Chapter 32 Kip
KIP
My stomach twisted into knots as I paced the small room, staring at my phone and willing Holland to message me back.
“Where are you?” I muttered.
A sudden unease coasted over me as images of Draco getting his hands on her entered my mind.
We hadn’t heard from him in a week, but I knew he was watching her, planning.
She was armed and could certainly defend herself.
I saw it myself when Cooper was attacking her.
She was smart. Calculated. Even so, I needed to know that she was safe. See it for myself.
“I need to go check on Holland. She hasn’t messaged me back, which is weird.” I took a minute to fill them in on Holland’s captivity, Draco, and Dominic.
“I’m surprised you left her at all with this asshole Draco after her,” Death said, frowning.
“She needed some time after I attacked her. Hell, I don’t trust myself at the moment, so I agreed.” I second-guessed myself for allowing her space when that sick fuck was still on the loose. I needed to take care of him once and for all. Holland didn’t deserve to be hunted by the motherfucker.
The phone screen glowed in my palm, the faint buzz of the call going to voicemail for the fifth time.
Why wasn’t she answering? She knew how important it was to stay in touch with Draco still running loose.
We’d been messaging over the last few days even though she was taking a break.
It hadn't been long enough since I’d tried to contact her to dive into a full-blown panic, but I had a gut feeling that something was off.
Anxiety twisted in my stomach as I tried to process the information we had.
Was I trying to save the girl I'd fallen in love with or … my sister?
I clenched my jaw, lowering my cell slowly, trying not to crush the thing.
Dope leaned back in his gaming chair, legs splayed out, lazily spinning a flash drive between his fingers. “Maybe she just needs a minute, man.”
Death, on the other hand, didn’t look so convinced. He stood against the wall, arms folded, his sharp eyes on me like he was watching a grenade without the pin.
“She’s smart,” Death said carefully. “But she’s alone. You sure you want to give her space right now?”
Shaking, I paced the edge of the room. The monitors behind Dope flickered, code scrolling, the dark web threads still half-lit on one screen. Holland’s picture was frozen on another of her younger, thinner, her hair tangled, expression wild.
“I shouldn’t have left her,” I ground out. “Fuck, I shouldn’t have—”
“She asked for it,” Dope cut in gently. “You said she needed time.”
“Yeah, well, maybe she shouldn’t have fucking trusted me with that choice.”
I stopped, pressing a fist hard against the wall, teeth bared, trying to breathe through the white-hot panic blistering in my chest. The room was suddenly too small, too loud, and too quiet all at once.
“She’s just …” I blew out a heavy sigh and rubbed my aching forehead. She’s the only thing holding me together.
“Where would she go?” Death asked. His tone was careful now, grounding, like he was trying to keep me tethered to the floor. “You know her better than anyone. Where could she be?”
I blinked hard, a pulse of heat flashing through my head. And just like that, the wrong memory slammed through me. Not now. Not now. But it came anyway.
Flash —
A red-haired girl, crying in the dark.
Hands holding me down.
Words as soft as a hymn: “Some sins are born in the blood.”
I staggered, my palm dragging down the wall, and my throat tight.
Death was in front of me in a blink, gripping my shoulder. “Kip.”
“I’m fine,” I said between gritted teeth.
“You’re not,” he said calmly. “And if she’s out there, we need you sharp, not spiraling.”
The faintest thread of vanilla drifted through the air—soap, clean skin, sunlight on bare shoulders—Holland, or the memory of her, or maybe I was fucking losing it.
Dope stood slowly, clicking his tongue. “Man, you’re half in love and half in a psychotic break. We need to lock this shit down.”
I pushed off the wall, dragging a shaking hand over my mouth.
“I need to find her,” I said hoarsely. “Before this gets worse.”
Dope focused on his keyboard. “Sit down, asshole. Let’s figure out where she went before you break your own goddamn skull.”
Death squeezed my shoulder once before letting go.
And for a moment, just a moment, I thought I heard her voice inside my head, soft, trembling: “You’re not a monster.”
Dope’s fingers flew over the keyboard, the dim light from the monitors throwing green and gold across his face. His jaw worked from side to side, tongue poking his cheek in concentration.
“Hold up,” he muttered. “I’m scraping the old directories on this computer while I’m looking for the location of Holland’s phone.”
Death dropped onto the couch beside me, elbows on his knees, watching me from the corner of his vision. “Take a minute,” he said quietly.
I dragged in a sharp inhale, chest tight, fists clenched on my knees. My whole body itched to move—to run, to drive, to hunt—but the rational part of me, the part that still gave a shit, stayed rooted. For now.
Dope let out a low whistle, his attention traveling across the screen. “Holy shit. You remember those old chat logs we pulled from the threads a few minutes ago?”
I looked up sharply. “Yeah. Why?”
“Guess whose IP is stamped all over the admin files?” Dope smirked, sharp and humorless. “Dear old Lily.”
A crack split down the center of my skull, or maybe it was inside. “My mother?”
“She wasn’t just playing sidekick, man. She was fucking running the whole goddamn thing. I’ve got timestamps, login credentials, payments—she built the damn house.”
He turned the monitor toward me, his jaw tight, his expression dark. “And I’ve got archived message threads. Look.”
My gaze snapped to the screen. I froze.
There, pixelated, timestamped, and undeniable was a photo. Red hair. A kid’s face, wide and terrified, tied to a chair. Shadows loomed behind her. A man’s hand on her shoulder. My mother negotiated Holland’s sale in the thread. The Pied Piper’s signature approved the sale.
“Jesus Christ,” Death muttered, rising beside me. His features were carved in stone. “Your mother didn’t only take Holland—she was running the fucking show.”
I stumbled back, hitting the wall, my breath ripping out of me. My fingers dug into the drywall, scraping like I could peel the world open and find a version that didn’t end with this.
“All of the flashbacks, I knew my mother was involved, but I wasn’t sure how much.
I thought she tried to save Holland, but I’m all fucked up.
I—” My shoulders slumped in defeat. “How could I ever come back from that? She’ll never forgive my family for the part they played.
She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved, and I’m going to lose her either way because of what my family did, or worse, she’s my fucking sister. ”
Death rocked back on his heels. “But do you love her enough to survive this?”
My head whipped up, vision burning. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means,” Death said softly, “you better know whether you’re saving her … or saving yourself.”
The room blurred.
Dope’s voice was a low hum, Death’s a sharp echo, the computer screens a pulsing glow I couldn’t focus on.
Blood. Family. Holland.
The words cracked through my skull, sharp as a bone splinter. My fists slammed into the wall, once, twice, three times, the pain a jagged thread barely holding me together.
“Goddammit,” I choked out. “She can’t be—”
Dope spun in his chair, exasperated. “Kip, man, slow the fuck down.”
“I’m past slowing down,” I snarled.
Death stepped forward, gripping my shoulders hard enough to make my teeth clack. “Focus. Where would she go now?”
I staggered back, chest heaving, head swimming.
Dope frowned at the screen. “Her phone last pinged over near Cottage Grove.”
My gut twisted as bile scorched my throat.
“She wanted answers. I know her. She wanted to confront this.”
Death’s gaze landed on mine, sharp, assessing. “And she went to Lily.”
Tension snaked through my shoulders and neck. “Fuck.”
Dope clicked again and he released a low whistle. “Hold up. Her car’s moving, man. She’s on the highway. Looks like she’s headed back to Portland.”
For a heartbeat, I stood there, pulse pounding, air slicing in and out of my lungs like a knife.
Relief hit me hard.
But tangled in it was something darker, sharper—panic.
She went to my mother. She went alone.
And now she was coming home, raw and rattled, and I wasn’t there to hold her, to steady her, to explain all the things I didn’t even understand myself.
My jaw clenched, my chest heaving now that she was okay.
I needed to be at her place when she got there. I needed to see her. I needed to make this right before it all slipped through my fucking hands. Even if she was my sister, she deserved to have support through this.
“I’m going,” I said, already shoving my arms into my jacket and then grabbing my car keys out of the front pocket of my jeans.
Dope rose halfway from his chair. “Kip, man, wait.”
“I can’t wait.”
“And Kip?” Death’s words caught me, quiet, steel-edged.
I turned, breathless, wired, raw.
“Keep it fucking together.”
A hollow laugh punched out of me. “No promises.”
The cool air hit like a slap as I stumbled into the night, the streetlights gleaming off wet pavement. My fingers trembled as I unlocked the car, jaw clenched so tight it felt like my teeth might break.
She can’t be mine. She’s mine. She’s the love of my life … fucking hell, what if we’re related?
The thoughts tore me apart, again and again, as I slammed the door and twisted the ignition.
The engine roared to life, and I wrapped my hand around my necklace, the cross biting into my palm.
If she’s breaking, I’ll hold her. If she’s running, I’ll catch her. If I lose her, I’ll burn this world to the ground.
Tires screeched as I tore out of the driveway, the city lights smearing past in a blur of red and gold. My heart was a war drum in my chest.
And under it all, a whisper I couldn’t shake, an old, rotted voice I would never outrun telling me this was all my fault.
“You’re not a monster.” Desperation clung to the words I spoke out loud.
But God help me, I was.
And I was coming home to her.