Chapter 3 Calder
Calder
Saint doesn’t struggle long. Not when her blood circulation is cut off.
Why didn’t I do it? I’m disgusted with myself. Snapping her neck would’ve been quick and painless. I had my emotions locked down, my feelings pushed to the back of my mind.
It would have been so easy.
I was ready to make peace with the fact that I would never get the chance to claim her, then she started begging, and the second she said my name… fuck.
I lost it. I caved. I knew I couldn’t do it.
Dammit. Now I have to figure out how I’m going to pull this off under Wayne’s nose.
Get a girl who clearly isn’t dead out of the house, and convince the man I’m working with to let me bury her elsewhere. I’m not a liar, and I’m just as loyal to the Bishop name as he is, but if anyone has the power to test my loyalty to the family, it’s Saint.
Adjusting my grip on her, I take her limp form into my arms, bridal style.
She’s light compared to the hay bales we toss regularly.
Strands of honey-blond hair stick to her tearstained cheeks, her skin is pale, and she looks so innocent and at peace, though one look at her face and no one could mistake her for dead.
Fuck, what do I do?
End it.
There’s still time. One twist of my wrist and the problem’s solved. As if it were that easy. My fingers don’t move, and the thought makes me irrationally angry.
Frustration spikes hot and bitter in my veins. Keeping her alive is the stupidest thing I’ve done in years, and I know it.
She’s a risk, a witness, a liability I should’ve silenced on the porch beside Martin.
Yet here she is, her breath ghosting against my collarbone, binding me tighter with every second I hesitate.
The smell of copper and pine clings to her from my body, but there’s an undercurrent of something floral or sweet that lingers on her skin.
Wayne’s voice rips through the quiet of the night, startling me. “Calder! We need to move, now. You hear me? This ain’t clean!”
Don’t I know it? Martin’s corpse is cooling on the porch, there’s blood where there shouldn’t be blood, and I’m inside the preacher’s house holding the very thing I’m supposed to bury. My father would lose his shit if he knew about this.
I can already hear his voice in my ear and feel his fist against my jaw.
Shaking away the guilt, I walk over to the sofa and place Saint down on the cushions.
Wrapping her in a blanket will make it less noticeable that she’s alive.
I rip the quilt off the back of the sofa and wrap her in it, tight, until she looks small and still—more like a body instead of a living, breathing girl.
Then I scoop her back up and step out onto the porch.
Wayne stops mid-step, his forehead crumpled, his fists clenched. “This is a fucking mess, Calder. A mess. We’ve got blood everywhere, a witness, and—”
“Don’t fucking worry about it. I took care of the witness. Now we just need to dispose of the bodies,” I interject, stopping him before he can go on a full downward spiral.
His gaze darts to the blanket that Saint is wrapped in, and I grit my teeth to stop myself from lashing out at him.
Can he tell she’s alive? If he calls my bluff, I’ll have to do something drastic. Like actually kill her. Or him.
“What did you do to her?”
“Does it matter?”
He scratches at the back of his head. “No, but I need to know so I can send someone to clean the house, if necessary.”
“Seriously, Wayne.” I shake my head at him. Sometimes I wonder how he’s made it so far in life. “I didn’t slit her throat. She’s five pounds soaking wet. I just snapped her neck.”
It’s clear he’s as overwhelmed by the situation as I am, but overthinking it doesn’t change what we need to do. “Jesus Christ, Calder. Martin slipping loose, the girl, and now two things we need to take care of. Roman’s gonna—”
“Relax.” That’s all I say.
Wayne stares incredulously. “Are you kidding me? There’s no time to relax. We’re fucked.”
“I said to relax, and I fucking mean it.” My words cut sharp, and he halts mid-step toward me. I shift the bundle in my arms and layer the famous Bishop temper into my tone. “It’s fucking done. Now we clean this shit up and get back to ranch business.”
We both know my father is going to lose it when he finds out what happened. I’ll be dead, especially if he discovers that Saintlyn isn’t dead. But the sharp edge to my tone and the way I take charge seem to motivate him, and after a moment, Wayne settles a bit.
“Right.” He nods, though I can tell he doesn’t necessarily agree with me. “I can go back and get the truck, and we can load up the bodies and toss ‘em in the hole.”
“Normally, I would agree, but we aren’t doing it that way this time,” I bite out. “We’re not putting both of them in the same truck. Too easy to tie together. Too fucking sloppy. Call in a second vehicle.”
Wayne objects. “That’s not protocol. It’s one truck, one hole. Always been that way.”
I cross the space separating us and get right in his face, or as close as I can while holding a body.
“That would make sense if it were one body, but it’s not.
We’ve got two bodies, which means two opportunities to connect us to the crime.
Now you can either listen to me, or I can let my father know you defied an order, then we can see just how much better your night gets. ” I let the threat hang between us.
His lips press into a thin line, and he looks away. Not because he trusts me but because fear is easier than defiance. Even if he disagrees, he won’t disobey me.
Inside, my pulse hammers hard. Not just because he’s right—this is messy, loud, dangerous—but because the quilt in my arms shifts with the faint rise and fall of her breath. If he listens too close, if he looks too long, the truth is right there waiting to bury me.
“Fine, I’ll make the call.” He mutters, and I damn near sigh in relief.
The night swallows the preacher’s house in the rearview, a black silhouette against a darker sky.
Martin’s body was loaded into the bed of another hand, Ezra’s truck, and Wayne rides shotgun to make sure it disappears the way it’s supposed to.
After that, Ezra will scrub what he can off the porch before dawn, and get rid of the boot prints.
I don’t give a shit how he does it, as long as it gets done, and they aren’t paying close attention to me—us.
I told Wayne I’d take the girl elsewhere. Said it like it was a chore. Like her weight in my arms wasn’t already burning through my skin. Now she’s curled in the passenger seat of my truck, wrapped tight in that quilt, head tipped against the glass.
A bundle of silence. Too still.
The wheel creaks under my grip as I take the turnoff, heading north where the road forgets people exist. Pines crowd close, their spines jagged against the sky, the headlights carving tunnels through their shadows. Frost rims the fences, glittering like broken glass in the beams.
As I thought about where I could take her, the first place to jump out at me was the cabin.
It’s my space, a hidden sanctuary that I don’t get to escape to often.
No one will find her there, and if she somehow manages to escape the cabin then she would have to walk miles before she would come across anyone willing to help her.
The muscles in my jaw ache, and I realize I’m clenching everything without meaning to. Fuck, tonight was bad. I hadn’t handled a job this badly since I started.
Being sloppy gets you killed… It’s one of my father’s never ending pet peeves. I resettle my ever-tightening grip on the steering wheel until my knuckles crack.
How the fuck did I get here? I had one job, one fucking job, and I couldn’t even do that right.
She should be dead, not sitting in the seat next to me, her soft breaths grinding over every single one of my nerve endings.
Saving Saint is a mistake I can’t undo, but one I can’t bring myself to fix either.
That little snippet of truth is what twists the knife deeper than any consequence or threat from my father.
I focus on the sound of dirt chewing under the tires, letting my thoughts go.
Out here there are no houses. No eyes. Just the dark swallowing you whole.
I should be relieved that I made it this far, but I’m not. I know tomorrow will be hell, when I’m forced to face my father for fucking everything up. I’ll deal with the consequences of Martin running. As for Saint, no one will know about her.
A few minutes later, I park the truck in front of the cabin, and kill the engine. Silence surrounds me and I take a moment to sink into it. Trying to settle after this shit show of a night.
Once I’m out of the truck, I grab Saint from the passenger seat. It’s pitch black when I shoulder the door to the cabin open. Cold air presses in, carrying the smell of dust and old ash.
I take her straight to the bed and lay her down on the flannel covered mattress.
It groans under her weight, the quilt slipping away to reveal her face. There’s a million different things I could be doing right then but I just stand there, staring down at her in the dark.
I fish my phone from my pocket, and flip the harsh beam of the flashlight across the room.
The light is ugly, too sharp, catching on the rough beams and the stone hearth, throwing her features into stark relief.
She looks breakable like this, pale against the bedding, lips parted on a breath I shouldn’t still hear.
I sweep the beam across the nightstand until it catches on a box of matches and a squat glass lantern.
I strike one, kill the phone light, and let the lantern’s glow take over.
The flame steadies, shadows stretching long across the walls.
Warmer. Quieter. Too intimate for what this is supposed to be.
The soft light spills across her, painting her skin in soft gold.