4. Jayson
JAYSON
F uck! Fuck fuck fuckity fuck! If Ghost doesn’t kill me, Mason probably will.
I don’t know how I managed to fuck this up so much, but it’s not like I had any choice.
I wasn’t about to kill the girl, regardless of what she saw.
Despite who her father was. So I took her instead, and now I’m second guessing that decision, because there’s going to be hell to pay once the sun is up and shit gets real.
Ghost did a number on her.
Dude didn’t have to lay a hand on her. He grilled her with that dead-eyed precision he’s perfected. Spoke low, sharp. Sliced her open without raising his voice. Just questions—too many, too fast—and that stare like a scalpel carving through flesh and lies until she broke.
Keira Bishop.
Of course.
The good mayor’s daughter. The golden girl of City Hall. Soft-spoken. Untouchable. The kind of name that headlines would trip over themselves to feature .
She wasn’t supposed to be home. She wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near that house.
She was supposed to be away at university—drinking overpriced coffee, bitching about midterms, living the kind of life people like me don’t have anything to do with.
So what the fuck was she doing there? Why now? Why tonight? It doesn’t add up. None of it does. Her presence raises more questions than it answers.
I drag a hand down my face, the weight of it all settling like lead in my bones. My ribs ache from the tension. My head’s splitting from the possibilities.
She shouldn’t exist in this equation, because she was never meant to be there. But now she’s the variable everything hinges on.
I didn't just take a girl. I took Mayor Bishop’s daughter, for fuck’s sake.
And that means every cop, every suit, every fucking vulture in the city is going to start circling the moment they figure out she’s missing.
Jesus fucking Christ, what have I done?
I drop Ghost off at his place and head to the one place I know I can go and sort my head out. The one place I know it’s safe. The drive takes longer than it should, but it’s so dark and it’s been so long, I took a couple of wrong turns.
The tires crunch over gravel roads swallowed by pine and fog, the car slicing through the damp hush of the forest like a shadow that doesn’t belong.
The girl hasn’t said a word since the door closed behind her.
I don’t blame her. Ghost’s outburst shook her.
It shook me too, though I’d rather chew glass than admit that out loud.
She sits curled against the door, spine pressed tight to the leather, eyes locked on the trees flashing past the window like they might offer her an escape. They won’t. This far out, there are no neighbors. No cell signal. No help. Only the ghosts of bygone eras.
The mansion rises up from the trees like it was carved from the forest itself—gray stone, towering windows, and an iron gate that hasn’t groaned open for me in a decade. But she kept it. My grandmother. She kept it like she kept everything else that belonged to me. Waiting.
I kill the engine. Cold air pours in the second I shove the door open. The girl sits statue-still beside me, hands folded in her lap like a girl waiting for Mass to start. There’s dirt on her sleeve from when she fell to the ground back at her house. I should cuff her before she bolts.
I blink, and the passenger seat is empty.
Shit.
She’s a blur of red flannel and terror, sprinting down the gravel drive. Then she’s gone, swallowed by the black timberland behind the estate.
Ghost was right when he said I screwed this six ways to Sunday.
I jump out of the truck and follow her into the woods. Branches whine, shoes slap mud. Heartbeat thunders in my ears, matching hers, like we’re wired together.
The forest is all knife-edges: scratching briars, jagged trunks, moonlight carving silver bones through the leaves.
The girl crashes into something ahead, loud enough the dead could track her.
What would a girl like her know about running through the woods?
In the dead of night. Where wolves prowl.
It looks she’s never run for her life before, because she aims for distance, not direction.
You can’t lose her, a voice hisses in my head. You lose her, you lose the only thing tethering you to sanity.
I shove faster. Wet earth sucks at my boots. Pine needles spear my jacket. There—movement. She darts left, heading toward the ravine that splits the property.
“She’s going to fall,” I mutter, half-prayer, half-curse. I pick up speed.
She does. A foot catches on a root and her body skids down a slope of mud.
She slides like a stone on greased glass—arms flailing, voice ripping upward in a raw scream.
I leap, grab a branch, swing after her. My boots hit soft ground and slip; I ride the same muddy trail, controlled chaos, palms burning.
She lands hard on her hands and knees at the bottom, hair plastered to her cheeks, breath high and ragged. She tries to stand, but her legs buckle. Yet she still digs her nails into the muck and crawls forward. Tenacious. Stupidly brave.
I sigh as she tries to hobble away, knowing well and true that now I’ll have to carry her sorry ass back to the house.
I reach her in three strides, hook an arm around her waist, and haul her up.
She kicks, twists, spits mud in my face.
One heel catches my shin; pain flares sharp.
I like that. Reminds me that I’m still human.
“Let go!” she snarls, voice wet with terror and rain-slick grit.
“Can’t,” I growl into her ear. “Already did that once. Look what happened.”
She claws for my eyes. I swing her around, pin her back to my chest, forearm across her collarbone. Her small body vibrates with fury—like she’s holding a live wire and she’s about to explode.
That little voice that’s been dormant in my head echos: She’ll be your key or your curse. Maybe both.
Yeah, well, I’m already damned, I snap right back.
The girl fights me. She doesn’t stop, determined to get away, although I don’t know how far she’ll get with that bum leg of hers.
She bucks suddenly, ankles locking around my calf, leverage pure instinct.
We go down hard. Mud explodes. My shoulder eats a rock, stars pop behind my eyes.
She scrambles free—almost. I grab her ankle; she twists and lands a foot in my ribs.
Air whooshes out of me, but I keep hold and yank her hard.
She slams back, spine sliding across sludge, her night clothes now covered in mud. A sob wrenches from her throat, fury tangled with fear.
I lunge over her, pin her wrists above her head. It starts to rain, and droplets of liquid paint her lashes to make her look like she’s crying.
“Stop,” I rasp. “Stop.”
“Why? So you can kill me like you killed my father?”
I flinch. Not at the accusation—at the tremor of grief under it. She still loved the bastard. People cling to their monsters, even when they share blood.
“I’m not going to kill you,” I say. “Too late for that.”
Thunder rolls distant, like God is mocking me. Taking sides with Ghost and reminding me that I should have done what needed to be done.
Her chest heaves. Mud streaks her throat. I watch the pulse there beat wild—proof of life I’m responsible for.
The voice in my head laughs. Thought you didn’t collect strays, Jayson.
“Get off me,” she whispers.
“If I do, you’ll run again.” I shift my weight, grimace at the ache in my side. “And I’ll chase you again. Maybe next time you break a leg. Then what?”
“I’d rather crawl away than be at the mercy of a killer.”
“You don’t know the first thing about killers, little girl.”
I get it. I chose violence; I deserve her hatred. But it doesn’t mean I have to like it. I loosen my grip. She feels it, freezes. Eyes the color of the darkest storm lock on mine.
“Why did you take me?” she asks, voice cracking. “Why didn’t you just kill me? ”
My answer comes before thought: “Because I thought sparing you would earn me redemption. Now I’m not so sure…”
Her breath stutters. Mine too. It’s the truth—ugly, bare.
The insinuation sits in the heavy silence between us. I could still kill her. The fact that I didn’t doesn’t mean she’s guaranteed a free pass indefinitely.
She looks away first.
I push off her, stand, offer her a hand. She doesn’t take it. Fine. I grab her elbow and haul her upright. She yelps—sharp and sudden—and her weight buckles to one side.
I catch her before she hits the ground again.
“What now?” I bark, glancing down.
She’s cradling her foot off the mud, jaw tight. “I think I twisted it.”
Of course she did. Of course I chased her through a fucking forest, and now she’s broken.
“You’re a mess,” I mutter, more to myself than her.
Mud streaks her shirt, clings to her bare thighs, drips in fat droplets from her hair. She looks like something dragged from the grave.
“So are you,” she snaps, voice raw, as I drag her toward the slope—half-carrying her now, her limp dragging every few steps like an anchor on my patience.
She stumbles. I swear under my breath and hook an arm around her waist, lifting her more than leading her.
“You always this difficult,” I grind out, “or do I just bring out the best in you?”
She doesn’t answer me, and her silence lingers like a challenge between us.
And I’m the idiot who keeps rising to it.
We climb the incline together—her stumbling, me steadying. I keep my hand twisted in her nightshirt like a leash. The mansion glowers through the trees, windows burning faint with grandmother’s lamplight. Feels like it’s judging me too.
Turmoil rattles in my skull: You signed your own death warrant when you took the girl. One day she’ll slit your throat or save your soul.
I tighten my grip until my knuckles whiten. Mud squelches under every step. The girl flinches when distant lightning forks the sky, illuminating the path: two figures, caked in filth, tethered by something darker than sin.
I lean down, voice soft but steel-lined. “Run again, and I’ll chain you to my bed.”
She shivers at my words.
I drag my ruined prize along, every instinct screaming that Ghost was right. I definitely fucked up.
But hell if I know what to do with her now.