Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Demi
Grief was a strange thing.
Some nights it sat on my chest, trying to suffocate while whispering in my ear to just give up. To stop digging. To let Tyler rest.
Other nights, it was gasoline poured on a fire I couldn’t put out. My head spun with unanswered questions, and my body ached from the need to do something.
Tonight was one of those nights.
The glow of my laptop lit up my living room.
The blue light stained the walls while I scrolled through the same folder of documents I’d opened a hundred times.
Tyler’s phone records. Bank statements. Police reports.
The coroner’s cold language that described my brother like he was just another case file. Just another body on a slab.
I hated those words. “Stab wound.” “Blunt force trauma.” “Time of death.”
They didn’t say he loved strawberry milkshakes. He laughed like it was contagious. That he used to sneak into my room when I had nightmares and tell me the monsters couldn’t get me because he’d already fought them all off.
The cops reduced my brother to just words.
But I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
The cursor blinked on the screen and taunted me. I dug deeper. I had become an expert at finding anything I wanted on the dark web. I flipped through old notes I’d scribbled in a rush—coffee-stained and frayed around the edges. Most of it was guesswork and dead ends, but one page caught my eye.
A list of numbers I’d pulled from his last month of phone calls.
I’d highlighted the last call. The one to a number linked to someone in the Broken Sons, but tonight my eyes snagged on something different. A number he’d called twice in the week before his death. Not the last call, but close.
And one I hadn’t noticed that I figured out belonged to a burner phone after doing a few deep dives.
My stomach flipped.
Burners weren’t random. Burners meant someone was hiding. And if Tyler had been calling that number, maybe he’d been onto something bigger than I realized.
I pulled up a search window, and my fingers flew across the keys. It took hours of digging, cross-referencing, and pure stubbornness, but eventually I found a match. The burner was tied to a prepaid card, purchased at a gas station not far from the Sons’ territory.
My pulse kicked hard when I saw the address.
That gas station sat one block over from the warehouse where Tyler worked before he died.
I’d driven past it a hundred times and tried to pretend the building didn’t make my skin crawl.
Now I knew why—it wasn’t just a job site. It was part of the Sons’ world.
It wasn’t proof, not yet. But it was a thread. And if I pulled hard enough, maybe it’d unravel the whole thing.
I sat back and rubbed my eyes. It was nearly three a.m. and my body buzzed with exhaustion and adrenaline.
All roads still pointed to the Broken Sons.
And one name kept circling back in my head.
Werewolf.
I thought about the way he’d looked at me. Pinned me against the wall like he could crush me with a twitch of his hand. His eyes had been cold, but not empty. No, behind that steel was something else, something I couldn’t name.
Regret. Conflict. Maybe even guilt.
He knew. I was sure of it now.
And I wasn’t going to stop until I made him tell me.
-
The next morning, I tried to act normal.
I went to work at the coffee shop down the street, poured lattes, and smiled at regulars. Pretended I was just another girl with just another life.
But every time I rang up an order, I saw Tyler’s face. Every time the bell over the door jingled, I looked up expecting him to walk in, a grin on his face, and tease me for the apron tied around my waist.
And every time he didn’t, the hollow ache in my chest deepened.
By lunch, my manager told me to take a break because I was dropping cups and forgetting orders.
“Demi,” she said gently, “maybe you should take a few days off.”
I nodded and pretended it was about the lack of sleep, not the fact that I had stayed up plotting how to corner a biker twice my size and demand answers about my brother’s death.
On my break, I sat in the alley behind the shop, phone pressed to my ear as I called my mom.
She picked up after two rings, voice warm but tired. “Hey, honey.”
I swallowed. “Hey, Mom. How are you?”
“Good. Busy.” A pause. “Are you okay? You sound… off.”
I almost lied. Almost told her I was fine. But the words tangled in my throat. “I’ve been… looking into Tyler again,” I admitted.
The silence on the line stretched so long I thought the call had dropped.
Finally, she sighed. “Demi.”
“I can’t stop, Mom. I know the cops said it was random, but it wasn’t. I can feel it. He didn’t just die; he was killed. And someone out there knows why.”
Her voice cracked. “Baby, I miss him too. Every day. But chasing this… it won’t bring him back.”
Tears burned hot at the back of my eyes. “And doing nothing doesn’t make me feel better.”
Another long pause. “Just… be careful. Please. I already lost one child. I can’t lose you too.”
I hung up before she could hear me cry.
By the time my shift ended, I’d made up my mind.
I wasn’t waiting around for Werewolf to come to me.
I was going to him.
The sun dipped low by the time I reached the garage again. I lingered across the street with my heart pounding as I watched men in cuts come and go. My palms were slick against the strap of my bag, but I forced myself to breathe.
Then I saw him.
Werewolf, bent over a bike as he worked. Grease streaked his skin, and the tattoos on his arms flexed with each turn of the wrench.
I swallowed hard. He was terrifying, dangerous, and everything I should’ve run from.
And I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
I crossed the street before I could second-guess myself. My boots crunched on gravel and drew his attention instantly. His head lifted, and those cold eyes locked on mine.
He wiped his hands on a rag and stood to his full height. The room seemed smaller when he did.
“You don’t quit,” he said, voice low.
“No.” I pulled the printouts from my bag, and held them out. My hands shook, but my voice didn’t. “Tyler was calling this number before he died. It’s tied to someone in your world. I want to know who.”
His gaze flicked to the papers, then back to me.
Something shifted in his face. Barely there, but I saw it.
Recognition.
Guilt.
Anger.
“Where’d you get this?” His voice was sharp enough to cut.
“I dug. And I’ll keep digging.”
We stared at each other, and the air between us charged like a storm about to break.
He stepped closer, so close the papers crinkled between us. His voice dropped, barely more than a growl. “You’re going to get yourself killed, Demi.”
“Then help me.” The words tumbled out before I could stop them. Pleading, desperate, raw.
For the first time, his mask cracked. His jaw clenched, his eyes burned, and I knew he was fighting himself. Fighting me.
But I also knew this was it. The moment.
I’d forced my way into his world, and now he had to decide if he was going to throw me out or let me stay.
And as his gaze lingered on mine, I realized something terrifying.
Part of me didn’t care which he chose.
Because either way, I wasn’t walking away.