34. Justin
JUSTIN
Silence has weight in this place—and it presses back.
The church is quiet in a way that unsettles me, not empty but watchful, like it’s holding its breath.
I stop mid-step, keys still clenched in my hand, every instinct snapping into focus.
The air feels charged, wrong. The main floor stretches out before me, bare and shadowed, but the emptiness offers no comfort.
If anything, it sharpens the tension coiling tight in my chest.
I scan the space anyway. The altar. The aisles. The darkened corners where light doesn’t quite reach. Nothing moves.
Then the heavy front doors creak open.
The sound carries—unrushed, certain—echoing too loudly in the stillness.
I hear the footsteps before I hear him, measured and unhurried, the kind that assume they belong wherever they land.
The noise tracks closer, each step tightening the knot between my ribs, until I know exactly who it is long before his voice reaches me.
“Justin.”
Titan fills the doorway like a storm—big, unavoidable, and capable of leveling whatever’s in front of him if the mood strikes. He’s dressed in black, as always, rain darkening the ends of his brown hair. The room subtly recalibrates around him, gravity bending in his favor without permission.
Beside him stands Lily.
Her braid hangs loose over one shoulder, a few strands slipping free, her eyes bright. She looks softer than the last time I saw her—healed in ways she fought viciously to earn. Seeing her here knocks something loose in my chest.
It’s not love or regret. Just the quiet, bittersweet ache of someone I loved the wrong way—and let go of for the right reasons.
“I wasn’t expecting you two,” I admit.
Titan’s head tilts as his gaze sweeps the room, cataloguing threats that don’t exist—or maybe ones that only he can see.
“We were in the area.”
It’s a lie. We both know it.
Lily smiles before I can call him on it. Warm. Unguarded. Then she closes the distance and wraps her arms around me like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
I freeze for half a second before returning it.
My eyes lift over her shoulder, automatically checking Titan.
If I said he’s mellowed when it comes to Lily, I’d be lying. His jaw tightens. His eyes sharpen. There’s a familiar, lethal tension in his posture, like he’s ready to snap my neck. Another second and he’ll decide I’ve held her too long and redecorate the room with my blood.
I release her. Slowly.
“It’s good to see you,” I tell her.
Titan exhales through his nose, the moment passing—but not forgotten.
“What’s with the facelift?” he asks, nodding toward the flyers and trestle tables.
“We’re moving outreach here. New headquarters; we’ve outgrown the old.”
His brows draw together. I stiffen. Of course he sees it. Lily always said Titan smelled danger the way some people smell smoke—an instinct sharpened by surviving a fire that took half his body and should’ve taken the rest of him.
Half his face is still a blur of damaged flesh, raw and uneven, the scars pulling the skin into shapes that refuse to soften.
I can’t tell which side draws the eye more—the ruined half, or the other, still unmistakably handsome in a dark, brutal way.
There’s no attempt to balance it. No effort to hide either version of himself.
The mask is gone. The one I grew used to seeing, the barrier he kept between himself and the world.
Now he wears his own skin without apology.
Open. Uncovered. Comfortable. The scars aren’t treated like something to conceal or explain; they’re simply there, claimed rather than endured.
He stands at ease with what marked him, with what shaped him, as if the damage didn’t diminish him at all—only clarified exactly who he is.
“We needed a story the city would believe,” I admit. “And VOC needed a new home. It made sense.”
Titan’s gaze sharpens. “Are people questioning?”
Lily shifts beside him, uneasy.
Fuck.
I exhale slowly. “Yeah.”
“How deep?”
“Deep enough.”
Too deep. Deeper than anyone realizes. And it all started with Rowan.
Titan studies me for a long moment. There’s no accusation in his eyes—just expectation. Heavy. Unforgiving. The kind that doesn’t need to raise its voice to be heard.
“We’ll talk later,” he says at last, tone low and final. “Tonight.”
Lily reaches out and squeezes my arm gently, and something old and tender twists in my chest. It feels like the ache of watching someone you loved survive their ghosts—and choose someone strong enough to kill them.
“How can we help?” she asks.
I hesitate before I answer.
“Are you sticking around for a while? Bethany misses you.”
Her smile is soft. Certain. “We’re staying for a while.”
The knowledge lands hard—equal parts fear and relief.
Fear, because I don’t know how I measure up in Titan’s eyes anymore.
He handed me the throne, trusted me with it, and I’ve made a mess of things.
Relief, because this road has been long and lonely, and having him back—having an older brother in the room—changes the weight of everything.
Even if he isn’t my blood. Even if we began on opposite sides, circling each other with suspicion instead of loyalty. Titan Ward is still the closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother.
Not by name. Not by law. By choice. By shared history and unspoken rules. By the way he shows up when it matters and stands where others would step back. Whatever we were at the start doesn’t erase what he became. Whatever he is now, he’s mine in the only way that’s ever counted.
Bethany actually squeals when she spots Lily.
Full-bodied, unapologetic joy. I watch as they collide in a flurry of movement—shoulders bumping, hips swaying in that ridiculous little dance they used to do back in college, like muscle memory never forgets the shape of happiness.
They finish it off with a synchronized fist pump, laughing like the absence between them never happened.
Rowan stands beside me, hands loosely folded, posture careful. Her smile is bright, genuine—but there’s an edge to it, the faint hesitation of someone who doesn’t quite know where to put herself. She looks beautiful like this. Open. Slightly overwhelmed. And painfully out of place.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Rowan Hale, it’s that she’s been starved of connection.
For nearly a decade, she’s kept herself apart—no friends, no relationships, no safety in numbers.
No sisterhood. She’s survived alone, by force of will and sharp edges, and how she managed that without breaking entirely is something I still don’t understand.
So the noise, the laughter, the easy affection filling the church hits her sideways. She absorbs it quietly, like someone stepping into sunlight after years underground.
When the initial reunion burns itself out, Bethany hooks an arm through Lily’s and steers her back toward us. She gestures to Rowan with a grin. “This is Rowan. My friend.”
Not mine.
I clock it immediately, the subtle distinction, and almost smile. Girls do that. Claim each other gently. Protectively.
Rowan glances up at me, a shy smile flickering across her mouth, like she’s asking permission without actually asking.
Then Bethany and Lily fold her in without ceremony—arms around her shoulders, bodies warm and close—and guide her down the aisle of the church, already talking over one another as they search for a quiet corner to disappear into.
I stay where I am. So does Titan.
We watch them walk away—three women moving together now, laughter echoing softly against stone and stained glass. For the first time since Rowan stepped into my orbit, she doesn’t look alone.
Titan exhales beside me, slow and thoughtful. For a rare moment, neither of us speaks.
Then he does.
“Justin,” he says quietly. “Who is she?”
I swallow. Hard.
“A student at St Augustine’s,” I reply. “Law. Journalism.”
His head turns toward me, sharp. “Jesus,” he mutters. “That journalist?”
I go still.
So not everything stays buried. Goliath has ears everywhere—always has. Somewhere along the way, her articles must have rippled further than I realized, because Titan somehow knows.
I think of Rowan. Her reckless courage. That stubborn, incandescent fire in her chest. The way she refuses fear like it’s an insult.
I don’t answer. My silence says it all.
“Does she know?” Titan asks. “About Goliath?”
“She didn’t,” I say. “Not when she wrote the article. Now she does.”
“How?”
“Things happened.” I pause. “It’s a long story.”
He hums under his breath. Then, softer, “If you didn’t get the memo, I’m here for a while. Lily’s homesick.”
That catches me off guard. “Never thought she’d want to come back here.”
He snorts. “You forget she’s from bumfuck nowhere. Compared to that, this place feels like a cathedral.”
I laugh despite myself. He joins in, brief and rough, like it surprises him too.
Then I sober. “Really—why are you here, Titan?”
He turns fully toward me now, that familiar weight settling behind his eyes. “Because I had a feeling you might need me.”
A lopsided smirk cuts across his mouth—wrong on him somehow, but not unwelcome.
“And because we cleared every name in the ledger,” he adds. “Time for a new challenge. We go where we’re needed. You know that.”
“I do.”
He nods once. “So start talking. Tell me everything about Rowan Hale. Bring me up to speed.”
His gaze drifts down the aisle, to where the women disappeared, laughter bouncing faintly against stone.
“Let’s see if we can’t put another ghost to rest tonight.”
Titan lets out a low whistle once I finish. And by finish, I mean everything—no omissions, no softened edges. Rowan. Her sister. The attack. The article. Ironreach. All of it laid bare between us.
He studies my face before he speaks. “And you don’t believe the attack on her was random.”
“No.” The answer comes without hesitation. “We couldn’t crack the crypto transfer, but someone paid him.”
Titan nods once. “Do you know who the third man was the night her sister died?”
I lift a shoulder. “No idea. That’s the hole we can’t plug. But Silas is doing a deep dive into Scott-Evans. Hopefully new can find the third man through one of his associations.”
Silence stretches while he thinks. When he speaks again, his voice is steady, certain. “Then you start with him. You find the third man, and you work outward.”
The words settle heavy in my chest.
“Find the third man,” he continues, “and you’ll have your answer. Whoever he is, he’s the thread tying everything together.”
“It’s been a real bitch trying to jog memories from a decade ago,” I tell him.
Titan turns to me, his expression tightening. “You find what you can, then you deal with it. Give the victims the closure they need - time passed does not mean they don’t get their justice.”
“I think Delaney and Scott-Evans are comfortable in the knowledge that the past is buried.”
A muscle jumps in Titan’s jaw. “It isn’t. Predators don’t age out,” he reminds me. “They adapt.”
“Rowan lost her whole family as a result of that day,” I tell him.
“All the more reason to work harder and apply the same rules. She gets the same ending as every other case we’ve handled.”
I give a slow nod, the path forward clear now, solid beneath my feet.
The past doesn’t stay buried. It waits with bated breath.