Chapter Twenty
Connor
T he sky was still dark when I slipped from Sierra's arms, careful not to disturb her hydroxyzine-induced slumber.
She looked peaceful for once, her breathing deep and even, the furrow between her brows smoothed away.
I brushed a curl from her forehead, memorizing how the dim light made her cheeks glow.
She was finally resting without nightmares. The dose I'd slipped into her tea would keep her under for at least another four hours, enough time to handle this shit without her ever knowing I'd left.
I gave her a higher dose than before, since my sweet girl with her secret strength had managed to fight it that night.
After her first panic attack, I’d personally cornered a WBC physician and had him explain different treatments for immediate anxiety.
He’d practically pissed himself, but I ended up with hydroxyzine. He told me her appropriate dose, and the fact that it was an antihistamine made it perfect. Safe, studied, a sedative .
I had to fight the fantasy of fucking her all drowsy and pliant against the sheets every time I gave it to her .
The female bodyguard I’d hired last night, previously a WBC fighter, Mara, stood outside my floor and nodded silently as I emerged. Her dark tactical gear made her look like a shadow in the dim hallway lighting.
“She moves, you text,” I ordered. “She wakes, you call. No one enters, no exceptions.”
The blacked-out van idled in the underground garage, exhaust curling like smoke signals in the pre-dawn air.
The side door slid open before I reached it, revealing Adrian sprawled across the back seat, his usual goofy grin replaced by something harder and wild as he sharpened what looked like a hunting knife.
“Sleeping Beauty finally decided to join us,” Jax drawled from the driver's seat, his designer sunglasses perched on his head despite the darkness. Adrian shut the door as Jax checked his Rolex.
“We've been circling the block for twenty minutes. Jerry should be passed out drunk in his recliner, but the mistress might be heading over soon.”
The van's interior, all Adrian’s doing, had been fully refitted with gear mounted to the walls—various blades and restraining supplies. A small medical kit sat open on one of the bench seats, filled with surgical instruments rather than first aid supplies. We called it the party bus.
Adrian himself was dressed identically to Jax and me in black hoods, though he’d added unnecessary night vision goggles pushed up on his forehead like some kind of fucking spy.
“We’ve got the whole torture rainbow here. Jax wanted to bring thumbscrews, but I told him that’s so sixteenth century, you know? So, I grabbed these instead.”
He held up what looked like modified gardening shears with too much enthusiasm.
Jax began driving, his rings glinting on the wheel. “He’s been passed out for the last hour. Finished a whole bottle of Jack. No security system. No cameras, no dogs, not even a fucking doorbell. It’s like he was gift-wrapping himself for us. ”
The tires were quiet as we accelerated up the ramp. “How’s our bee holding up?”
“She's sleeping," I replied, the words clipped. I wasn't in the mood for fucking around, not today. Sierra's pale face as she'd huddled in that supply closet was branded into my memory. Her hands had trembled, and the raw terror in her eyes would haunt me forever.
I wanted to filet Jerry like a piece of meat and watch him bleed out slowly, all while begging for mercy he wouldn't receive.
Adrian seemed to sense the shift in my mood as he busied himself organizing “tools” into a black tool bag. “We’ve got about a forty-minute drive,” he said seriously. “Jax and I mapped three separate routes, all with minimal traffic cameras. The property’s on some isolated street.”
He hesitated, glancing at me cautiously. “Take these.” He held out my pair of black leather gloves. “Probably gonna need them.”
I’d definitely need them.
I pulled the gloves on, the leather cool against my skin. Jax navigated easily, weaving through the empty streets as the city slept. None of us spoke for the rest of the drive, the silence comfortable.
I pulled up the feed from my penthouse on my phone. Sierra was safe in my bed, surrounded by my stuff, protected by the fortress I’d built around her. Everything I did was for her. To keep her safe. To eliminate the ghosts that haunted her. To keep her mine in every fucking way possible.
Adrian held up his tablet once we were a few minutes away, showing a security scan of Jerry's house. “He’s passed out, been chain-smoking.” The camera zoomed in on a figure slumped in what looked like a living room chair. “Probably waiting on our party bus visit.”
“Or jerking it,” Jax muttered disgustedly, hitting the gas harder than necessary as we drove through the empty street. “Guys like that don't stop.”
My jaw clenched so hard I nearly tasted blood.
The journal entries I'd read flashed through my mind, Sierra's handwriting growing increasingly frantic as she described Jerry yelling about her worthlessness.
The way he'd thrown her books when she asked for school supplies.
How he'd invited his friends over to leer at her when she was fifteen.
I'd memorized every fucking word, letting them fuel the rage that had been building since I first learned how she grew up.
The house looked exactly as it had in the surveillance photos, a tired one-level with peeling paint and dry lawn. The kind of place that screamed mediocrity and disappointment. The perfect cage for the man who'd tried to clip Sierra's wings.
“I’ll go in alone,” I ordered as Jax killed the engine a block away. “You two stay with the van. If I'm not out in ten, come in after me.”
Adrian looked like he wanted to argue, but Jax spoke up first. “Your show, Killer. Just remember, we need him alive to actually hurt him.”
I nodded, pulling the black cloth over the lower half of my face. “Ten minutes.”
The pre-dawn air bit my exposed skin as I approached the house from the rear, avoiding the direct sightline from the street.
The back door's lock was pathetically simple; I had it open in seconds, slipping inside like a shadow. The house reeked of cigarettes and cheap liquor, the shit floorboards creaking under my bulk despite my careful movements.
I followed the sound of labored snores to the living room, where Jerry sat slumped in a recliner, an empty bottle dangling from his limp fingers.
He looked even more pathetic in person than in the surveillance photos—lanky and sallow, his thinning hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. This was the monster who had terrorized my Sierra? This pathetic shell of a man who couldn't even stay conscious through a night of drinking?
I stood over him for a long moment, studying the slack features that had contorted in rage so many times in Sierra's childhood. It would be so easy to end him now—one quick twist of his neck, and he'd never hurt her again.
But that wasn’ t good enough for my sweet girl. Sierra deserved to say what’s been haunting her for years to him at the very end. To free herself of the hurt he inflicted.
I gripped his throat tightly with one gloved fist, hauling him upright with enough force to snap his head back. His eyes flew open, bloodshot and confused, as I slammed him back against the nearest wall.
The drywall cracked under his head, family photos rattling on the walls. They were of Sierra at various ages, her smile forced and unhappy, and it made my blood fucking boil.
“Know me?” I snarled, tightening my grip until his face began to purple. "Because I fucking know you.”
I slammed him again, harder this time, relishing the dull thud of his skull against the wall.
“Jerry Franklin. Stepfather. Alcoholic. Solicitor. Child abuser .”
Each word was punctuated with another slam of his body, the wall behind him beginning to buckle under the repeated impacts.
“W-wait,” he choked out, clawing ineffectually at my clothed forearm. “I k-know... you...”
I laughed, the sound harsh and rough even to my own ears. “No shit. I'm the man who's going to make you wish for death.”
I leaned in closer, our faces inches apart, close enough to smell the sour reek of his fear.
“The man who's going to rip you apart piece by piece for what you did to Sierra.”
His eyes widened, recognition dawning through the haze of fear and lingering alcohol. “The fighter,” he wheezed. “Connor... G-Graves...”
“Gold star for the child abuser,” I increased the pressure on his windpipe, his face turning an ugly shade of purple, eyes bulging as he struggled for air.
It was intoxicating, this power, knowing I could snuff out his miserable existence with just a slight increase in pressure .
Would Sierra mourn him? Or would she finally sleep through the night, free from the nightmares that made her count her breaths?
“S-San... Francisco...” he managed, the words mangled and barely audible.
My adrenaline halted, and the pressure on his throat eased slightly, just enough to allow him to draw a ragged breath.
“What did you say?" I demanded, my voice dangerously soft.
“S-San Francisco,” he repeated, a glint of triumph appearing in his yellowed eyes despite his precarious position. “Ten years ago... The underground fights... The men you killed...”
My grip faltered as the memories crashed through me—the loud crowd, the smell of blood, the crunch as my opponent's head hit the concrete floor.
“How the fuck do you know about that?” I hissed, slamming him against the wall again, harder this time. The drywall gave way completely, Jerry's upper body punching through to reveal the wooden studs behind.
“I have... footage," a bloody and pained smile spreading across his face. “You... beating a man to death. Clear as day... your face..." He coughed wetly, blood speckling his lips.
“It's set to... release automatically... if anything happens to me.”
My mind raced, calculating the implications.
“Names. Now.”