Chapter 36
Luke
Idon’t even knock. I shove the door open hard enough that it bangs against the wall, my pulse still racing from the drive, from the call, from the absolute bullshit I just heard.
Reid and Sierra freeze in their current positions.
Sierra is lying on her front, her eyes closed, her breathing slow and measured.
Reid sits cross-legged beside her, his hands hovering just above the small of her back, moving in slow, deliberate sweeps—controlled, steady, like he’s holding something fragile in place.
For a split second, my brain tries to catch up, tries to make sense of what I’m looking at.
It takes me a moment to realize he’s giving her a Reiki treatment, and under any other circumstances, I’d be grinning like an idiot that Sierra finally gave it a shot.
Reiki isn’t my favorite thing, but even for an old skeptic like me, there’s something to it.
The ritual. The focus. The fact that someone is choosing to sit there and pour their time and energy into you.
That alone can make a person feel better.
Our girl has so much tension in her that anything is a win.
Ha. Our girl.
Even now, the thought flickers through me, quick and warm. I like the sound of it more than I probably should.
But the feeling dies just as fast, crushed under the weight of what I just heard.
I drag a hand through my hair, pacing forward before stopping dead in front of them. The room suddenly feels too small, like the walls are pressing in. I don’t even know where to start—only that I have to tell them. I draw a deep breath and decide to just rip the bandage off.
“I just got off the phone with the Sheriff,” I say, my voice tighter than I want it to be. “He says there’s someone looking into you.”
“For what?” Reid asks in a still mild tone, like this is just another inconvenience. “Let me guess, they want to charge me with kidnapping? Holding her hostage?”
“No.” I meet his eyes and hold them.
“Murder.”
His entire body locks up. Not a flinch. Not a breath. Just… frozen.
His eyes snap to mine, shock flashing first—then fear. Underneath it, something that hits me harder than anything else.
Guilt.
“What do you mean?” Sierra pushes herself upright so fast she almost collides with him, her gaze sharp, urgent, searching my face for something she won’t find. “Who’s accusing him of murder?”
“I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head, frustration creeping in. “I think it has to do with the Mayor of Yellowbrook. Barnes. Amanda’s husband. He’s stirring shit, planting stories, trying to drag the retreat through the mud. We need to figure out a counterattack.”
“Who did they say I killed?” Reid asks quietly.
The question throws me. Completely.
“What the fuck does it matter? We need to—”
“It matters.”
The way he says it stops me cold.
“Who did they say I killed?”
His voice is low. Too low. Hollow in a way that drains the air out of the room. His face has gone completely blank, like something inside him just shut down. He’s paler than I’ve ever seen him, his breathing shallow, uneven, like he’s already bracing for impact.
A slow, creeping unease crawls up my spine.
“Reid?”
He presses his lips together, shaking his head once like he’s trying to stop himself—but failing.
Talon hasn’t said a word. When I glance at him, he’s watching Sierra instead, his gaze sharp, focused. Sierra’s hands have slid over the back of Reid’s hand, her fingers curling slightly, holding on, grounding him, like she’s trying to anchor him to something solid.
There’s something in the way she looks at him—steady, intent. Like she’s telling him not to do this.
Reid doesn’t look back.
“Maybe we should talk about this another time,” Sierra says carefully. “For now, we should—”
“It’s true.”
The words come out fast. Flat. Final.
For a second, I don’t process them. They just hang there, wrong, like my brain refuses to accept what it just heard.
Maybe I misheard.
Maybe I imagined it.
“I’m sorry,” I say, lifting a hand and hooking my pinkie into my ear like that’s somehow going to fix this. “What did you say?”
“Reid—” Sierra’s voice sharpens with warning, but he cuts her off with a small shake of his head.
“No. They deserve to know.” He exhales once, steadying himself. “It’s true. I did kill my father.”
My jaw drops.
Beside me, Talon sucks in a sharp breath, the sound loud in the silence that follows.
It feels like something just slammed into us—like a boulder dropped out of nowhere—and we’re both just standing here, stunned, trying to process the impact while everything inside us rattles loose.
The only one who doesn’t look surprised is Sierra.
She looks… conflicted. Tight around the edges. Like she hates that this is happening, but she knew it might.
“You knew?” I hear myself ask, my voice quieter now, edged with disbelief.
Her gaze shifts to me, regret flickering across her face as she nods.
“Yes. He told me a long time ago.”
“What the actual fuck?” I rake both hands through my hair, pacing a step before stopping again, my thoughts scrambling for something—anything—that makes this make sense.
“Close the door behind you,” Reid says. “Then I’ll tell you the story.”
Still reeling, I step aside automatically so Talon can move past me. The door clicks shut behind us, sealing the room off. The air inside immediately feels heavier, thicker, like it’s harder to breathe.
We wait.
Or maybe we just stand there because none of us knows what the hell else to do.
“My dad was an abusive piece of shit,” Reid starts, his voice steady in a way that doesn’t match the tension locked through his body.
“Used to beat on my mother, who was also abusive, by the way, but I didn’t accept it at the time.
I thought I got rid of him when I was twelve.
I threatened him with a knife and told him that if he ever came back, I would kill him. ”
“At twelve?” The words slip out before I can stop them.
“I didn’t mean it then,” he says. “I was just trying to get him to leave us alone.” His fingers flex slightly at his sides, like he’s remembering it too clearly.
“It worked for a few years, but then he came back. I think my mom invited him, but I didn’t know at the time.
I just came home, and he was there—mocking me, threatening to hurt my mom when I left home.
” His jaw tightens. “We got into a huge argument. Then we started trading blows.”
I can almost see it—the shouting, the chaos, the violence thick in the air.
“He was drunk,” Reid continues. “I hit him hard enough to fall down the stairs, and he broke his neck.”
“God.” I drag a hand over my mouth, my stomach twisting hard. Beside me, Talon is completely still, his silence saying everything.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” Reid says quickly, like he needs that on record.
Then his gaze drops to his hands. “Or maybe I did. Maybe somewhere, deep down, I wanted him dead. It was the cleanest way to get rid of him.” His voice tightens.
“And I was so fucking mad that he was back after everything, still the same asshole trying to beat us into submission.”
He exhales sharply, like he’s forcing himself through it.
“Right after it happened, I called my uncle. He’d reached out a couple of weeks before, but he was still pretty estranged from the family.
He was the only one I could think of in that moment.
” His jaw clenches. “He came right over. I wanted to call the police, but he didn’t let me.
I was seventeen. Too close to eighteen for comfort, he said.
Even if it was involuntary manslaughter, I could be tried for murder.
Especially since I’d threatened my dad before. ”
I shift my weight, restless, my skin prickling.
“He told me my mother wouldn’t take my side if I argued self-defense.”
“Why wouldn’t she?” I demand. “You said he used to beat her, and you’re her son.”
“Abuse is complicated.” He gives a bitter, humorless smile. “And you of all people know that being someone’s son can sometimes mean nothing.”
I grimace slightly.
Yeah. He’s got me there.
“For all their fights, my mother fancied herself in love with him,” Reid continues.
“She loved him a hell of a lot more than she loved me, or she wouldn’t have called him back.
” His voice hardens. “And it wasn’t the first time she’d done it either.
Before he died, my father told me how many times she called him, begging him to come back. ”
This was just when he finally ran out of money to burn through and had beaten his old girlfriend badly enough that she finally kicked him out.
He had nowhere left to go, so he took my mother up on her offer.
Reid’s lip curls slightly, like the whole thing still disgusts him.
“So anyway, my uncle told me there was no fucking way he was letting me take the blame for it. Said he’d do it instead.
But I didn’t want that either.” He swallows hard, his throat working.
“So we…” He drags in a rough, uneven breath. “We got rid of the body.”
God.
It hits me like something rotten. Like a bad movie that keeps getting worse the longer it plays. My stomach turns, and for a second I actually think I might be sick. I keep waiting for him to crack, to smirk, to tell me this is some sick joke he and Sierra have cooked up.
He doesn’t.
“How?” I ask, my voice coming out tighter than I expect.
“There was a lake close to our home,” Reid says.
“Below a steep, rocky cliff.” His eyes stay fixed somewhere past us, like he’s watching it happen again.
“He tossed the body in there. We cleaned the place up. Wiped anything down my uncle thought might show my prints or DNA. Made sure there was no sign of a struggle. We hoped that when they found him, they’d assume he’d gotten drunk, wandered off in the direction of the cliff, then stumbled, fell, and broke his neck on the way down. ”
A cold shiver works its way up my spine.