Chapter 38
RYKER
I forced the words back down. Whoever was behind fucking with my little fox had just made themselves my next victim, and there would be hell to pay.
“The only thing I can think is that someone wanted to take you.” The words tasted like gravel.
“This has to stop. We need to find out who’s behind this.
What they know about Nate, and how much.
” Even I wasn’t enough of an asshole to finish that thought out loud.
Saying dead or alive wouldn’t do Sloane any good.
“The night before he disappeared …” She sipped the shot of whiskey. “It wasn’t supposed to be a fight. Not at first.”
Her gaze drifted past me, toward the dark windows.
“Nate used to live with me.” She said it almost as if she had to set the truth on the table.
“After we aged out, it was easier that way. We were… we were all we had. Our parents died when we were little. Foster care didn’t exactly teach us stability.
” Her hands balled into fists. “For a while it was my house and his room and our routine. It made me think I had him contained. Safe.”
I didn’t correct her. You don’t tell someone like Sloane that safety is a myth when she has already learned it the hard way.
“He showed up late,” she went on. “Later than normal. I heard his truck before I saw him. The way he parked. Crooked. Rushed.”
She paused, eyes narrowing like she was replaying the scene frame by frame.
Everything inside me wanted to pull her into my lap and lock the world out. But she wasn’t asking for comfort. So, I stayed still and let her speak.
“When I opened the door, I knew something was wrong right away. He tried to act normal, but his hands were shaking when he took his jacket off. His knuckles were scraped up. Not bleeding, but fresh enough I noticed. And he smelled … off. I asked him where he’d been, and he told me work.”
The word came out with contempt.
“And you didn’t buy it?”
“No. Nate didn’t have a job that kept him out past midnight. He never wore that jacket. And he didn’t look over his shoulder every time a car went by, not until that night.”
She gritted her teeth and kept going.
“I pushed. He dodged my questions, and I pushed harder. He got defensive. That part was new. Nate could be stubborn, but he didn’t snap at me. Not until that night.”
Her voice roughened. “He said, ‘Drop it, Slo.’ Like I was a stranger.”
I resisted putting my hand on her thigh to comfort her. “What did you say?”
She huffed out a breath. “I told him he didn’t get to come into my house and lie to my face. I told him I wasn’t going to pretend I didn’t see the signs.”
Sloane looked at me, then away again. “Then I threatened him.”
My shoulders went rigid, but I kept my voice steady. “With what?”
“With consequences. With the people who could make his life worse.” She pushed the words out like they were hooked into her.
“Nate had been in trouble before. Nothing huge, but enough to put him on a short leash. Community service. Check-ins. One wrong move and it wasn’t a warning anymore, it was jail.”
“A probation officer?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yeah. He got caught shoplifting food and cold medicine.”
The way she said it told me she’d hated that leash as much as he probably had.
“I told him if he didn’t tell me the truth, I’d call,” she said. “I said I’d call his probation officer.”
Her fingers tightened around the glass in her hand, but she didn’t drink. It was something to hold so she didn’t shake apart. “I said I’d tell them he was spiraling. That he was lying. That he might be involved in something he shouldn’t be.”
Her voice broke on the edge of it. “I told myself I was trying to save him.”
I let a beat pass. Then I asked the one question that mattered. “What did he do?”
“He went still,” she whispered. “Completely still. Then he looked at me and said, ‘You’d do that to me?’” Sloane blinked hard, her eyes glossy. “And I didn’t stop.”
My jaw clenched. Not at her. At the picture forming.
“I told him if he walked out, I would make the calls … All of them.”
Her breath hitched. “He said my name as if I’d really hurt him.”
I didn’t move. I didn’t give her an opportunity to stop talking.
“He tried to leave,” she said. “He went to the door. I followed him and grabbed his arm. Not hard, but enough to stop him. I told him he didn’t get to run from me.”
Her mouth trembled. “He looked at me and said, ‘You’re going to get me killed.’”
The room went colder.
Sloane stared straight ahead, as if one glance in my direction might make her fall apart.
“Then,” she said, her voice barely there, “I said the thing I can’t take back.” She swallowed. “I told him, if he left that he couldn’t come home that night.”
The words landed and stayed. I wanted to scoop her into my lap and never let her go, but I was afraid if I said anything or touched her, she’d break.
“It was a bluff,” she added quickly. “It was me trying to control the situation. I thought he’d cool off and come back. I thought he’d text me in an hour and act like nothing happened.”
Her shoulders sagged. “But I said it anyway.” She sniffled and wiped her nose with her shirt sleeve. “He stepped out,” she whispered. “And I locked the door.”
She glanced at me, with so much pain in her expression. “He knocked. Once. Not pounding. Not angry. Just … one knock.”
She pressed her hand to her sternum like it hurt to breathe. “I didn’t answer.”
Silence filled the room. Heavy. Unforgiving.
“Why?” I asked, because she needed to say it out loud.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Because if I opened it, I had to admit I was scared. I had to admit I was wrong. And I was so tired of being the only one holding the line.”
She opened them again, as if furious with herself for crying. “I stood two feet from the door and listened to him on the other side. He said my name. Not loud. Not angry.”
Her voice broke. “He said, ‘Slo… if I leave right now, you can’t come after me.’” She briefly looked away. “And I still didn’t open the door.”
“You locked a door,” I said quietly. “That doesn’t make a person disappear.”
Sloane shook her head. “But what if he left angry? What if he went somewhere he shouldn’t have because he was upset?”
“What if someone was waiting for him anyway?” I pointed out.
She flinched.
“What if he came home first because he knew something was closing in?” I continued. “What if he was trying to keep you out of it, and he didn’t know how to tell you without dragging you into the same fire?”
Sloane’s attention stayed on me. “You think he was trying to protect me?”
“I think it’s a real possibility,” I said. “And I think someone used that. Used his fear. Used your leverage. Used the pressure points you didn’t even know you had.”
The guilt didn’t leave her face, but something else slid in beside it. Anger. Focus.
I shifted on the couch, turning fully toward her, and kept my hand steady on her knee. Firm. Anchoring.
“I need every detail,” I said. “Times. Words. The smell. The jacket. Any names he said. Anything you’ve tried to bury because it hurts too fucking bad.”
She looked away, then nodded.
“I can do that,” she whispered.
“Good.”
Because now I wasn’t hearing a story about a tragic fight between siblings. I was seeing a night that had been shaped. Nudged. Pressured into a breaking point. Whoever had put their hands on that night was going to learn what happened when they reached for something that was mine.