoots the cracked ceiling.

The explosion splits my eardrums just like the last one. Drywall falls like snow, settling on everyone’s shoulders. But through the haze of the chaos, the guys pause.

“Enough,” Stone says.

Knox gets right into Stone’s face. It’s like he doesn’t even care about the gun. “It’s Keeper. He needs to die.”

Dad is half lying on the floor, eyes peering at me through his bloody face. He mouths something to me over and over. Words. I’m sorry.

“Please,” I say. “It’s my dad. Please.”

“He says he didn’t know,” Stone says.

“Since when do you give a shit about that?” the buzz-cut guy who brought Dad in demands. “He looked the other way. He admitted he knew eventually, so why didn’t all these fuckers end up in prison? Oh right, because they’re all fucking in bed together. This guy needs to pay.”

“If he wants us to kill him quick, he’ll tell us what we need to know about the boys,” another one says.

Stone steps in front of Dad. “Try it and I’ll cut your fucking throat.” Certainty vibrates in his every word.

The room goes silent. The guys look shocked. Outraged.

Stone’s outnumbered, but he’s the one with the gun. Who would win that fight? I have a feeling no one would. Every single person in this room would lose as soon as one brother killed another.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Knox asks him.

Stone looks at me, his features arranged like a sculpture. Like they’ve always been this visage of fury and determination. Like he never came apart in my body.

But then I see it. Something new. Something different. “Those scumbags treated us like animals,” he says. “But we’re not animals. Fuck that.”

“Like hell we’re not,” Cruz growls.

Stone gives him a hard look. “We’re gonna hear what he has to say, and then we’re gonna think of how we fucking make some justice happen.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Knox says.

“We’ll hear what he has to say,” Stone says again. “And see what we can do together.”

The guys just stare. Violence rolls off their bodies like they’re heat lamps set to a thousand degrees. Suns that landed on Earth.

I have to pass between Grayson and Knox, and I half expect them to reach for me. To rip me apart with their bare hands. They look capable of it.

I make it to my dad, who’s still slumped against the wall.

I take his hand. It feels cool to the touch. God, did they hurt him? Of course they did. But it could be worse.

“Daddy,” I whisper.

“Princess, I’m sorry. So sorry. I never wanted you to know. You or your mother. Never wanted any of this to touch you.”

“Didn’t mind it touching the rest of us,” Grayson drawls, but I squeeze Daddy’s hand, keeping his attention focused on me. Stone’s giving us this window. We have to do what’s right.

“How did you find out?” I ask, bracing myself.

Even though I’m expecting the answer, it still hurts to hear it. “When it burned down. The fire caught onto the house next door. They told me about the accident—that’s what they called it, an accident.”

Someone snorts from behind me. Probably Grayson.

“Dorman—the late governor—he was involved. Just an executive back then. He said they’d pay me for the loss of the houses, but they’d need some time. I said don’t worry about it, I have insurance. But he said no way, no one goes there.”

There’s a hand on the back of my neck, both exerting pressure and providing comfort. I know exactly who it is, even without looking. Know by the sense of rightness that slides through my body.

“What happened next?” Stone asks.

“I was curious.” Dad looks away, and it takes me a second to recognize his expression. I’ve never seen it on his face before. Embarrassment. “I should have been curious sooner. I know that now. But they were important men. Pillars of the community…I never imagined…” He coughs, wipes his mouth. “I drove down myself one night, expecting some kind of gambling ring. Maybe a full-service massage parlor.”

“You weren’t wrong,” Knox mutters, cutting. That blade, it’s sharp on both ends, and I see my father flinch. I see something dark flicker in Stone’s eyes.

“Keep going,” I murmur, helping Daddy sit up a little.

“I thought, the fire must not be that bad if they wanted to keep things running. But the place was abandoned. And really just ruined. The fire had burned through that old structure. It would be a teardown, if anyone ever bothered, but I knew they wouldn’t. As soon as I went downstairs, I knew.”

“How did you know?” Stone asks in this hard voice that doesn’t imply curiosity. It’s the leading kind of question that says he already knows the answers.

My dad’s silent a moment, and I have the feeling he’s far away, seeing it for the first time again. Experiencing it all over again. “My family owned a farm,” he says finally, looking at me. “You know that, right? It was my grandfather who started it, when he came here from Poland.”

“You don’t talk about it much,” I say softly. It’s part of our family history that doesn’t fit into the society pages. That doesn’t fit into my mother’s story about our lives.

“We kept cattle, you know. That was the primary source of income, but my dad, he had a thing for horses. Not the regular kind, for riding or for work. He liked the wild ones. The ones who weren’t quite broken. The ones who hadn’t been trained right.”

“Where is this going?” Grayson demands.

I hold up my hand. “Let him finish.”

And somehow they listen to me.

“But there was this one horse. Domino. That was his name. It was more than bad training. He’d been abused. He had marks all over his hide. He was beyond saving, you know?”

“I hope this isn’t going where I think it is,” Knox mutters.

Abby is the one who steps forward. “Stone asked him a question. He’s answering it.”

“No one could go in the stall,” Daddy said, shaking his head. “I still have this scar on my shoulder from the last time I tried to go in and muck it out. And my father wouldn’t put him down. We ended up just throwing feed over the gate. It was terrible. The smell. I’ll never forget the smell. When you even got close, you could smell what happens when an animal is left to rot. That’s what the basement smelled like. Even over the ashes and cinder, I could smell it. And I knew something horrible had happened there.”

A growl from Stone. “And then you turned yourself in to the police, I’m sure.”

“No,” Daddy says, sounding half repentant, half defiant. “What good would it have done? There wasn’t anyone left in that basement. Everyone dead. Evidence burned. You can’t arrest somebody because of a smell. And Brooke was a baby, her mother still in the hospital from complications. I had to do what was right for the family.”

“And fuck everyone else,” Grayson says, sounding more resigned than angry now.

“I talked to Dorman,” Daddy says with an uneven laugh. Then he winces, those injuries they gave him running deep. “I told him I wouldn’t be part of anything like that again. He told me I was imagining things, that it was a massage business with a little extra. I think he knew I didn’t buy it.”

I shake my head, more heartbroken than I want to admit. Even though I’d suspected Daddy, there was still a part of me that wanted him to be absolved completely. “Then why did he come to my sweet sixteen?”

“Because he was the governor by then,” Daddy says, sounding tired. He closes his eyes, pale.

And because my mother wanted a new wing on the house. “Did Mom know?”

He meets my gaze, mournful. “It would kill her.”

It’s at least some relief to realize one of my parents has their hands clean. “Stone thinks there are boys being held right now. Today. Do you know where they could be?”

“I never did a deal with the governor after that.”

Stone swears behind me. In a perverse way, my father’s attempt to do the right thing has made this harder.

“Any kind of clue can help, Daddy. This is important.”

He looks up at the ceiling with its spider web of cracks, its missing pieces.

Does he feel the angry eyes on him? Does he feel the pent-up rage in the room? I do.

“I never did that, where I kept a house empty for him. But I did construction work for him. Legit work. I made sure to check out every property he dealt with me on, and he knew that I did. Mostly commercial stuff.”

Dad clears his throat. Impatience wells up in the room.

“There was this one project he really wanted me in on,” he continues, “but something didn’t feel right. He had these contracts with businesses who were going to rent storefronts in this old strip mall, but I knew the area was suffering. I’m thinking, who’s paying this much for class C property? So I run some inquiries about the businesses.”

“They’re fronts?” Stone grits out. He’s keeping himself locked tight—for me. It’s costing him—I can tell. He has a lot of rage that needs to blast out of him.

All the guys do.

“Yes, they exist on paper, but there’s no people. Only this umbrella corporation. An LLC with another LLC on top of them. Layers on layers. I told the governor we were too booked to take the job, even though we were struggling.”

Part of me is proud that Daddy made the right choice, refusing work when it seemed shady. Then again, the right thing to do would have been to turn in the governor years ago, to alert the police to that basement. In Stone’s book that would make him guilty. Just as guilty as the men who hurt him.

Daddy looks at me, his eyes haunted. “The last umbrella I found? Good Shepherd, Inc.”

I suck in a breath, because I know who that is. “Uncle Bill?” I say.

My father nods grimly.

“An uncle?” Stone barks.

“Family friend,” Dad says. “That pregnant woman story was bullshit, but your mother overheard us using those names, and Bill thought it up.”

No wonder he hated Mom repeating it. A perverse and twisted version of the original one.

Stone grunts. “Bottom line, you didn’t cut off contact with all the bad guys.”

A few of the men exchange looks. The air seems to quiver with barely restrained violence. That beating was just the start. But they’re willing to follow Stone.

For now.

“I was pretty sure Bill didn’t know,” my father continues. “I couldn’t imagine he did. And at the time, he was going for the judgeship. I warned him off Dorman, but I didn’t tell him what I suspected. Knowing about the crime, whatever it was, would’ve made him an accomplice after the fact. I didn’t want to do that to him.”

Grayson growls, a dog, ready to attack. “Judge William Fossey?”

Dad nods, his expression grave.

“Uncle Bill,” Stone spits, angry. “He fucking ran that whole operation. Didn’t you know?”

“No,” Dad says.

“God!” Stone’s enraged. He has every right to be. They suffered down there thanks to powerful men giving each other the benefit of the doubt. “He was the puppet master. We never saw him, but he destroyed our fucking lives.”

“I’m sorry,” Dad says, and it sounds like he means it. I also know how little that helps these men who suffered in the basement. This is what they’re fighting. Not only the evil that kidnaps them, that uses them, but the silent danger of men who look the other way.

“Too little, too late,” Cruz snarls, fists balled. He’s a hurricane, trapped in a bottle, his tattoos like a warning sign. “Let’s have that address.”

“Wait,” my father says. “I didn’t help you then, but let me help you now. If I give you that address and you storm that place, these guys who did this to you will go free. I could even see them finding a way to implicate you. But if I go to Bill Fossey and his cronies wearing a wire, warn them about you guys or something, get them to talk, that’s the one thing that can’t be explained away.”

I watch Stone’s eyes, the hard line of his lips. He gave up his bloodbath. He gave up instant vengeance for him and his guys. Instant freedom for the boys. But this is something, right? A way to get proof.

The guys are exchanging glances, seeming to communicate with just that. I suppose being trapped together for years will give you that.

Do they realize what my father is giving up? If he turns on his own kind, his livelihood is gone. It’s not much compared to what Stone and his guys lost, of course. But it’s a sacrifice from a man who’s poured everything into his work.

“How do you know that’ll even work?” Stone asks. “The man’s a judge. A friend and ally to every officer on the FCPD. You think they’ll want to bring him down?”

“The honest ones will,” Dad says. “Rivera will.”

“How do we know Rivera’s honest?”

Dad watches him, eyes bleak. “You’ve got to give me some credit here…” He trails off. “I’m more careful now. You’re gonna have to trust me. And…they’re children.”

Stone stills, seems to contain himself with great effort.

He and his guys were children, too.

Everyone watches him.

Stone turns his gaze to me. It’s a silent question—do I believe my father? Do I think Rivera’s one of the good guys? I told him he has to trust somebody sometime. He’s trusting me.

“I think Rivera’s a good cop,” I say. “He’ll want to do the right thing.”

Stone’s still not convinced. “So what? We wait for you to meet with these assholes? For Rivera to get a search warrant? And who does he get it from? One of Fossey’s bench buddies?”

“You want them put away?” my dad asks. “This is how it happens.”

“I don’t like those boys in there one second longer than they have to be,” Knox growls. “You seriously considering leaving it up to rich white guys to punish each other?”

Stone looks around at the guys. “How many people went through that place when we were there? Hundreds?”

I feel sick. I can’t look at my father now. I won’t.

Stone’s next words are low and hard. “We could get them all. All their names. All the names of the men visiting that strip mall. So they can’t victimize anyone again.”

My heart swells. Justice instead of vengeance. Preventing future crimes instead of retaliating. It feels huge.

“What about when Fossey makes his plea bargain?” Grayson barks. “What if he gets away with it? What if he builds up a new fucking organization and does it again?”

“We’ll kill him ourselves, then,” Stone says. Like that’s obvious. “Slow.”

Okay, but it’s still a step. A big one.

Knox doesn’t look convinced. “What did the system ever do for us?”

“Nothing,” Stone says, getting in his face. “Will a killing spree fix it?”

Knox looks away.

“We could bring down half of the city,” Abby says. “Half the elites, anyway. I agree. This is important. This is better.”

Better than killing my father. Better than vengeance.

There’s a tense silence. Knox is the first to nod.

Cruz nods. The others agree in grunts and head gestures.

Stone goes over and nudges my father with his foot. “The address.”

“No reason you can’t get something for yourselves,” my dad says. “I understand you’re all in some degree of trouble.” He’s looking at Stone and Grayson, but it’s all of them. He must know that. “I want to see you get some kind of immunity for helping to put these guys away. I’ll go to bat for you. Rivera, too.”

They just stare at him, wary. Has anybody ever gone to bat for them?

“The address,” Stone says. “Give it up. Now.”

Dad doesn’t have the address memorized, but he gives Stone the name and the cross streets.

Stone sends Grayson and a few other guys to watch it, to make sure the boys don’t get moved. “And you see anyone driving up to visit? You got my permission to abduct them and beat the shit out of them. Just don’t tip anyone off. Good chance to practice those stealth skills.”

The guys move out.

He makes my father call Rivera after that—on speaker—to set up a meet. Dad insists they meet tonight. As soon as possible.

Tonight. It seems like forever since I got that text message in class, but it’s only just past dinnertime.

Mom’ll be there, waiting, probably sitting alone at the dining room table. It’ll be perfectly set, salad forks exactly one-eighth of an inch to the left of the dinner forks. The roast in a covered pan, ready for serving on the elaborately carved warmer that I bought her last Christmas.

The salad will be tossed, a bright green against the festive blue tablecloth she bought in town. She’ll be wondering where we are, why we’re not answering our phones. Staring at hers. Worried out of her mind.

I swallow hard. What will she do when she learns the truth about Innkeeper?

Rivera agrees to a meet at the Old Steer Steakhouse.

Stone orders the blond—Calder—to go along with Dad. Apparently Calder isn’t known to the authorities like the rest of Stone’s guys are. Calder grabs my father’s arm and practically drags my father out, allowing him to slow just long enough to give me one last backward glance. Grief. Worry.

“I’ll be fine,” I say.

“Get him the fuck out,” Stone grates.

They disappear, leaving the two of us alone.

Without warning, Stone spins around and punches the wall.

I jolt to attention. The speed and violence of the act shocks me. Was that what he was bottling up? Is that what he had in store for my father?

Dust suffuses the air. When it clears, there are exposed beams where drywall had been.

He stares at the ruined wall, trembling with fury, not looking at me. “I wanted to kill him,” he whispers.

The barely leashed violence. Both power and terrible pain.

“But you didn’t kill him.”

He says nothing. I can’t see his face, but I feel him like I never felt anybody. I go to him. I wrap my arms around him from the back and hold him.

His breath is ragged, and I think I’ve never met anybody stronger. This beautiful, brave, desperately wounded man struggling to do the right thing—and succeeding.

Men with every opportunity in the world did the wrong things to him over and over. Men who should have been helping a kid like him.

And here, he did the right thing.

Putting this situation in the hands of the law. More or less. My heart swells with so much love, I don’t think my body can contain it.