25. Jayson
JAYSON
P eople think this life is about loyalty to the family.
It’s not. It’s about loyalty to the ones who showed up when you were bleeding, not when you were winning. To the ones who didn’t ask questions, and didn’t run when you needed them most. The ones who looked at you, broken and burning, and said, “ Stand behind me.”
Brotherhood doesn’t come from blood. Because blood lies. It leaves. It runs cold. Brotherhood is earned in the silence after a disaster. In the moments when no one else is watching.
It’s in the way he hands you a clean shirt after you’ve buried something you can’t talk about.
It’s in the shoulder bump instead of a hug. The way he says nothing when you’re spiraling—because he’s already killed the man who hurt you.
You don’t have to like each other, or talk every day. You just have to know that when the call comes in at 2:00 a.m, he’ll answer.
And when he needs you? You’ll show up. No matter the cost.
Brotherhood is built on violence and secrets. It’s forged in alleys, locked rooms, shallow graves. It’s not loud. It’s not soft. It’s not always good. But it’s real. And in this world? Real is the rarest thing there is.
And when the world finally goes quiet, that’s when you feel it most and you remember things you’ve worked hard to bury.
I think about the Morenos.
Not the name or the empire.
The people.
Mason Ironside—my handler, my shadow, my brother in every way that counts. A man with demons worse than mine, but still carrying the people he loves on his back like it’s his job.
He once pulled me out of a burning safehouse after I took a bullet to the leg. He didn’t even think twice about putting his own life on the line and storming that fire just to drag me out, all the while muttering, “ Don ’ t be an asshole. If you die, I’ll have to train someone new.”
He never said the word friend . But that night, he didn’t have to.
Then there’s Kanyan De Scarzi—the man who could’ve broken me the day we met, but didn’t. He offered me a job before I’d even wiped the blood off my chin after a fist fight.
He didn’t ask about my past. He didn’t care who I was or who I used to be. He gave me a place to stand, and he’s the reason I stopped looking over my shoulder.
I used to think I’d never belong anywhere. That I was meant to drift—from one disaster to another. Just a ghost in someone else’s war.
But now?
Now I’d take a bullet for Mason without blinking. I’d kill for Kanyan before the order finished leaving his mouth.
If it came down to it, I’d lay my life down for both of them.
Without hesitation. Because for the first time in years, I don’t feel like I’m standing on the outside looking in.
And that changes everything. Because I finally feel like I’m part of something that matters.
Something that breathes and bleeds and makes me want to fight tooth and fucking nail to protect it.
Even if it tears me apart. Even if I burn for it.
It’s not the blood that rattles me—I’ve spilled plenty. It’s the loyalty. Because once you’ve got something real—something worth bleeding for—the fear of losing it starts to hollow you out. And that fear? It sticks. It festers. It’s not dying I’m afraid of. It’s surviving without them.
Speaking of loyalty, I stare down at the screen of my phone, thumb grazing the blinking red dot that pulses like a heartbeat.
She thinks I trust her. And maybe I do—just enough to let her think she has freedom. But not enough to take my eyes off her. Not when the stakes are this high.
The morning the cops knocked on her door, I told myself to stay out of it. Let her handle it. Let her breathe. Instead, while she was answering their questions, I slipped out of the shadows and installed a tracker on her phone. Not out of malice, but out of survival.
If she ran, I needed to know. If someone came for her, I needed to be ahead of it. And if she decided to lie to me—well, I needed proof.
Today was supposed to be routine. She left for campus just like she promised she would. Lionel called to confirm drop-off.
Then he called back.
“She left,” he said. “Got into a cab about five minutes after I circled back. I followed at a distance until the taxi dropped her off.”
He gave me the address. The one I already knew by heart. The Bishop estate. Her father’s house. The one where I committed a murder.
I park two houses down and cut the engine, sitting in the silence, watching the windows like they might speak. The mansion looms ahead, tall and solemn, empty like a corpse that never got buried properly.
What the fuck are you doing here, Keira?
I step out, shut the door with a quiet finality, and walk the block like I’ve lived here all my life. Head up. Pace measured. Not hiding—just another ghost in designer clothes.
No one gives me a second glance. This neighborhood's the kind where the curtains stay drawn and the silence is lined with money. The kind of rich that doesn’t ask questions—because asking means getting involved.
And no one wants to get involved with that house. They avoid it like a virus. Because even the elite know—monsters need space to breathe.
The back door gives after a little finesse. It has a deadbolt and a cheap security system. Nothing a guy like me hasn’t cracked before.
Inside, the house breathes in silence. It’s a mausoleum of power gone stale. The air smells like old wealth and older lies—polished wood, leather-bound books, and a whisper of evil beneath the floorboards.
I move from room to room, slow and soundless. I know this layout. I walked it once, before I killed him, memorising every inch of the property to ensure every contingency.
Every creak of the floor is calculated. Every breath drawn quiet. There are no signs of her on the lower floors. So I head upstairs, where the shadows seem to lean in tighter, like the house is watching me.
Her father’s room is just how I remember it—clean, masculine, curated. The room of a man who controlled people for a living. The kind of man who smiled for the cameras and shredded souls behind closed doors. Rest in Death .
The door creaks open on its hinges. And that’s when I hear it— A breath. A shuffle. The softest whisper of movement. Then?—
CRACK.
The bat comes out of nowhere.
Reflex takes over. I duck, feel it whoosh over my head. She’s got good instincts—terrible aim, but guts? She’s overflowing.
“Fuck!” she gasps, eyes wild as she pulls back for another swing.
I lunge, grab the bat mid-swing, wrench it from her hands with a single twist. She stumbles back, heart hammering, chest heaving.
“Jesus, Keira,” I snap, voice low, rough. “Are you trying to kill me?”
Her eyes blow wide, fury overtaking fear. “What the hell are you doing here?!”
I toss the bat aside. It clatters to the floor like punctuation to a question I don’t plan on answering nicely.
“I should be asking you that,” I growl, stepping closer. She’s cornered now, but still standing tall, spine straight. That defiance in her jaw only makes it worse. Makes me want to shake her and kiss her in the same breath.
“How the hell did you know I was here?” she snaps, her voice shaking with barely concealed rage.
I don’t answer. That silence only fuels her fire. Her eyes go wide, wild—burning into me like an open flame.
“You followed me,” she accuses, the words ripping out of her like shrapnel. “You actually fucking followed me!”
“Damn right I did.”
“No apology?”
“Not when I was right not to trust you.”
I step into her space, close enough to see the thin sheen of sweat on her temple. She looks shaken, like she saw a ghost. Maybe she did. Maybe I am one.
“What are you doing here, Keira?” My voice softens, but only slightly. “You told me you were going to class.”
Her eyes flicker. Guilt. Shame. Something else I can’t quite place.
“That’s none of your business.”
“It is when so many lives are on the line, Keira,” I bite out, trying to steady the growl in my throat. “You know why we’re in this position. I’m not trying to control you—this isn’t about owning your choices. But I need to know that I can trust you not to lie to me.”
My tone lowers, heavier now. “So why didn’t you go to class?”
She lifts her chin, that pride flaring for a second. “I was,” she says flatly. “Then I wasn’t.”
I exhale through my nose, jaw locked. “That’s not an answer, Keira.”
She breaks eye contact and turns away, already trying to shut me out, to disappear behind those walls of hers. But I reach out and catch her wrist, gentle but firm, and she goes still beneath my grip.
Her voice is a whisper. Haunted. Fragile. “This house… it’s the only place that has the answers I need.”
“To what?” I press.
But she doesn’t answer.
The silence thickens between us like smoke—choking, heavy, full of things she’s not ready to say. And I get it. God, I get it. Because this wasn’t just some reckless detour. She came back here chasing something. A truth. A ghost. A memory she can’t seem to shake loose.
And maybe that’s what scares me most. Not that she’s keeping secrets—but that she’s getting too close to uncovering mine .
Or worse… that whatever she finds here, she’ll turn it inward. And hate what it makes her see.
“I needed to pack some things,” she mumbles, like that’s enough to explain everything. Like that small, ordinary excuse can smother the hurricane brewing beneath her skin.
She finally meets my gaze again, and I see the lie in her eyes. Not malice—just the aching, desperate kind people use to protect themselves.
I release her wrist, slow. But I don’t move. I don’t step back. I just stare at her, because the more she tries to pull away, the more I want to hold her still and make her stay.
“We were here two days ago to pack your things,” I say quietly. “You said you were done with this place.”
She doesn’t reply.
We stand in her father’s room—the same place his life ended, the same room still thick with the echoes of who he was. It’s cold in here, emotionally and otherwise. Dead energy clings to the walls like peeling wallpaper, and the ghosts don’t whisper. They scream.
For a second, I don’t see the girl who came at me with a bat. I see a girl who’s unraveling—slowly, quietly, behind her stubborn little smirk and that smart mouth she uses as armor. I see a girl who’s breaking. Who’s terrified. Who’s running from something that probably doesn’t even have a face.
“I forgot a few things,” she mutters, already turning from me. Already retreating down the hallway.
I follow, but it’s not eagerness. It’s reluctance, and it sits heavy on my soul.
She heads toward another bedroom, and when I cross the threshold behind her, I see the open suitcase on the bed.
Clothes folded neatly. Essentials stacked with practiced hands.
She’s been packing. For real. And not just to grab a sweater or some keepsake from under her bed.
This looks… deliberate. Li ke a girl planning her exit.
Like she’s been gearing up to disappear.
She doesn’t look at me as she moves about the room, folding, zipping, stuffing her world into a bag like it won’t gut her to leave it behind. And maybe it won’t. Maybe she’s used to cutting ties. Maybe survival comes easier when you expect abandonment.
But I don’t walk away. I stay in the doorway, arms crossed, watching her with a simmering edge of suspicion and something darker—something that feels alot like dread.
Were you planning to run, Keira?
Were you going to vanish and leave me chasing your shadow?
She thinks I don’t see it. But I do. I will always see her.
And I need to know why she came here. Because if she’s searching for the truth… She’d better be ready for what it does to her. Or what I’ll do to protect her from it.