Chapter 29
29
CLAIRE
I had chased monsters my entire career, but tonight, I had walked straight into the dark and found the man I couldn’t bear to lose becoming one.
Wasn’t it ironic?
I could only hope I had arrived before it was too late.
Before we left, Ryker made a quick call, his voice low and clipped as he gave instructions. Sinclair wouldn’t be left to bleed out alone in that concrete box. One of their men would clean him up, patch what needed patching, and keep him under watch until they decided what to do with him.
The van, still parked outside the black site, was being handled, too. Ryker had left the keys with one of their guys, ensuring it would be wiped down and moved before anyone started asking the wrong questions.
Efficient. Precise. Like this was just another night at the office.
As we pulled onto the highway, though, the scent of blood still thick on Marcus, I wasn’t sure anyone had walked away from this unscathed .
Gibson Sinclair’s face—swollen, bloody, barely recognizable.
Marcus’s fists—red, raw, shaking with restrained fury.
The moment I’d stepped between them, put my body between Marcus and the wreckage of what used to be a man.
I should have been scared of him. The way he’d looked at me, eyes full of something unhinged, his body thrumming with the need to destroy. But I wasn’t. Not even for a second.
Because I understood it.
The need to do something. When the world takes everything from you, when justice feels like a ghost you can never quite touch—you lash out. You burn everything down just to feel the heat.
I knew that feeling too well. But I also knew it wasn’t going to get us what we needed.
And now? Now, I had a plan.
Dominion Hall was eerily silent when we arrived.
Ryker killed the engine, but Marcus didn’t move. He just sat there, staring through the windshield, his chest rising and falling in slow, controlled breaths, like he was still trying to claw his way back from the edge.
Ryker got out first, leaving us alone.
I reached out, my fingers brushing Marcus’s forearm, and finally—finally—he looked at me.
“What you did back there,” I said softly. “It won’t bring Diego back.”
His nostrils flared. “I know that.”
“But you wanted it to.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
I trailed my fingers down his arm, lacing them through his, feeling the tension under his skin, the raw, unspent violence still coiled tight in his muscles. “Let me try this my way.”
He didn’t pull away, but he didn’t relax.
I swallowed, my voice quieter now. “You know, it wouldn’t have brought Jason back either.”
Marcus stiffened. His grip on my fingers turned rigid, not tight, not crushing, but suddenly still, like the weight of that name had frozen him.
Jason Lawson. His friend. His brother-in-arms. A man who had fought beside him, bled beside him, and never made it home. I didn’t know all the details, but I knew enough—Jason had been taken from him, just like Diego had been taken from me.
And then there was Byron Dane.
I didn’t say his name, but I didn’t have to. It was there, a specter between us, filling the space that grief always left behind. Marcus had lost his father, lost Jason, and now, he was grasping at vengeance like it was the only thing keeping him standing.
But it wouldn’t bring them back. Not Jason, not Byron, not Diego.
Loss didn’t work like that.
It hollowed you out, carved you from the inside until you were just remnants of the person you used to be. And the worst part? The world didn’t care. It kept spinning, kept moving forward, while you were stuck—trapped in the moment they took their last breath, reliving it, rewriting it, trying to imagine some version where you could have stopped it.
I knew that feeling. I was drowning in it.
And so was he.
I squeezed his hand, my voice softer now, careful. “Marcus.”
His gaze flicked to mine, dark and unreadable, but I saw it. The fracture in his control, the quiet, brutal grief clawing at him from the inside.
“I need you,” I whispered. “Not like that. Not lost in this.”
He exhaled sharply, running his free hand over his face, like he was trying to wipe something away. His fingers tightened around mine, grounding himself. Grounding us both.
“Let me try,” I said again, firmer this time. “Please.”
For a long, agonizing moment, he didn’t answer. Then, finally, his shoulders slumped, just slightly, just enough.
“All right,” he muttered. “We do this your way.”
I let out a slow breath, my fingers still tangled with his. It wasn’t a victory. Not really.
But it was a start.
His fingers tightened around mine. He exhaled slowly. “Tell me what you need.”
That was Marcus. He didn’t try to talk me out of it. Didn’t argue, didn’t dismiss me. He just looked at me with those calculating eyes and waited for me to tell him what to burn.
I squeezed his hand. “Come inside. I’ll show you.”
The op room was cold, the walls lined with monitors still flickering with grainy footage from the black site. I pushed past it, forcing myself not to look, not to think about the bruised, broken mess Marcus had left behind. That wasn’t my focus now.
I kept walking, my pulse hammering, heading straight for the stairs. In Marcus’s room, the air still carried the scent of him. The bed was rumpled, the sheets tangled from where we’d slept, from where he’d had me.
I ignored the heat that tried to creep up my spine and grabbed my suitcase from where I’d left it near the dresser. My laptop was inside, cool and solid beneath my fingertips. I pulled it out, clutching it tight for a second before turning on my heel and heading back downstairs.
By the time I reached the op room again, my decision was made.
This wasn’t just about finding answers. This was about setting the world on fire.
Marcus stood close, his presence a steady heat at my back, watching me like I was something rare. Something important.
I shoved my hair out of my face and opened the laptop. “We can’t find Hart, but someone else can.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Who?”
I met his gaze. “My listeners.”
His brows furrowed.
“I’ve been running The Unseen for years. Millions of downloads. Millions of people who live for this kind of hunt.” I took a deep breath. “If we turn this into a real-time investigation, they’ll track her down before the sun rises.”
Marcus studied me for a long moment. Then, to my surprise, a slow, dangerous smirk spread across his face. “You want to sic the internet on her.”
“Hard.”
His smirk deepened. “I like it.”
I tried not to let that do things to me, but it did.
The way he watched me—like he wanted to devour me right there, push everything off this table and put me on top of it. His gaze dragged over me, slow and deliberate, dark with possession. Heat coiled low in my stomach, pooling between my thighs, my pulse a traitorous thrum beneath my skin.
Marcus leaned against the edge of the table, arms crossed over his broad chest, but there was nothing casual about it. His jaw was tight, his breathing controlled, like he was barely holding himself back. Like he was remembering exactly how I’d looked spread out beneath him hours ago, how I’d sounded moaning his name.
I shifted, thighs pressing together, a spark of frustration flickering through me. I had work to do. But his presence wrapped around me, distracting, intoxicating, the weight of his gaze stripping me bare.
I bit my lip, fighting the urge to push him further, to test the limits of that control. Instead, I turned away—forcing myself to focus, to ignore the heat simmering between us. For now.
I pulled my mic from my bag, setting it up, checking the levels, and then—just like that—I was live.
My voice was steady, smooth, controlled. A skill I’d perfected over the years.
“This is Claire Dixon, and you’re listening to The Unseen . But tonight, I’m doing something different. Something I’ve never done before.”
I glanced up at Marcus. I swallowed hard.
“This isn’t a case I pulled from old police files. This isn’t an urban legend or a disappearance that’s gone cold. This is happening right now. And I need your help.”
I took a steadying breath, my fingers tightening around the mic. My voice had to be strong, unwavering. For Diego.
“His name was Diego Gil. He was my friend. And he was found dead in the pool of The Palmetto Rose hotel in Charleston, South Carolina.” I swallowed, the lump in my throat thick, but I pushed through. “The police are calling it an accident. But I know it wasn’t. ”
A beat of silence stretched, heavy and charged.
“He wasn’t just my friend,” I continued, my voice softer now, thick with grief I hadn’t had time to process. “He was the producer of The Unseen . Every single episode you’ve ever heard of this show? Diego was behind it. The edits, the sound design, the music—he was the one who made sure my voice reached you. That every story we covered was told with care. That the victims weren’t forgotten.”
A deep breath. I could do this.
“This show mattered to him,” I said, the words sharp with the truth of it. “Not just because it was his job. But because he believed in it. He believed in uncovering the truth. In shining a light on the things people tried to keep buried. In giving voices to the ones who didn’t have them.”
A thousand memories threatened to crash over me. Diego, sprawled in a chair at my apartment, laptop open, headphones on, grinning as he tweaked an episode’s intro music for the fifth time just to get it perfect. Diego rolling his eyes every time I spiraled about a script but still reading through every word, pointing out the parts that needed tightening. Diego calling me, voice buzzing with excitement, because a new lead had come through on one of our deep-dive cases.
And now? Now, his voice was gone.
I clenched my jaw, forcing the grief down.
“Diego knew what he was doing. He knew how to dig, how to follow a trail. He knew when a story wasn’t adding up.” My pulse pounded. “And now, he’s dead. And the police don’t care.”
My hands shook, but I kept my voice steady.
“His parents are on a plane right now,” I said, my breath hitching slightly. “They’re flying to Charleston. To the place where their son died. They deserve answers. They deserve justice. And right now, they have nothing.”
A hollow ache burned in my chest. I could still hear María Gil’s sobs over the phone, the way her voice had cracked when she asked Dónde está? —where is he?
I closed my eyes for a brief second, exhaling.
“I’m not going to let this go,” I promised, my voice firm. “And if you’ve ever trusted me—if you’ve ever believed in what we do here—then I need you now.”
I leaned forward, gripping the edge of the table.
“I need your help.”
Marcus’s fingers twitched. His expression didn’t change, but I saw the ripple of tension go through him.
“I’m asking you—all of you—to help me find the woman who holds the key to this. Her name is Evelyn Hart. She’s the mayor of Charleston. And she’s disappeared.”
I paused, letting the weight of it settle.
“I don’t need conspiracy theories. I don’t need speculation. I need real leads. I need eyes. If you’ve seen her—if you know where she’s staying, who she’s talking to, what car she’s driving—I want to know.”
I let my voice soften, threading it with something raw, something real.
“Diego deserves justice. And I can’t do this alone.”
I let the words hang for a beat, then pushed forward.
“I’m putting something on the table. If you help, you won’t just get a mention on the show—you’ll get more. A private event, in Charleston, fully paid. And I’ll attend, too. We’ll celebrate together.”
I lifted my gaze again, locking onto Marcus. His eyes had darkened, but there was something else there too—something quieter.
Pride. Not just in me, but in this. In the way we were working together, in the way his resources were fueling something bigger than just vengeance. He didn’t need the credit. Didn’t want it.
Because this? This was mine.
“This is personal,” I said, voice thick. “And if you’ve ever lost someone and been told to just move on—to let it go—then you know why I’m doing this. Why I have to do this.”
A long exhale.
“Let’s find her.”
Then I killed the mic.
The room went silent.
I barely had time to breathe before Marcus was there, fingers brushing my wrist, his body so close I could feel the heat of him everywhere.
“You’re incredible,” he murmured, voice low, dark, reverent.
I turned my head, my pulse skittering. “You think it’ll work?”
He exhaled sharply, then leaned in, lips ghosting the shell of my ear. “It’s already working.”
My skin erupted in chills.
The laptop screen was lighting up with messages, notifications flying in at breakneck speed. My email was already pinging with tips, theories, names, locations.
We had set the fire. Now we just had to watch it burn. And when it did?
Evelyn Hart would have nowhere to hide.