Chapter 13
thirteen
The Hub was his island, his bunker, his sanctuary. The one place he could drop all his walls and just… exist.
But tonight, it felt more like another prison.
Ghost closed the door behind him, locked it, then set his phone on the battered metal desk with a click.
The whole place vibrated with a low hum—the cooling fans on the server rack, the faint tick of the wall clock.
He didn’t bother turning on the lights. He just stood in the blue-gray gloom cast by his computer screens, breath raw in his throat, pulse thumping a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
Cinder settled on the floor by the entry, dropped her chin to her paws, and fixed him with that watchful, waiting stare. He should’ve felt comforted by her presence, the quiet intensity of her loyalty.
But all he felt was a strange panic crawling up his spine, digging in with icy claws.
He braced his hands on the edge of his desk, letting his head hang low, and squeezed his eyes shut.
What the fuck was wrong with him? Eight years locked up had sandblasted his nerves until nothing stuck, or so he’d thought. So why couldn’t he seem to draw in a full breath?
It. Was. Just. A. Fucking. Mug.
Behind him, Cinder let out a low grumble seconds the knock came. It wasn’t hard or urgent. Just a steady tap-tap-tap, like the guy on the other side could wait until the end of time if that’s what it took. Probably Jonah. Or Jax. Maybe Boone. Hopefully not Walker.
He didn’t answer.
Another knock.
“Ghost. You in there?”
Jax. Of course.
He considered not answering at all. Maybe if he ghosted out hard enough, Jax would get the message and go away. But the guy was stubborn—the more you tried to evade, the more Jax dug in.
He stalked to the door, yanked it open just far enough to scowl through the crack. “What?”
Jax stood on the porch, hands in the pockets of his canvas jacket. He must have taken Oliver home before coming over, since the kid was nowhere to be seen, but Echo hovered two steps behind, eyes on Cinder, tail wagging softly.
He thought he felt the swish of Cinder’s tail against the back of his leg, but when he glanced down at her, she was as stoic as ever.
“You good?” Jax asked.
“Fine.”
The furrow that appeared between Jax’s brows said he didn’t buy it. “You left pretty fast.”
“Had work to do.”
“Uh-huh.” Jax just watched him, gaze steady. “I know that mug meant something to you, man. When I came here, it was one of the first things River told me: don’t touch Ghost’s blue mug.”
“River’s full of shit.”
“Usually.“ Jax let the word hang and took off his cowboy hat, dragging a hand through blond hair that had grown shaggy over the last few months.
He looked back up the road toward the bunkhouse, then sighed and replaced the hat, which was still new enough that the brim was stiff and Ghost could smell the subtle, rich scent of the felt.
“But not this time,” Jax finished. “It sucks, man, but it was a dumb accident. Bear feels like shit—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” The words were like rocks in his throat, scraping all the way up.
Jax’s throat worked like he was swallowing back whatever he’d wanted to say. “Yeah, okay. I get it. I’m just—”
“Standing here and psychoanalyzing me.”
Jax went stone still. For a second, the only sound was the faint chirp of the crickets in the field behind the cluster of cabins.
“Ghost, I’m not trying to—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” He enunciated each word. “And I sure as hell don’t need you showing up to drag me through some feel-good rehab moment. I’m not your next fucking project, and we’re not friends. Go find another broken dog to work with and leave me the fuck alone.”
Behind him, Cinder rumbled softly, eyes locked on Jax, hackles raised, tension running through her legs and tail. He didn’t tell her to back off. He just wanted Jax off his porch, and if the dog’s low growl helped get Jax moving, so be it.
The silence stretched.
“Jesus,” Jax finally said, voice flat. “You are cold motherfucker. Sorry for giving a damn. Won’t make that mistake again.
C’mon, Echo.” He hooked a finger at his dog and turned away.
He didn’t look back as he jogged off the porch and across the road to his and Nessie’s cabin, which glowed warmly in the darkness.
The light in the window flickered, as if someone had moved the curtain—probably Nessie, looking for him.
Ghost slammed the door and twisted the deadbolt. He pressed his forehead to the door, breathing through the leftover anger. It left him fast, adrenaline burning off, nothing but bitter aftertaste pooling in his gut.
He’d won. Mission accomplished. Nobody would dare intrude again anytime soon.
So why did the victory feel so fucking empty?
He paced the room. One circuit. Two. Windows blacked out, monitors blinking security feeds at him in the dark. He sat behind the desk, then stood up again. He checked cameras, cross-referenced overnight logs, recalibrated the sensor grid. Anything to keep his hands busy.
None of it helped.
The feeling grew, spreading from his chest outwards. An itch he couldn’t scratch. The air felt thin, the walls too close. Even the dog seemed restless—Cinder tracked his every movement, never letting him out of her sight, but refusing to approach.
He caught himself staring at the empty spot on the desk where the blue mug used to sit.
Goddamn it.
He tried not to hate himself for lashing out at Jax. Tried and failed.
The man had only been trying to offer support. A lifeline, maybe. And Ghost had burned it on instinct—scorched earth, just like always. Keep them at a distance, before they could get close enough to hurt you.
His chest ached. Not the sharp pain of a fresh cut, but the grinding, dull ache of something old and stubborn.
He sat again, back to the door, and pulled out a battered notepad and wrote out the next six possible steps in the Padilla case.
At some point, Cinder nudged his elbow and made a small sound he’d never heard from her—a whimper, barely audible. He reached to scratch her behind the ears, but his hand trembled. The contact was weirdly grounding, her fur coarse and familiar under his palm.
The quiet was absolute.
Just him, the dog, the whir of the solar inverter and computer fans, and the memory of too many nights spent alone.
Isolation was supposed to be his natural state. The thing that made him efficient, effective—a ghost, untouchable, untraceable, unbreakable.
Except he’d done most of his eight-year stint in solitary. He knew what true loneliness could do to a man. How it clawed at you, hollowed you out until there was nothing left but reflex and hunger.
He’d promised himself, back in that cell, that he’d never let anyone lock him in again. Not physically, not emotionally. Never again.
So why the fuck did he keep building cages around himself?
He looked at the door, the monitor feeds, the blackout curtains. All the work he’d done to make the Hub fortress-level secure. He’d built the perfect prison, all by himself.
And now he was suffocating in it.
Cinder pressed close, leaning into his leg. He didn’t know what this was—she wasn’t normally this needy—but he let his hand rest on her head. It was warm and solid against her side, and for a split second, he allowed himself to lean back.
Maybe he was done here.
Maybe it was time to pull up stakes and vanish again, before the cage closed in for good.
The idea startled him—not because it was new, but because it felt suddenly possible. The urge to run had always been coiled under his skin ever since Boone talked him into staying after he’d tried to leave on his first night at the Ridge.
He’d packed his meager belongings in the dead of night—a duffel with three changes of clothes, a paperback with dog-eared corners, and the fake ID he’d stashed in the lining of his boot.
He’d made it as far as the firepit—the center of everything at Valor Ridge, where strangers slowly turned into brothers—when he heard Boone’s voice.
“Going somewhere, Owen?”
Not much startled him, but that gravelly voice from the darkness had. He swung around to find Boone Callahan in one of the Adirondack chairs around the cold fire pit, his black cowboy hat pulled down low over his eyes like he’d been napping there.
“Not your problem.”
“Actually, it is my problem. You signed on for six months here as a condition of your parole. If you leave, I’m obligated by the state of Montana to report you.
” Boone had still been smoking back then, and Ghost distinctly remembered the lit cigarette glowing red in the dark as he inhaled.
He motioned to one of the empty chairs. “Sit. I have coffee. The good stuff from that new bakery in town.”
Ghost didn’t move. “I’m not on parole.” It was technically true. What he’d had was an arrangement, one brokered by people who owed him and people he owed in turn. “I don’t need to be here.”
Boone shrugged, shoulders rolling beneath his worn flannel shirt. “Maybe not. But Walker thinks you do.”
“Walker doesn’t know me.”
“None of us know you.” Boone dropped the cigarette in the gravel and crushed it under his boot, then reached for a thermos. There were two mugs waiting on the chair’s wide arm, as if Boone had been expecting him. “You don’t let anyone close enough.”
Ghost stared him down, waiting for the threat, the ultimatum—stay or else.
But Boone just poured coffee into a blue mug and held it out. “I’ve been where you are. Looking for the exit before someone locks the door again. I wanted to bail my first week, too. And my second. And pretty much every day until one day, I didn’t.”
“I’m not you.”
“No shit.” Boone’s laugh was rough, like he didn’t use it much. “You’re way more fucked up than I was. And I was a goddamn mess.”