44. Justin
JUSTIN
Silas finally tracks down Scott-Evans just after dusk.
He sent through the coordinates, a satellite image, and very specific directions on how to get to the cabin in the woods where Scott-Evans has hunkered down. When he volunteers his support, Titan gives me a short, curt shake of his head, declining the offer.
“You don’t want to make him an accessory to what we’re willing to do to this man, Justin.”
We prepare to drive two hours north to the cabin in the woods, where there are no neighbours within shouting distance.
We send Miguel to retrieve Marcus Delaney. He’s easily accessible, and he’s another door we need to open.
William Scott-Evans isn’t a door. He’s a fuse.
We don’t talk much on the drive. The road narrows the farther north we go, pavement turning to gravel, trees pressing in close enough to block out the sky. Titan drives like he always does—steady, alert, controlled.
The cabin comes into view just before full dark, as the sun slips beneath the trees. It’s one lone cabin, and it’s so isolated, I can see why he would choose a place like that to hide out. Though the reason he’s given his wife is that he’s gone on a soul searching fishing trip.
There’s a porch out front, and we can just make out the silhouette of a man sitting there with his hands on his knees.
William Scott-Evans is sitting in a rocking chair like he’s been there all afternoon, legs stretched out, fishing rod propped against the railing. There’s a lit lantern lit beside him. He seems calm, like he’s been waiting for our arrival.
He doesn’t move when we get out of the car. But he does smile.
“What took you so long?” he calls.
The words barely leave his mouth before he produces a gun.
It’s one smooth, practised motion as he brings it up and presses it to his own temple.
Titan and I draw at the same time.
“Lower the weapon,” I say.
Titan doesn’t speak. His aim is steady, centered on Scott-Evans’s chest.
Scott-Evans chuckles softly, like this is amusing. Like we’ve finally caught up to him and he’s been bored without the company.
“Careful,” he warns. “We’re all very jumpy right now.”
“Put it down,” I repeat.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he tilts his head slightly, eyes flicking between our guns.
“Here’s the thing,” he says conversationally. “Who do you think has the quicker trigger finger? Me… or you?”
The question isn’t rhetorical. It’s a dare.
My pulse stays even.
“You don’t get to do this,” I tell him. “Life-and death-is no longer your choice.”
He hums at that, thoughtful. “Isn’t it?”
He rocks back and forth once. The chair creaks.
“I knew you were coming,” he tells us. “The moment I saw her again. That bitch didn’t come back into my life to die quietly.”
My jaw tightens despite myself.
“She looked so much like her sister,” he continues, voice going soft. Nostalgic. “It was unsettling. Like the past refusing to stay buried.”
Titan shifts his stance slightly. Enough to signal he’s listening. Carefully.
“Missy,” Scott-Evans muses, almost fondly. “She was different.”
I don’t speak. I let him talk. Because men like him love the sound of their own voices.
“She wasn’t supposed to die,” he goes on. “That day. None of them were. It was never meant to go… as far as it did.” He smiles faintly. “Best laid plans and all…”
“You hurt her,” I remind him.
He shrugs. “I regret that.”
The words land wrong. Casual. Insufficient. Insulting.
“She was my one regret,” he adds. “Everyone else was a choice. She just… existed in the wrong moment.”
Titan’s voice cuts in for the first time. Calm. Controlled. “You trying to convince us you have a conscience does nothing for your cause.”
Scott-Evans laughs. He shifts the gun slightly, adjusting it.
“Rowan,” he says suddenly. “That one was always going to come back swinging. She has her sister’s fire. Though she’s louder, messier.”
“You don’t get to say her name,” I snap.
Scott-Evans’s eyes flick to me. Curious now. Assessing. “Ah,” he murmurs. “So you’re the one who caught her eye long enough to keep her away from me.”
I don’t react.
Scott-Evans sighs. “You know what ruined everything?” he asks.“People who wouldn’t look away. People who wanted to pretend this was about morality instead of power.”
“What happened that day?” I ask.
He smiles again. “Which version do you want?”
“The truth.”
He considers that. The gun stays at his head.
“It’s all the truth,” he shrugs finally. “Depending on whose version you’re hearing.”
“Why don’t you put the gun down?” I suggest.
Scott-Evans’s eyes sharpen just slightly.
“And then what? Give you the upper hand over me?”
The rocking chair slows. Stops.
The forest goes quiet around us, like it’s holding its breath.
Titan speaks again, voice steady. “Do you know what I think?”
Scott-Evans glances at him. “Enlighten me.”
“I think you’re too selfish to do it,” Titan suggests. “You’re too selfish to kill yourself.”
Scott-Evans laughs sharply. “That’s rich.”
“You like the attention too much,” Titan continues. “You like being watched. You like knowing you’re still controlling the room.”
The smile falters. Just a fraction.
“You wouldn’t rob yourself of the chance to talk,” Titan adds. “To explain. To be remembered.”
Silence stretches. Scott-Evans exhales slowly. The gun trembles for the first time.
“You think you know me,” he whispers.
“I do,” Titan replies. “I’ve met plenty of animals like you.”
For a long moment, nothing happens.
Then Scott-Evans lowers the gun.
Not all the way, but just enough to lower his guard.
It doesn’t feel like Scott-Evans ever expected to walk out of this alive.
That realization settles over me slowly, the way cold does when you’ve been standing in it too long.
By the time we’re finished with him, he’s been stripped of every illusion that once protected him—his arrogance peeled away first, then his posture, then the lazy confidence men like him wear like armor.
The kind that assumes the world will always bend before it breaks them.
Now, he hangs.
Wrists bound above his head, rope biting deep into flesh already turning an angry shade of red.
His boots barely skim the concrete, toes scraping just enough to remind him how close relief is without ever allowing it.
His weight drags his shoulders down, forcing them toward eventual failure. Toward honesty. Or dislocation.
The smell of fear hasn’t reached him yet. Not fully. But it’s coming.
Titan circles him in silence.
Slow. Methodical. Predator patience.
Scott-Evans watches him through lowered lashes, tracking every movement without turning his head. He’s wearing a mask—tight, practiced, smug even now. Emotions locked away behind a facade of bored indifference, like this is just another inconvenience. Another consequence he’ll endure and outlast.
It was too easy to drag him into the cabin. Too easy to string him up and leave him dangling like meat.
Almost as if he wanted this. Almost as if pain is the only thing that has ever made him feel anything.
I step closer, invading what little space he has left. Close enough that he has to tilt his head back to meet my gaze, throat exposed, jaw clenched tight. I study him—not with anger, not even disgust—but curiosity.
What kind of person doesn’t flinch when punishment finally comes due?
“I’m going to take from you,” I tell him quietly. “The same way you took from those girls. From their choices. From their bodies. Their futures.”
His lips curl, just slightly.
“Do your worst,” he spits.
It’s almost a dare. And for the first time, I see it clearly—the crack in the mask. Not fear. Expectation. Like he’s been waiting for this moment his whole life.
We don’t rush it. Rushing is for men who need absolution.
Pain only works when it’s measured—when it arrives in waves instead of all at once. When the body has time to understand what’s happening and the mind has nowhere left to hide.
Scott-Evans screams early on. The sound tears out of him sharp and surprised, like he didn’t expect it to be him. Like he genuinely believed he’d last longer. It rattles him.
Between gasps for air—between pleading and rage—he starts spilling fragments of information. He throws excuses at us like they might stick if he says them fast enough. Loud enough.
He keeps trying to reposition himself. He was a peripheral witness. A man standing near evil instead of kneeling at its center.
Titan corrects him without raising his voice.
“Tell us about Rowan,” he says calmly.
The room stills.
Scott-Evans’s jaw locks, muscles jumping beneath sweat-slick skin. “The one that got away.”
The blow that follows isn’t loud.
Titan moves once—clean, efficient—and the impact lands with a sickening precision that snaps Scott-Evans’s head to the side. I hear teeth clack together, a dull internal rattle, but it’s nothing compared to what comes after.
Silence. The kind that swallows sound whole.
Then he breaks. He sobs—ugly and wet, dignity leaking out of him in hiccupped breaths.
“Delaney,” he gasps. “Delaney was slow. Sloppy. She ran and he lost her. Then he came back and demanded a sample of Missy—”
Titan’s arm comes up again.
This time the back of his hand connects, sending Scott-Evans reeling, rope creaking, his body swinging like a pendulum that’s lost its center.
I step forward before Titan can speak.
“You forget,” I say coldly, “that you’re talking about a dead girl.”
Scott-Evans chokes on his next breath.
“Even in death,” Titan roars, the restraint finally gone, “you disrespect her.”
The door opens behind us.
Miguel comes through first, all sharp angles and quiet menace, one hand locked in the collar of Marcus Delaney’s jacket like he’s hauling in trash that won’t take itself out. Delaney stumbles under the grip, dragged rather than escorted, his shoes scuffing uselessly against the floor.
He’s red-faced. Rumpled. Furious in the way men get when they still believe rules apply to them.
“This is illegal,” Delaney snaps, words tumbling out too fast, too rehearsed. “You can’t detain me. I’ll sue every single one of you—this is assault, false imprisonment—”
Titan doesn’t even turn his head.
Miguel shoves Delaney forward and lets go. Delaney stumbles, barely catching himself before pitching face-first into the floor. He straightens, breath sharp with indignation—then his gaze lifts.
And he sees Scott-Evans. Hanging. Broken. Barely upright.
The fury drains from Delaney’s face so fast it’s almost impressive. The color leaches out of him, leaving behind something pale and hollow-eyed. His mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
“This,” I say mildly, almost conversational, “is the moment where you decide whether you want to talk voluntarily.”
Delaney blinks at me, then at Titan, then back at Scott-Evans swaying gently from the ceiling. “This is insane,” he sputters. “You’re insane. All of you.”
Scott-Evans lets out a weak, bubbling laugh. It scrapes out of his throat like it hurts. “Marcus,” he croaks, head lolling. “The fool.”
Delaney recoils as if the words physically strike him. “Don’t,” he snaps. “Don’t you dare drag me into this.”
That’s when Titan finally turns.
His gaze settles on Delaney—not rushed, not angry, just absolute. It pins him in place the way gravity pins a falling body to the earth.
“Too late,” Titan whispers.