Chapter 30 Storm
Storm
Yeah, I wasn’t joking about gutting the senator’s wife.
Everyone thought I was, so I went with it.
They laughed, rolled their eyes, brushed it off like I was being dramatic or trying to break some tension. But my hand hasn’t moved from the knife tucked into my pocket.
My fingers brush over the warm metal, and it soothes me.
The thought still sits sharp and clean in the back of my skull.
I could be a gentleman about it. Make her death the complete opposite of her life—quick, painless and clean.
That would mean I couldn’t gut her, but that’s okay. Her blood would still spill.
It’d be one problem solved. And solved in a way that wouldn’t lead back to us. She’s a senator’s wife. She’s having an affair. All that other shit is just icing on the cake.
Death…pain…they don’t disturb me, not in the same way they do other people.
Once, in late winter, I found a buck hit by some drunk on Highway 17, steam lifting off his hide in the blue cold. His rack was barely velvet-torn, his back leg broken clean through, his breath fogging in panicked bursts. I put a hand between his eyes and talked until his shuddering eased.
Mercy isn’t a feeling. It’s a decision you make the choice to act upon. You don’t take it back. I made a quick cut. It was a clean end, and the world went quiet again when the buck finally slid from this world to the next.
Another time, there was a stray dog behind the bait shop—her skin a map of old fights, her eyes glassy with pain.
She wouldn’t let anyone close but me. I sat on the cold concrete and let her put her head in my lap while the night breathed around us.
There were no dramatics. No audience. Just the slow unwinding of a life that had fought too long.
She was chewed up by fleas and ticks. There was already blood coming out of her ears and eyes.
I couldn’t let her stay that way. I couldn’t let her continue to hurt.
So, I did what I needed to, and then I stayed until her last exhale and dug her grave myself.
I let her go with the knowledge that there was love in this world, even if she’d only known it in the last moments.
That’s what I mean when I say “gentlemanly.” Not bloodlust. Triage. Just…turning the noise down to zero.
Mrs. Langford is nothing but noise.
The oiled scent of the blade steadies me as the weight sits honest in my palm, pulling me back to quiet.
I know murder shouldn’t be my go-to, but really…at this point…what’s one more body?
Mrs. Langford is a walking fire alarm, shrieking until someone pays attention. And sooner or later, she’s going to make good on her threats to call her husband, her boyfriend, or the fucking press.
I flick the knife open with a click. The blade flashes under the suite’s light. My fingers spin it once, then I snap it shut.
Open. Shut. Open. Shut. The rhythm is a tether, the only thing keeping me from planting the point straight into the polished wood of the coffee table.
A housekeeping cart rattles past the suite—one wheel rolling with a nagging squeak that drags. Someone’s phone pings an alert. I count it all: squeak, ping, knife click—inhale. Squeak, ping, click—exhale. I stack my breath on the sounds and let the routine sand down the edges.
Phoenix catches my eye, and I shake my head. I’m not close to going into a dark place. It’s just run of the mill annoyance and stress. But that doesn’t stop her from coming to me. When she slips into my arms, I can’t help but press a kiss to her neck.
Atticus leans forward, rubbing the exhaustion out of his eyes before he taps a finger against his tablet. His voice is low, flat, the way it gets when he’s half-gone from too many sleepless nights.
“I found footage,” he says. “Footage that shouldn’t exist.”
“Define shouldn’t,” Conrad bites out. His temper’s already on a short leash.
Atticus tilts the tablet toward us. I lean just enough to see the screen. My stomach goes cold.
It’s our suite. A grainy angle, black-and-white, from above.
The living room.
Our couch. This couch.
Us, from maybe two nights ago.
I straighten so fast the knife almost slips.
Atticus swipes, showing more. Conrad’s office. Atticus’s workspace. The dining room where we fucked Phonix as a group the first time. Where the body was left.
Places that should be private. Places where secrets bleed.
“Jesus,” Maverick mutters, sunglasses dangling from his fingers. “We’re being watched like contestants on some bad reality show.”
I flip the knife between my knuckles, then swipe a hand through my hair, pushing the shoulder-length strands off my face and flipping them behind my shoulder. “Good news is, I look fantastic on camera.”
Atticus ignores me, keeps flipping through the cursed reel.
“The cameras were hardwired. I did some searching and managed to locate the ones that corresponded to these images. There were pinhead lenses tucked into vents and the smoke detectors. Feeds spliced into piggyback servers hidden behind DVR racks. Whoever did it knew what they were doing. I burned the lines, wiped what I could. But the fact remains—they’ve been watching us, obviously.
For a while. I have no way to know what they have copies of. ”
Phoenix sits quiet, her hands resting in her lap, shoulders tight. Too tight. Like she’s holding her breath.
Her hands look relaxed, but upon closer inspection I see her fingers are tapping—thumb to middle, thumb to ring, thumb to index—soft, precise, a three-count that resets when her breath hitches.
I clock the cadence: four beats, pause, two beats, pause, then a single staccato tap she uses like a period.
Her left knee twitches once every four seconds, not enough to shake the cushion, just enough to bleed off a little energy. Her gaze skims anything that throws back a faint reflection—the window, the lacquered table edge, the black glass of Atticus’s tablet—never lingering, always moving.
She looks calm if you don’t know her, but I do. That tap is her tell. She’s checking for eyes.
I watch her for a moment. Could this have something to do with whatever secret she’s keeping? Or does she simply not like the idea of a video of us all together being out there somewhere?
“So what?” Maverick asks. “Karen Langford’s just a distraction? She screams about Botox while somebody crawls through our walls?”
“Could be connected. Could be totally separate things,” Atticus says. “Doesn’t matter. They had eyes inside. That means they have us.”
I pace the length of the suite, blade flashing, the weight familiar. My mind runs outcomes like cards in a dealer’s hand. “Here’s how I see it. We’ve got two plays.”
I raise the knife, point it at the ceiling, carving the choices into the air.
“One: we lean hard on Karen in the physical sense. Put a gun to her head or a knife to her throat—I don’t care.
Make her cough up where she got the drugs, who stuck a needle in her face, who’s dealing inside our walls.
Trace it back and nip it in the bud, quiet-like.
The downside? Whoever’s watching us has a front-row seat to whatever we choose to do.
We run the risk of walking right into their trap without even knowing whose trap it is. ”
I turn the blade in my hand and aim the point down now, tapping it against my thigh. “Two: we pay her off. Give her a golden leash and hope she struts away satisfied. Maybe it buys us some time. Maybe it tells her we’re an easy target, and she doubles down.”
I swing-snap the knife shut with a click that echoes. My gaze drags across all of them. “Bleed her or feed her. Those are the lanes. Or the third and my vote. I can just kill her.”
Three ideas, but okay.
Maverick slumps back against the couch, a drink sweating in his hand. “I hate both ideas.”
Conrad’s jaw locks so tight it’s a wonder his teeth don’t crack. “Paying her emboldens her. Threat risks exposure. Neither ends cleanly.”
“Clean’s a fairy tale,” I tell him. “We live in the dirt and mud, and the shit is piling up.”
“There’s more,” Phoenix says softly. But the edge in her voice cuts deeper than mine ever could.
My eyes snap to hers. She isn’t looking at me, not really—more like through me. Past me. Like she’s somewhere else entirely.
I know that vacant look. I wear it every time I want to be anywhere else.
The tension in her shoulders, the way her hands twist, I have never seen her so…scared. She knows something. I can feel it crawling under my skin.
“Storm isn’t wrong,” Atticus sighs, not even looking at her.
“The threat will get answers, but with risk. Payoff buys us time, but I think it will definitely embolden her. Neither solves the fact that we’re compromised.
Someone actually has cameras in our walls.
That has to be a bigger priority than Karen Langford. ”
I flick the blade open and closed again, letting the rhythm keep me from exploding.
“Whoever’s behind it knows everything. Every fight, every word, every plan.
Every weakness.” My mouth curves into a grin with no humor.
“Almost makes me want to put on a show. Give them something to watch. Let them think they’re winning.
Then slit their throat while they’re clapping. ”
“Storm.” Phoenix’s voice is steady now.
I stop mid-step, knife still turning between my fingers. “What?”
She draws in a slow breath, her lashes fluttering like she’s bracing for impact. When her eyes lift, they lock straight onto mine, unflinching.
“There’s more,” she says again. “A lot more.”
The air in the room drops a few degrees.
Conrad frowns. He sets his phone face-down on the table, giving her his attention. “What are you talking about?”
My fingers curl tight around the knife until my knuckles ache. I’m not sure what I’m bracing for… the truth, betrayal, maybe both.
I need to hear it.
I need to know what Phoenix has been hiding.
And God help whoever it damns when she finally opens her mouth. Because my nickname for her is real. She’s an angel, my angel. But I’ll pluck her fucking wings myself if she’s going to hurt us.