1. A Reckoning
A Reckoning
Jacob
My finger hovers on the trigger; the urge to pull and send whoever the fuck stands in the entrance to hell pulsing through my veins. But I stop myself. Realization dawns on me that this man could be my ticket to finding her, so I hold my aim and let the creature step in from the shadows.
What I see when he enters makes me falter. He’s older, composed in a way that feels strange for what’s happening in this house. He wears a dark jacket. White shirt. Every line of him is controlled.
He must be the butler.
He crosses the threshold with open palms, wearing a mask of calmness. Then I look at the eyes staring back at me. The calm doesn't reach them. Something shifts there. A crack in the polished surface. Fear, held so tightly it's threatening to split him open.
“I can help you,” he breathes, his voice a little more than a rasp.
I cross the room in three strides and press the barrel of the gun to the center of his forehead.
“Three seconds,” I say, voice low and lethal. “Or I pull the fucking trigger. Where is he going?”
Up close, I see it. Not just fear of me. Something deeper. Something that was already there before he realized I was here.
“Please,” he says, swallowing hard. “I’m not your enemy.”
I don’t move the gun.
“Everyone in this house is my fucking enemy, old man,” I snarl, shifting the gun in my grip as I take another step toward him.
The movement is instinctive, barely noticeable, but his eyes immediately lift to the weapon before snapping back to my face.
Sweat beads along his hairline. His throat bobs.
Good. Let him be afraid. Let him understand exactly how little stands between him and a bullet right now.
“I won’t ask again.” My voice comes out low and deadly calm, which somehow feels worse than shouting. “Where. The fuck. Is he going?”
His jaw tightens. He knows the risk he took entering this room. He knows I could have painted the walls with a single shot to the head. But he came to me anyway. He didn’t try to hide. He didn’t try to attack.
“Mr. Moore...” The name catches in his throat.
He swallows hard, like even saying it might cost him something.
The fear isn't subtle anymore. It's written across every inch of him.
The rigid posture. The carefully controlled expression.
The polished butler act he's been hiding behind since he stepped into this room.
All of it is starting to crack beneath the weight of what's happening.
“He uses the property for business,” he says, forcing the words out. “But when he needs to disappear...” His voice falters. He glances away, then looks back at me. “...he goes to Rivers Ridge.”
I lower the gun a fraction.
Not because I trust him. Because I want him to keep talking.
“Where.”
“Private estate,” he says quickly, the words coming faster now. “Off-grid. Not on any map you'll find. There are no records. Nothing at all.”
My grip tightens. Sweat makes the weapon shift slightly in my hand as I study him.
He's terrified. I can see that much. But terror doesn't mean honesty.
I've spent enough years sitting across interrogation tables to know that fear makes people do desperate things.
Lie. Beg. Say whatever they think will keep them alive for another minute.
“And why would I believe a fucking word you say?” I bare my teeth before clamping my jaw shut hard enough that pressure builds behind my molars. The taste of blood coats my tongue where I've bitten the inside of my cheek without realizing it. “They got an ambush waiting?”
The question hangs between us.
Neither of us moves.
Then he breaks. Not physically. Not all at once.
But I see the exact moment it happens. The fight leaves his eyes.
“My daughter, Sarah.” His voice doesn't hold this time. It fractures completely.
The name catches me off guard. Not because I care about him. Because of the way he says it. Like it's the thing that's been trapped inside his chest this entire time.
“She's just twenty-one.”
The number lands harder than it should.
Twenty-one. The same age as Summer.
“Mr. Moore has her,” he continues, and now the words are spilling out faster than he can control them.
“She spent some time at Rivers Ridge. That was the last place I saw her before he moved her somewhere else.” His breathing becomes uneven.
The composure that defined him when he walked into this room is gone now, stripped away layer by layer until all that's left is a frightened old man.
“She told me she was staying with a friend. I believed her.” His voice cracks. “God help me, I believed her. By the time I understood what was happening—by the time I realized what he does there—”
The sentence dies in his throat. His hand begins to shake. He clenches it into a fist like he can force it to stop. He can't. Because this isn't a butler standing in front of me anymore. It's a father.
And I think he's telling me the truth.
“I serve Mr. Moore because I have to,” he says, quieter now. “I did what I was told. Because if I didn’t—” His throat tightens. “He’d kill her.”
Silence settles. I look at him properly and take in every emotion he wears. Not the suit. Not the posture. The fear. The kind that doesn’t leave a man. He’s terrified of me, but he’s more afraid of Jackson Moore. That tells me everything. Something cold shifts under my skin.
“You serve the bastard his wine while he carves up women,” I say, voice low. “You left your daughter under his control.”
His face crumples. “I didn’t have a choice—”
“There’s always a choice, old man.” I don’t raise my voice. I don’t need to. He feels it anyway. “You lie to me,” I say quietly, stepping closer, pressing the barrel harder into his forehead. “I’ll come back.”
He nods rapidly, relief and fear colliding across his face. “I understand. I swear—I understand.”
I hold his gaze, searching for any sign that he's feeding me bullshit. All I find is desperation. The kind that comes from living with fear for too long. The look I've seen on the faces of parents sitting across from me in interview rooms when their children don't come home.
Slowly, I pull my phone from my pocket and unlock it. The screen illuminates the space between us as I open the maps app and shove it toward him.
“Show me.”
His fingers shake as he works. The screen slips slightly beneath his grip before he catches it, swallowing hard as he zooms further into a stretch of land that looks completely empty. No roads. No buildings. No markers. Nothing but wilderness stretching endlessly in every direction.
Except it isn't nothing. Whatever sits hidden in the middle of that wasteland is important enough that Jackson Moore disappears there when he doesn't want to be found.
“There’s no record,” he says quietly, his gaze fixed on the screen. “They made sure of that.”
The location sits in front of me and somehow tells me absolutely nothing.
No access roads. No nearby properties. No indication that people even live there.
It looks like a dead patch of earth forgotten by the rest of the world.
Which means it's exactly the kind of place a man like Jackson would choose.
“The feds—”
“Don't go near them.” His interruption is immediate.
For the first time since he entered the room, there's no hesitation in his voice.
I look up from the screen. The old man is already shaking his head.
“They don't touch it,” he says, and whatever fear drove him before seems to have been replaced by something else. Resignation. “Whatever arrangement exists between Mr. Moore, Mr. Vale, and the federal department...” His throat works as he swallows. “It holds.”
Silence settles between us. I stare back down at the map.
At the empty patch of land hiding something worth protecting.
Something worth burying. The implications crawl beneath my skin.
If he's telling the truth, this goes deeper than I thought.
Deeper than money. Deeper than influence.
The kind of protection he's describing doesn't happen because somebody made a few phone calls.
It happens because powerful people benefit from looking the other way.
Good. A humorless smile threatens to pull at the corner of my mouth. Because that means when I burn the place to the ground, there'll be more than one monster caught in the flames.
“You won’t take it with a handful of men,” he adds, quieter now. “It’s built to withstand more than that.”
I let out a slow breath. Not frustration.
Not doubt. Something darker. My gaze remains fixed on the map between us as I picture Summer out there somewhere beyond that stretch of empty wilderness.
Every mile between us feels like a living thing.
Every second she's in Jackson Moore's hands twists something deeper inside my chest.
“Then I’ll get more.”
The words leave me without hesitation. Without thought. Because there is no version of this story where I stop.
His eyes flicker slightly. “You’ll need an army.”
Most people would hear that as a warning. A reason to reconsider. A reason to walk away. I hear something else entirely. A challenge. A list of obstacles standing between me and Summer.
A problem.
And problems can be solved. A slow, cold sound leaves me as I lift my eyes to meet his.
“Then I’ll fucking build one.”
The old man's face drains of what little color it had left.
Maybe he finally understands that I'm serious.
Maybe he understands that every man Jackson has hidden behind, every wall he's built, every favor he's called in, every piece of protection he's wrapped around himself means absolutely nothing to me.
Because Summer is there and that's all that matters.
I take my cell back from his trembling hands and stare down at the location one last time, committing every detail to memory. To anyone else, it looks like wasteland. Empty land in the middle of nowhere. But I know better now.
That's Rivers Ridge. That's where she's being taken. That's where I’ll go. I slide the phone back into my pocket and holster my weapon before turning toward the door.
“Sir—” His voice breaks behind me. The sound stops me.
“Please...” His words are barely holding together now. “Please set my daughter free.”
For the first time since he walked into the room, I hear no fear for himself. Only fear for her. I close my eyes briefly. My hand tightens into a fist.
“First, I get Summer back. Then I bring every woman trapped inside his fucking empire home.”
The words come out rougher than I intend. Then I walk away. Because promises won't save his daughter. And they sure as hell won't save Summer.
Only what comes next will.
By the time I hit the stairs, the others look up and watch me descend. This isn’t procedure. This isn’t law. The badge on my belt means nothing right now. This is something older. Something simpler. Violence with a purpose.
I look down at my hand. Blood dried into my knuckles. Her hair still caught between my fingers. I don’t let go.
I won’t.
Not until I have her back in my arms.
“With me,” I say, voice low, steady.
My men move to follow without question, falling in behind me like they always do when I need them. And God, I need them now more than ever.
I take one last look at the house. At everything it tried to hide. At everything it failed to keep. We head to the exit and step out onto the driveway. I look up to the sky to see the stars struggling to shine behind the fog.
The night stretches out before me in shades of silver and gold.
Lights glow in the distance, scattered across the landscape like fallen stars.
Crickets hum from the grass. The wind moves lazily through the trees, whispering through the branches.
Everything is calm. Beautiful even, like the kind of place a child would dream about.
A hidden corner of the world untouched by cruelty. Untouched by men like Jackson Moore.
But I know better.
“This isn’t a fairytale.”
The words settle into the night. My eyes find the horizon automatically, drawn to the patch of sky where she disappeared. Where I lost her.
“It’s a reckoning.”