Chapter 59
Brooke
The panic burns itself out somewhere past the freeway on-ramp, but the aftermath lingers, settling into my body in a way that feels worse.
Beau drives while I stare straight ahead, my hands locked together in my lap so he won't see them shaking. I press my fingers together hard enough that the joints ache, focusing on the pain because it is easier than focusing on everything else.
It took more than it should have to get him in this car.
Beau didn't want to leave. He kept saying Seth would come back eventually, that someone needed to be there when he did, and that walking out now could make things worse.
I told him I would go alone if he didn't come with me.
That was the only thing that worked.
Travis gave me everything before we left.
Locations, access points, entry routes, and the name of the event Victor Voss is hosting tonight.
His hands moved fast across the keyboard while he explained it, his voice tight, his eyes flicking between the screen and me like he was trying to decide if he should say more and choosing not to.
He stayed behind without arguing. Someone had to be there if Seth came back.
“I led them to her,” I say.
Beau’s eyes flick toward me for half a second before returning to the road. “What do you mean?”
My throat tightens, and I swallow against it, forcing the words out anyway. “After the warehouse. After we killed Elliot. I made Seth take me to Samantha’s house.”
Beau’s jaw shifts slightly. “Grant has resources. He finds people. That wasn’t you.”
“It was. He had to know where to look. I walked him straight to her.”
Silence fills the car. The road stretches ahead in a long, dark line, the headlights cutting through it without making it feel any less empty.
“Don’t do that,” Beau says finally. “Don’t put that on yourself.”
I shake my head, my gaze fixed on the windshield. “I can’t get it out of my head. Her face. Her voice. The way she was talking to him.”
My chest tightens again, sharper this time.
“She had to apologize,” I continue. “She had to explain herself. She had to tell him she loved him while she knew she was about to die.”
My voice cracks.
“She didn’t deserve that. And he shouldn’t have had to see it.”
Tears spill before I can stop them, and I swipe them away fast, angry at myself for letting them show because weakness feels dangerous right now.
Beau doesn't look at me, but something in his posture shifts.
“I’ve seen some pretty fucked up things.” His voice loses a fraction of its edge. “I know exactly where Seth’s head went. Mine would’ve gone there too.”
I turn toward him despite myself. “What happened to your parents?”
He doesn't answer right away. His grip on the wheel tightens slightly.
“You want the long story or the short one?”
I glance at the GPS. “How long until we get there?”
“About three hours.”
“Then give me the long one.”
He nods once, keeping his eyes on the road as the headlights carve a narrow path through the dark highway.
“My father ran a network,” he starts after a moment. “Not the Hollywood version of organized crime. This was the kind of operation that moved real money through real ports. Containers, weapons, people, things that disappeared into shipping routes and never showed up on a ledger.”
He adjusts his grip slightly.
“My mom came from another family that did the same kind of work on the other side of the world. Different crews, different continents, same business. Their marriage was supposed to end a war between those networks.”
His jaw shifts as if he is grinding something down.
“It didn’t.”
“There were four of us,” he continues. “Me and three younger siblings. Two brothers and a little sister. Things started getting tense when I was about ten. Deals were falling apart, shipments disappearing, people pointing fingers behind closed doors. My parents decided it would be safer if I wasn’t around while the adults figured out how not to kill each other.
One of my dad’s contacts moved me out of the country. ”
“Where did you go?” I ask.
“A training compound in Colombia,” he says. “Kids like me got sent there when their parents decided it was safer to turn them into weapons than leave them exposed.”
He keeps his eyes on the road.
“I spent years there learning how to survive,” he continues. “How to shoot, how to track, how to disappear. I thought maybe I’d never have to go back to the family business if I got good enough at something else.”
The tires hum against the pavement. He shifts in his seat, adjusting his grip on the wheel.
“When I was eighteen, my parents asked me to come home for a truce dinner. Both sides of the family were supposed to be there. Cameras, security, a big show of unity. The kind of thing that told the rest of the world nobody was about to start a war.”
Streetlights streak across the windshield. His thumb taps once against the steering wheel.
“I brought her with me,” he adds.
I angle toward him, resting my shoulder against the seatback. “Her?”
“My girlfriend,” he continues. “I never brought her around them. I knew better. But she wanted to meet my family. She thought if we were going to build a future, she needed to understand where I came from.”
I drag my nails lightly across my palm, grounding myself in the sensation.
“I should have told her no,” he says. “I should have left her out of it completely.”
His fingers drum once, then go still.
“I was supposed to sit at the table with them,” he goes on. “My mom told me to move one of the cars in the driveway before dinner started. It was blocking the entrance and some of the guests were complaining. I grabbed the keys and walked outside.”
The engine dips as he eases off the gas for a curve.
“I heard the first shots before I even reached the car.”
I turn fully toward him now, my breath catching without warning.
“By the time I got back inside, it was already over,” he murmurs.
My hand slips from my lap and presses against the seat beside me.
“They didn’t just kill them,” Beau continues. “They made sure the bodies told a story. Hands were cut so nobody could hold power again. Rings were taken so no one could pretend the old bosses were still in charge. Faces were destroyed so nobody could build shrines for them later.”
A car passes in the opposite lane, headlights flashing across his face.
“My brothers died under the table. My sister died in my mother’s lap.”
I swallow hard and look away for a second, staring out at the blur of trees.
“My girlfriend died in that house with them.”
My fingers curl into the fabric of my leggings.
“They wiped out everything tied to them. Blood, alliances, attachments. They made sure nothing survived that could grow into a problem later.”
He shifts his shoulders slightly, like he’s trying to shake something off.
“That was the first time I realized loving someone could get them killed.”
The words settle heavy, pressing into the quiet between us.
Losing your family like that was already unimaginable, but losing the person you loved at eighteen, in a room that was supposed to mark peace, felt like a different kind of devastation. There was no time to process it, no space to say goodbye.
For a second, my mind betrays me and goes straight to Seth.
To the way he looks at me like I am the only thing keeping him here. To the way everything in him burns too hot, too fast, too absolute. To how easily something like this could happen again if we aren't careful, if we slip even once.
I press my lips together and force the thought down.
It explains something about Beau that I had not fully understood before, the distance, the control, the way he moves through the world like attachment comes with a cost he has already paid once.
“I saw her before one of my father’s men pulled me out,” Beau continues. “He shoved me into a car and drove like hell. The whole time he kept telling me how lucky I was.”
I shake my head slightly. “Wow.”
“They said I didn’t have to take over the family anymore,” Beau sighs. “They said I could walk away from all of it.”
I glance at him again. “Did you believe them?”
“For about five minutes,” he says. “Then the rest of them started talking.”
His jaw shifts as he exhales through his nose.
“They started talking about how useful my name still was,” he continues. “How many alliances it could repair. Which prisons I would have to visit to show loyalty to the right people.”
He adjusts his grip on the wheel again, knuckles brushing the leather.
“That’s when I realized they weren’t trying to save me. They were just moving the pieces around again.”
The road curves, and he follows it.
“I didn’t want any of it,” Beau adds. “Not the titles, not the wars, not the family business. I wanted something that belonged to me instead of my bloodline.”
I tilt my head slightly. “So you joined the Marines after that?”
“Yeah, part of it was getting out. Part of it was making sure nobody ever got that close to me again.”
Silence stretches for a few seconds, filled only by the low rumble of the engine.
“And part of it,” he admits, quieter now, “was that I didn’t really care if I lived through it.”
I shift in my seat, pulling my legs in closer.
“They thought it was temporary. They figured I would come back trained, disciplined, useful. They thought the military would turn me into a better weapon for them.”
I glance at him again. “And that’s where you met Seth.”
A faint smile touches his mouth.
“Yeah, turns out he and I have a lot in common.”
He taps the steering wheel once.
“Different reasons. Same appetite for violence. Same understanding that the world doesn’t fix itself. Sometimes you burn the problem out.”
The road rumbles beneath us while trees blur by on either side, and the world keeps moving like nothing is wrong.
“So when I say I understand Seth,” Beau adds, “I mean it. Shit like that changes you.”
I turn back to the window, watching the dark slide past.
“He’s going to do something terrible.”
“Yeah,” Beau agrees.
I drag my sleeve over my hands, folding them tighter. “And we can’t stop him.”
Beau lets out a quiet breath. “That part we can agree on.”
I stare ahead, voice steady. “I’m going to do something terrible too.”
Beau looks over at me then. “Are you ready for this? Because what you’re planning to do isn’t something you just come back from.”
“I haven’t come back since I left the manor. I’m not the same person.”
He nods once in acceptance.
The rest of the drive stretches long and quiet.
My thoughts drift back to Seth. I picture his face when the screen went black, the way his body went empty, like something vital had been unplugged. I know him well enough to understand what that moment did to him.
He can’t let this go.
He has lost too much in too short a span of time. He thought he was going to lose me. We lost the baby. And now he has lost his mother in the most brutal way possible, with no goodbye, no chance to reconcile, and no chance to hear those words without a gunshot following them.
There is no version of Seth that witnesses that and stays the same.
I feel it settling into place with sick certainty. He's going to lose himself. Whatever thin strip of humanity he still holds onto is about to burn away.
And I am terrified of what he will become.
Three hours later, Beau slows the car and pulls off the road. Trees crowd around us, thick enough to hide the vehicle from the drive beyond. Up ahead, iron gates rise out of the dark, framing a mansion that glows softly against the night.
We move fast after that. Beau handles security like it is instinct. One guard drops without a sound, and another follows moments later. The booth opens, and the gate slides wide.
We slip inside.
The house looms closer with every step, and I can hear conversation drifting through the air, along with the clink of glass and low laughter, all of it untouched by what is about to happen.
I reach the front door and lift my balaclava just enough.
The door opens.
A maid freezes when she sees me, confusion flickering across her face before she steps aside automatically.
An older woman with gray hair approaches from inside, and the moment her eyes land on me, recognition hits hard enough that she physically recoils. Shock spreads across her face, her posture locking as she takes me in, clearly understanding exactly who I am.
I smile.
“Hello, Mrs. Grant.”