Chapter 22 Aiden
TWENTY-TWO
AIDEN
The memory from five years ago slammed into me like a freight train.
I’d just buried her or whatever was left of her. I’d stood at the edge of the grave and watched the casket descend into the open earth, the sound of clinking chains and shifting dirt echoing in my skull. The priest’s voice was a low, hollow murmur, swallowed by the wails and noise around me.
I couldn’t feel anything.
Back in the penthouse, the silence greeted me, heavy and unmoving. It pressed against my chest, just as my wife’s wedding ring dug into my palm and guilt into my heart.
The home was still, too still, as if it was holding its breath.
Raven’s things were everywhere, untouched, and almost frozen in time.
Her sweater was slung over the back of the chair, a pale ghost of her warmth.
Her favorite mug sat by the sink, the faint ring of coffee dried at the bottom.
Her perfume still clung to the air, curling through the room like a memory refusing to fade.
The sight of it all made my stomach twist. My chest ached so hard it felt like my ribs might crack. I hated that I could still smell her when she was gone.
Two short weeks.
That was all it took for her to carve her name into my bones. Two weeks of laughter, of teasing smirks, of late-night whispers that somehow mattered more than anything else.
Now, there was just absence.
How could someone become so essential in so little time? Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was something deeper, something I wasn’t ready to admit. I didn’t know, and I couldn’t bear to find out.
I turned toward the window, toward the city bleeding orange and gold beneath the dying sun. The light hit the glass, sharp and blinding, painting the room in molten hues. It looked almost like fire.
Then my phone buzzed.
I flicked a glance at it. It was Uncle Jack.
For a moment, I thought about ignoring it. I didn’t want to hear his voice. I didn’t want to be dragged back into business and blood. Not today.
But habit won. I swiped to answer.
“Duncan swears the explosion had nothing to do with him” was his greeting. His voice was rough, strained. “He says it was a gas malfunction.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” My voice cracked, thin and sharp.
“He blames us for Raven’s death,” Jack said after a pause, the sound of a lighter flicking faintly in the background. “And he’s threatening war.”
I gripped the counter to steady myself. “You said you’d wait before approaching him.”
“I know what I said,” he muttered, voice low. “But I didn’t. And now—he’s told me things. About Raven’s mother.”
The words hit like a sledgehammer.
“What are you saying?”
“That woman cut a deal with the DEA. She’s the reason Duncan went to prison. I didn’t want to believe him, so I went to see her that morning.”
“You what?” I hissed, every word scraping out like glass while the world tilted.
“I had to be sure,” he said quietly. “And she admitted it. She sold him out. We couldn’t risk her turning on us next. I told her as much that morning of the explosion.”
The words sank in slowly, one by one, until the room felt like it was closing in around me.
Images of Raven flashed behind my eyes—her soft smile, the way she’d taken care of her mother the day we visited her together. The way she’d looked at me the morning I last saw her. The day I knew she’d be leaving to visit her mother alone.
If her mother had confessed… if she’d panicked… if Jack had confronted them…
Had Raven known? Had she realized in those final seconds that it was us—our family, our world—that had doomed her?
My knees weakened as guilt overwhelmed me.
“It’s your fault my wife is dead,” I gritted, the words clenched between my teeth. “And I won’t rest until you pay for her death.”
The phone slipped from my hand, the crash echoing through the empty penthouse as I sank into the chair and pressed my palms to my face.
Later, I learned Uncle Jack suffered a heart attack after that phone call, but none of it brought Raven back.
For five years, I’d fought ghosts and the Scottish mobster. Every night, I saw her face in my dreams. Sometimes screaming, sometimes smiling. Sometimes accusing.
And now, standing here—five years older, five years colder—she was alive.
My chest burned with anger and betrayal.
If she was here… then who the hell had I been mourning all this time?