Chapter Twelve #3
Bryce shakes under the weight of it. Sweat drips down his face. His bravado is cracking like rotten wood.
“What is Horizon Logistics?” Berk asks next, voice soft as silk and twice as dangerous.
He swallows hard. “The only shell company off the grid. Payments. Files. Place you boys weren’t supposed to see.”
I take a step forward. “We see everything.”
His eyes flick up to mine, trying to read whether we have anything left to lose. He picked the wrong night for hope. “We noticed what you were doing,” he snaps through gritted teeth. “You morons were sloppy. You started tipping your hand.”
Ronan snorts. “We were working against you for three years. Not just the last few months, you delusional old fuck.”
Bryce drags his tongue across the blood on his lip, eyes twisting with something rotten as they lock onto Berk. “Should’ve made damn sure this little bitch stayed dead. If I’d known you were still breathing…” His smile curdles. “I would’ve taken my fucking time with you.”
The world narrows down to a single red point.
Ronan lunges for him with a roar. Rowan and I barely catch him, holding him back before he pounds Bryce into the floor. Bryce is laughing even while he coughs blood, that same sick amusement he used on us as kids.
Berk moves in front of Ronan, her hand soft against his chest. “Let me.”
He breathes hard but steps back.
She crouches in front of Bryce again, blade tapping lightly against his chin. “Last chance. What else do you know?”
“I told you everything,” he grunts. “I don’t know where Dean is. I only talk to him through a burner. Check my phone. I swear. Everything is there.”
Berk rises slowly, her expression unreadable as she takes his phone. “I can work with this.”
Bryce trembles, breath shuddering. His previous words were all bravado. “Please. Please. I told you everything. Don’t kill me.”
Ronan leans down, voice soft enough to be tender. “You should have been a better father.”
He finally understands.
There is no version of this story where he walks out alive.
Berk steps back from Bryce, wiping her blade on his shirt like she’s bored with him. Blood drips down his leg and arm, splashing onto the concrete in slow taps. He’s shaking, but his mouth still runs because a coward’s last defense is noise.
Ronan nudges Bryce’s chair with his boot and looks at us like he has an idea forming. A stupid one. A perfect one. “Rock. Paper. Scissors?” he asks, grinning like a demon.
Rowan huffs out a dark laugh. “For real?”
“Yeah,” Ronan says. “See who gets the honor.”
Berk snorts. “Boys are idiots.” But she watches anyway, eyes sharp.
We square off. Hands ready. “Rock. Paper. Scissors.”
Rowan smashes Ronan with rock over scissors.
Next round, I take Rowan with scissors over paper.
Final round. Ronan claims victory, hooting like he just won a championship.
Bryce wheezes, voice cracking. “So, what… since he won… that means I get to live?”
We all stop. Then laugh. Hard.
Ronan wipes a tear from the corner of his eye. “No, dumbass. We’re not playing to save you. We’re playing to see who gets to kill you.”
Bryce pales. Good. Let him feel it.
I won the last round by default because Rowan refuses to celebrate Ronan’s victory, claiming a redo, and Berk finally says she’s calling it before they wake the whole damn dock. I step forward, gun in hand.
But I pause.
“Berk,” I say, offering her the gun. “You want it? After everything he did… after what he took from you.”
She meets my eyes. Slow. Steady. She shakes her head once. “Blood kills blood. He took your sister. That belongs to you.”
“He took something from you too,” I fire back, because it burns in me like acid. “He took something from all of us.”
Her gaze flicks between the three of us, and a wordless agreement settles thick in the air. She isn’t wrong. We all lost pieces of ourselves because of this man. Because of his choices. Because he let demons keep breathing. Because he is one.
“You’re right,” I tell her. “We finish this together.”
We form a line without speaking, like we’ve done this a thousand times. Bryce whimpers something desperate, but I’m done listening.
We raise our guns.
He tries to speak.
We pull the triggers before he gets the word out.
Four shots.
Four holes.
Four pieces of justice drilled through a man who never deserved breath.
He slumps, head hanging, blood pooling under his chair in a spreading midnight stain.
Ronan exhales. “Well. He’s fucked.”
Rowan nods. “Beyond repair.”
I turn to Berk. She’s smiling softly, a smile she saves for death. The kind that glows.
“Looks like you can torch this place too,” I tell her.
Her eyes catch the dim lights and blaze. A wicked spark ignites in her expression. “About damn time,” she says.
She sets the charges and lights the accelerant while we drag equipment and anything useful out with us. Flames lick the walls as we exit, slow at first, then hungry, roaring, devouring everything Bryce ever touched.
We walk away side by side, four shadows moving toward the night, the warehouse exploding into an inferno behind us. The reflection of fire dances in Berk’s eyes until the smoke blocks it out.
One more monster down.
One to go.