Chapter Twelve
Riot
The room had settled into that strange stillness that only came after a long day. Not silence. Silence implied emptiness. This was something softer. The slow turn of the ceiling fan. The distant creak of old wood easing against itself. Calvin's breathing, steady and deep beside me.
I lay on my side, watching him.
Moonlight slipped through the gap in the curtains, catching on the curve of his cheek and the loose strands of hair that had fallen across his forehead. He'd finally stopped carrying the day in his face. Whatever dreams had found him, they were gentler than the hours he'd left behind.
Today felt impossibly far away now.
The attack. The fear that had torn through me the moment I read that text. Calvin’s buried grief that had finally cracked open.
He wasn’t just a part of my life. Calvin was the axis my entire world seemed to spin around. I wanted to hold his past, his future, everything that he carried.
My unicorn.
I let my eyes linger on him for another moment, memorizing the sight the way I always seemed to.
Then I exhaled slowly and turned my attention toward the dark waiting beyond the bedroom door.
The Iron Vendetta was still a problem, but they were tomorrow’s problem.
Tonight, Miguel was my only focus.
Holler watched me approach, taking a lazy drag of his cigarette. “We doin’ this?”
Sledge and Deadeye joined us by the sliding glass door.
“Keep your head on a swivel.” Crowbar appeared by the entrance to the kitchen, toothpick between his lips. “Never underestimate a human, especially one jacked in the head.”
“Thanks, mom.” He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.
“I’m all daddy vibe.” Crowbar flexed.
I rolled my eyes. “Save it for Spencer.”
We rode through streets gone quiet with the late hour. My wolf pressed against the inside of my skin, demanding blood, demanding retribution for what had been done to Calvin. Keeping it leashed took effort. Keeping my hands steady on the handlebars took more.
Ramos had given us the address without hesitation. A rental house on the east side of Temptation, tucked between a vacant lot and a boarded-up shoe store. Miguel had been staying there for months, apparently. Long enough to establish patterns, feel comfortable, and make a mistake.
Holler signaled from my right, pointing toward a side street. I nodded and followed him off the main road. The engine idled beneath me for a moment, and then I cut the ignition. Holler and Deadeye did the same, the three of us coasting the last few feet to the curb before killing the lights.
We parked three blocks away, tucked between a rusted sedan and an overgrown hedge that hadn’t seen a trimmer in months.
The neighborhood was quiet.
I swung off the bike, my boots landing soft on the pavement.
It was a squat ranch house with faded beige siding and a carport instead of a garage. No vehicle in the driveway. No lights were on in the front rooms. A single lamp glowed somewhere toward the back, visible through a gap in the curtains.
Holler moved up on my left. Deadeye flanked right.
I raised two fingers then pointed toward the house.
Deadeye acknowledged the signal with a nod and melted into the darkness.
We approached from the side yard, staying low where the neighbor’s fence cast long shadows. The grass crunched underfoot. Dry. Dead. No one had watered it in weeks. The smells of hot asphalt and someone’s neglected garbage can reached me, making my nose twitch.
At the corner of the house, I stopped.
Hand signal. Hold.
I pressed my back to the siding and edged toward the window.
The curtain had a two-inch gap on the right side.
Enough to see the living room. A flatscreen TV mounted on the wall played some late-night talk show, the volume turned so low the laugh track sounded like static.
A couch. An empty beer bottle on the coffee table. No Miguel.
Where are you, you bastard?
I signaled again. Clear.
We moved to the back door. Deadeye tried the knob. Locked. Holler pulled a slim jim from inside his cut and had the latch popped in under ten seconds. The sound it made was barely a whisper.
He glanced at me. I nodded.
Pushing the door inward, I crossed the threshold first.
Something heavy connected with my skull. A baseball bat. A pipe. I didn’t see it. My vision fractured white, and my shoulder hit the wall. The impact rattled my teeth. My knees tried to buckle, but I locked them. The world tilted sideways and then snapped back, sharp and too bright around the edges.
Holler and Deadeye moved past me, their weapons drawn but their movements controlled.
I pushed off the wall. My head pounded with every heartbeat, a dull roar that tried to drown out everything else. But my vision had cleared. That was all I needed.
“I was wondering when you’d show up.” His voice was soft. Almost pleasant. “Took you longer than I expected.”
Miguel stood near the kitchen island, a tire iron dangling from his right hand. His posture remained relaxed. Casual. Like he hadn’t just tried to cave in my skull.
“Calvin said you were going to kill me.” He smiled that empty smile. “He has so much undeserved faith in you.”
Holler’s gun stayed fixed on Miguel’s chest. Deadeye had shifted to cover the hallway. Neither spoke.
“He was always meant to be mine, you know.”
Miguel set the tire iron on the counter with a soft clink.
His right hand dipped toward his waistband.
“I watched over him while Ramos did time. Calvin is smart. Loyal. Desperate for someone to see him.”
His fingers wrapped around the grip of a pistol.
“I’ve been patient. Watched him grow up. Watched him struggle. Waited for the right moment.”
“You’ve been delusional.” My wolf lunged against my ribs. I kept my face still.
Miguel laughed. The sound had no warmth.
“You think you know him? You’ve had him for what, a week? I’ve watched him for years. Learned everything about him. Everything he fears. Everything he wants.”
He lifted the gun, finally, aiming it at my chest.
“I was going to take my time. Let him grieve his brother. Let him lean on me.”
His gaze flicked to the side. “But then Ramos got out early, and you showed up.”
Movement in the hallway.
A man stepped out of the darkness—tall, broad, with features that belonged in a cage. He saw us, saw the guns, and his hand went straight to his waistband.
Deadeye didn’t flinch.
He closed the distance before the man could raise his weapon.
The gunshot cracked through the kitchen, deafening in the small space.
Deadeye took it in the side, the bullet punching through leather and flesh.
He didn’t stop. His hands found the man’s wrist, wrenched the weapon free, and then punched the stranger so hard his feet left the ground.
I charged Miguel.
The gun came up, aimed at my head.
“But then you had to interfere.”
Holler’s weapon rose first. Deadeye’s followed a heartbeat later. Neither of them fired.
“Calvin’s not yours.” The words scraped past my throat, raw and guttural. Blood trickled down the back of my neck, hot and wet. “He’s never been yours.”
He got one shot off. The bullet went wide, burying itself in the drywall behind me.
Then I hit him, driving my shoulder into his midsection and lifting him off his feet.
We crashed into the kitchen table. Wood splintered.
A chair toppled. Miguel’s head snapped back against the tile floor, but he didn’t go limp.
His knee drove into my ribs. Once. Twice. The pain flared hot and sharp, and my grip loosened just enough for him to twist free. He grabbed a knife from the counter—a chef’s knife, eight inches of stainless steel—and swung.
I caught his forearm before the blade found my throat. We strained against each other, muscles shaking. Miguel’s eyes were bright now. Alive. Like this was exactly what he’d wanted all along.
“You’re stronger than I expected,” he said, his voice still calm. Still conversational. “But it doesn’t matter. Even if you kill me, you’ll never scrub me out of him. I’m in his head now. In his fears. Every time he closes his eyes, he’ll see me.”
I yanked his wrist sideways. The knife clattered across the floor. My other hand closed around his throat and slammed his head back against the tile. Once. Twice. The third time, something cracked.
Miguel’s smirk finally slipped.
His hands clawed at my arm, fingernails raking furrows in my skin. I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel anything except the single, crystalline certainty that this man would never look at Calvin again.
The wolf wanted more than a kill. It wanted a reckoning.
I drove my hand through his chest.
The heart pulsed against my palm before I pulled it free. Hot. Wet. Final.
Miguel’s eyes went wide. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. The light in his stare guttered and died.
I let the body drop.
Standing, I looked toward the hallway. The other man lay still, his neck bent at an angle that left no question. Deadeye stood over him, one hand pressed against the wound in his side, breathing hard but steady.
Holler lowered his weapon.
The house settled into silence. The TV still murmured in the other room.
I looked down at Miguel’s body. At the heart still clenched in my fist. I dropped it beside him.
We left through the back door the same way we’d come, disappearing into the shadows.
THE END