Chapter Thirty-Five
Wyck
The second the truck skids into the drive, all of us spill out like blood from a fresh wound. No words. Just boots pounding pavement, engines still cooling behind us as we storm into the house like a goddamn warfront.
Ryan waits in the foyer, face pale, eyes wide like she’s already seen the Reaper.
“Where is she?” I demand.
“In her room,” she starts, voice tight. “But, Wyck.”
The way she says my name, like it’s fragile, like I’m about to shatter, tells me everything I don’t want to know.
“What is it?” My voice is low, sharp. A blade against the tension.
Ryan drops her head, like the truth’s too heavy to hold. “She won’t wake up.”
“The fuck you mean she won’t wake up?” Dash snaps, jaw ticking.
“She asked to be alone,” Ryan chokes out. “We were right down the hall. Then she screamed, one of those screams that rattles the bones in your body, that makes you run . And by the time we got there… she was just… gone. Breathing, but not there.”
I don’t wait to hear more. I bolt.
Fingers slam the elevator button like I’m trying to punch through steel. The guys and Ryan pile in behind me, the space thick with dread and rage.
That cheerful elevator music kicks in.
“Someone change this shit. It’s depressing,” Ryan mutters, like humor might keep her sane.
“Yeah,” Wells grits. “Top of the priority list.”
Ding.
Doors open. We’re off.
The hallway stretches, an optical illusion straight from a nightmare. No matter how fast I run, the door to our room never seems to get closer. My pulse is in my ears. My girl, my Little Fox, is behind that door. And something’s wrong. Very wrong.
Finally, I reach it.
My hand hovers over the knob. For half a second, I hesitate. Like touching it might make this real.
No time for that shit.
I twist. Push.
Fred’s there, sitting stiff on the edge of the bed. And there she is. Athens. My girl. Still. Too still.
“Has she woken up?” Ryan asks, breath hitching.
Fred just shakes her head. No words. Just a silent, broken no.
“Move,” I growl.
Fred obeys instantly, sliding off the bed. I take Athens into my arms, her skin ice cold, her breath so faint I almost believe she’s already gone.
“Athens… baby,” I whisper, cradling her. “Wake up, Little Fox. Come back to me.”
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t even twitch. But there’s a tear, just one, sliding down from her closed eyes.
Fuck.
“Where the fuck is Karter?” I snarl.
“I’m here.” His voice behind me.
He steps forward, takes her from my arms like she’s porcelain, like she might break into dust. “Listen up, Brat,” he says low. “Wake your ass up or all five of us are taking turns spanking you.”
Still nothing.
Then I see it.
“Hold her head up,” I order.
Karter shifts her, and I brush her hair back, freezing at the sight carved into her skin.
“What the fuck is that?” I growl, leaning in.
“Looks like a name?” Karter mutters, brow tight.
There, just beneath her hairline, scabbed and raw, fresh, Krewe.
My fingers brush it. Wet. Not blood. Not sweat. Something else.
“Krewe,” I say aloud, the word burning on my tongue. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Dash squints. “There’s a parade… Krewe of Krewes. Louisiana. But why the fuck is that carved into her?”
“Did anyone notice this before?” I ask.
Blank stares.
Karter finally says, “She mentioned something about a scratch on her back. Thought it was from Dash sexing her against a tree.”
“Wait, what if it wasn’t a scratch? What if it was the mystery fucker?”
“If that’s true, then why is it wet now? ” I ask, bringing my fingers back to my nose. No iron. No copper tang.
“This isn’t blood,” I say slowly. “It’s something else. ”
“Poison?” Ryan throws out.
My rage boils over. “We need to find that motherfucker right fucking now.”
“You already killed half the damn world tonight,” Onyx reminds me flatly.
“There’s always room for more. FIND HIM!”
Dash and Ryan don’t wait, they’re gone. Karter lowers her gently back onto the bed, brushing hair from her face before turning to Onyx.
“I’ve got a lead,” he says, already halfway to the door.
Wells walks up beside me, leans down and kisses her lips like she’s a relic worth praying to. “Wake up for us, Little Fox.”
Then to me, voice hard, cold, and final: “Let’s go pay our fathers a visit. I want answers. And I don’t give a shit if we have to pull their fucking teeth out to get them.”
“Agreed,” I grit out, pulling out my phone and texting Gage.
Me: Devils on guard duty. No one leaves this room. No one gets in. Fred and Athens stay protected at all costs.
Once the message sends, I glance back, just once. Her body so still. A grave in waiting.
And then I walk out.
To burn down the men who built this war. To avenge the girl too stubborn to die quietly.
Because I’m not losing her.
Not now.
Not ever.
I grip the steering wheel like it’s the only thing keeping me from snapping. My tires scream across the pavement as I rip into my father’s driveway, the sound loud enough to rattle the bones of every bastard inside. Good. Let them know we’re here. Let them feel it.
This isn't a warning. It's a reckoning.
Wells glances over, calm as a corpse. “What’s the plan?”
“There is no plan,” I snarl, teeth bared. “We go in. We tear everything down. We ask questions after the blood stops spilling.”
He smirks. “Anything goes?”
I turn my head slowly, grinning like the devil himself. “Anything fucking goes.”
This should’ve happened years ago. After every broken bone, every scar, every scream buried under a pillow, this is overdue. My father’s gonna feel what it’s like to bleed out on the floor he used to command.
We step out just as my phone lights up. Fred’s name. I nearly throw the damn thing, until I hear the voice that cracks something inside me.
“Wyck?”
Athens.
Fucking Athens .
“Athens?” My tone shifts, sharp to reverent in a blink.
“It’s me,” she breathes. “Where are you?”
“I’m at my father’s. We came for answers.”
Her voice dips into a whisper, soft and hoarse. “I need you.”
Fuck. My eyes shut. Fist clenches. Not now. Not when I’m this close.
“Please, Wyck. I need you.”
I growl low in my throat, teeth grinding. “Fuck! I’m coming, baby. I’m on my way.”
“Hurry,” she whispers before the line goes dead.
Wells sighs. “So… she’s awake, and we’re aborting the mission?”
I look over, jaw tight, hands twitching. “This won’t take long.”
He nods. “In and out. Fast and brutal.”
No masks. No need to hide. My father knows exactly who we are, and I want him to. I want him to be the one to spread the gospel of what’s coming for them. One by one.
“Krewe,” Wells mutters. “You figure out who the fuck that is yet?”
I shake my head. “He’s nobody I know. But he made the mistake of breathing in our girl’s direction. Now he’s got a bounty so high, even God couldn’t afford to save him.”
“Fucking right,” Wells growls as we step to the front entrance.
Two guards stand post. One of them, Carlos, shifts uneasily when he sees us.
“Wyck. Wells. What’s the occasion?”
“Oh, you know.” I shrug. “Family bonding. We’re here to ask my dear old dad a few questions. If he resists…” I step closer, smirk cold and wide, “I’ll rip his fucking throat out. You standing with us? Or dying for him?”
A pause. Just long enough for tension to snap taut.
Then Carlos breathes out slow. “I got a wife. Five kids. I ain’t dying for nobody.” He smiles. “I’m with the Devils.”
Smart man. But his next words gut me.
“You won’t find him inside.”
I step in, voice venom. “Where the fuck is he?”
“Gone. Hasn’t been here in days.”
“What’s your name?” Wells asks.
“Carlos.”
“Well, Carlos, welcome to a real job. First order of business, find out where the fuck my father’s gone. Do not disappoint me.”
He nods, already dialing someone. We move past him, into the house that built me.
It reeks of old power and rotting secrets.
We tear through the place like a storm. Room after room. Empty bottles. Fading photographs. Nothing that screams truth . Nothing that explains the sickness dripping off the name Krewe.
I head straight to the office, the black heart of the house. If my father hid anything, any truth, any sins, this is where they’ll bleed.
We tear the place apart. Wells overturns every drawer. I punch holes in the walls, hoping to hit a hollow echo. Nothing.
Hours pass.
Frustration crawls under my skin like maggots.
Finally, I collapse into his leather chair, exhaling poison. “There’s something we’re missing.”
“This place is a fucking wreck,” Wells mutters. “We’ve torn it limb from limb.”
“I don’t care. There’s something here. I can feel it.”
My leg shifts, bumping into something beneath the desk. My instincts flare. I pause, flashlight on, crouch low.
My fingers brush cold metal.
A fucking safe.
“Bingo,” I growl.
Wells leans over, eyes narrowing. “What do you think’s inside?”
“Only one way to find out.” My hands grip the edges. “And if it’s anything like my father’s lies… it’ll be covered in blood.”
I drag the safe into the light.
Let’s crack this bastard open and see what monsters fall out.
A four-digit code flashes across the cold steel of the safe. Of course he’d protect his secrets behind numbers, my father always did love puzzles soaked in pain.
“You have any idea what the passcode could be?” Wells asks, eyeing the keypad like he’s ready to rip it off the fucking wall.
I stare at it for a moment. My jaw tightens.
“Yeah… I’ve got a guess.”
I punch in the date he sent me away, like I was nothing. Like I was a problem to be discarded.
Click.
The lock surrenders.
“Figures,” I mutter, dead inside. “Even his lies are memorialized.”
Wells lets out a bitter laugh. “What a sick fucking bastard.”
I open it. Piles of cash, forged passports, burner phones, contracts, and files stacked like bones in a crypt. We start digging, page after page, life after life my father touched, twisted, or ruined.
Then I see it.
A file. No markings. Just thick.
I crack it open and everything in me stills.
“Looks like dear old, Daddy isn’t the top dog he thought he was.”