Chapter Twenty-Two Grayson
Chapter Twenty-Two
Grayson
The lines were deep, cut with a dull knife so the edges were rough. Each letter was carved deliberately, strips of flesh peeling back to expose the muscle beneath. It was savage and reverent all at once, like what was carved into the tree.
This wasn’t just a mark anymore. It was a name. Deliberate, vicious, and chosen to mean something. And whatever that something was, it felt personal. Aimed. like a finger pointed straight at the one person in this town who mattered most to me.
Vienna. The word stared back at me, ugly and unyielding. It was like a memory I couldn’t place, or a warning I’d been waiting for without realizing it.
Whoever this victim was, she was a message. And I was the only one here who understood it.
I rose slowly and took a step back, my stomach coiled, my head buzzing with every single thought in the world. Behind me, one of the crime techs muttered about trace evidence. A flash went off. Another picture taken.
Click. Click. Click. The sound of the camera filled the silence.
I couldn’t drag my gaze away from the carved name. I knew this poor woman had screamed while they hurt her. Her mouth hung open, her eyes wide as she stared at the ground. She’d screamed, and no one came, and in her last moments, the cult had made her wear another woman’s name.
No . . . it was more than that. They’d forced her to carry a message that was meant for someone still alive. Someone they hadn’t caught yet.
I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly, fighting the urge to cut her free, but knowing I couldn’t touch the crime scene while an active investigation was going on. My jaw flexed.
The air felt thicker now, charged with menace. This wasn’t random terror anymore. It was targeted. And the target felt dangerously close to Violet.
I was about to turn when something in the dirt caught my eye, slightly hidden by a small pile of fallen leaves. I gestured for a CSI. Once he took care to reveal what was written in the dirt, I studied it.
She is ours.
My heart slammed once, then again, hard enough it hurt. This was a message—possessive, triumphant, and aimed right at the heart of everything I’d started to feel.
Ours. Like she was a thing they’d lost and were coming to reclaim. Like no amount of distance or new names or quiet lives could keep her from them.
I stood as pictures were taken of the writing in the dirt.
My mind reeled, sifting through not only the facts but also the possibilities.
The agents moved with methodical precision, logging evidence, snapping last photos.
The lead supervised, hands behind his back, expression carved from marble.
And when the body was cut down, bagged, and taken away, I couldn’t shake the phantom letters still burned into my vision.
Vienna
The name cut across my mind as sharply as the blade that had carved it. The cult was escalating, inch by inch, pulling Violet into the open. And they knew I was involved with her, obviously. Not like I’d been hiding my presence in her life. Was I making this worse? Was I escalating things?
Was every moment I spent with her, every night I let myself get closer, just giving them more ammunition? Was it proof that she wasn’t alone anymore, that hurting her would hit someone else, too? I couldn’t stay away. I cared about her, and every part of me wanted to protect her.
What I felt was deeper, darker . . . a need that bordered on obsession. The kind that made rational men do irrational things.
The lake victim was just the beginning. Now in the woods, far too close to her home. Next time . . . maybe her doorstep. And God help me, part of me wanted to lock her away and never let her out again just so she was safe.
The thought should have alarmed me. How easily it came, how possessive it felt. But it didn’t. It felt like the only sane response in a world going mad.
I lingered after the others left, standing in the churned mud, watching the fog reclaim the clearing as the woods swallowed the scene whole again and brought it back to nature.
Now only the ghost of death remained as a memory.
I touched one tree where her arm had been bound, my hand pressing against the rough bark.
The rope had dug into the trunk, tearing up the bark because of how tightly it had been tied.
For a moment a horrifying vision slammed into my mind, images of Violet as the victim, her body displayed grotesquely, her skin cut open—
I jerked my hand away, disgust rising in my throat. No, I wouldn’t allow those images to cloud my thoughts. But they clung anyway, fueling something fierce and unforgiving inside me.
One thing was certain: If anyone came after Violet, I wouldn’t let them lay a hand on her. I’d kill every last motherfucker. That wasn’t a threat. It was a promise I’d already made to myself.
I wondered if she could feel it—the pull of the cult. I sure as fuck could.
I felt it in my bones.