Chapter 46
Dusk gave way to nightfall while Everett sat alone at the edge of the cliffs.
The sea stretched black and endless beneath him, broken only by the moonlit shimmer of waves striking rock far below.
Wind moved across the bluff in restless gusts, dragging salt through the air and rattling the low scrub that clung stubbornly to the jagged ground.
From here, the island looked almost peaceful.
Wild. Untouched. Beautiful enough to make a man believe the world still held places no one could ruin.
Everett knew better.
He didn’t know how many hours had passed.
Too many.
He’d been sitting on the cliffside, staring at the water, listening to the waves beat themselves apart against the rocks, and trying to understand what could have been.
Bobby Zaniewski had been his brother.
His half-brother.
The teenage boy who had goaded him, envy burning in his eyes, had grown into the man who despised him because they shared the same father.
Everett didn’t waste energy trying to convince himself Remington had gotten it wrong.
Bobby had been abrasive, confrontational, and vindictive enough to turn every slight into a weapon.
That all added up to the man not being stupid.
He wouldn’t have built a lifetime of hatred on speculation. His attacks on Everett had always been precise, damaging, and full of unbridled resentment.
DNA didn’t lie.
The truth had fed a lifelong hatred. Knowing they were brothers hadn’t meant family to Bobby.
It hadn’t meant blood or connection or the possibility of something better.
He’d only cared about the life he believed had been stolen from him.
The money, power, and prestige that came with being one of the Connecticut Gilliams.
Everett doubted Bobby had ever wanted to know their father.
Not really.
Bobby wanted the name, the inheritance, and his share of everything he believed Everett had been given for free.
What Bobby never wanted was a brother.
That was the part he couldn’t stop circling.
If he’d known the truth while there was still time, it would have changed everything.
Knowing how ruthlessly Bobby tried to destroy him, forgiveness was hard to fathom.
But his hatred for the man would’ve dulled.
The edge of their animosity would have softened.
The distance between them wouldn’t have been as great.
And maybe over time, they could’ve found a different way of coexisting that respected the fact that they were connected.
He would never know whether they could have shed the roles of enemies and become something closer to family.
Even if their father had refused to acknowledge Bobby, Everett would have.
He would have demanded answers. Demanded accountability.
Demanded something better than silence for a boy left outside the door while another son was welcomed in.
None of it mattered now.
Bobby was dead.
The truth had died with him, then crawled back out of the grave and landed in Everett’s lap like a curse.
He dragged a hand down his face.
The past was the past. It couldn’t be changed. There would be no confrontation and no chance to tell him the blame belonged with their father, not with the brother who never knew he existed.
Everett pushed to his feet.
Enough.
He couldn’t sit out here all night feeding ghosts. He needed to get back to the gatehouse. Back to Remington.
She’d given him space because she knew he needed it.
But night had fallen.
By now, she was probably pacing the kitchen and cooking everything in the house to keep herself from tearing into the Breaklands after him with a flashlight, a gun, and no plan beyond pure stubborn terror.
The thought pulled something painful through his chest.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out the burner phone, and dialed the only number programmed into it.
More than anything, he wanted to hear her voice. He wasn’t fine. The truth didn’t hurt any less than it had when he’d walked out.
Remington was the one person who could stand with him in the wreckage of his world and still make him believe there was something left to hold on to.
He couldn’t imagine what it had cost her to tell him. She had known it would gut him. Known that he might look at her, for one terrible second, as if she had become another extension of Bobby’s cruelty.
She had told him anyway.
And he loved her all the more for it.
The phone rang.
Everett started down the trail, lowering the device enough to stare at the screen.
It kept ringing.
His steps slowed.
Why wasn’t she answering?
Their rules were simple. Burner phone and gun on them at all times. No exceptions. No excuses. Not with police hunting her and Bobby’s killer still unidentified.
The call rolled to nothing.
Everett ended it and dialed again.
This time, he punched the digits himself.
The first ring cut through the dark.
Then the second.
His chest tightened.
By the fourth, he was moving faster.
By the sixth, he was running.
By the tenth, the jungle swallowed every thought except one.
Something was wrong.
Branches whipped at his arms as he tore down the trail. The beam from his phone cut wild slices through the trees, too narrow, too shaky, catching flashes of roots, rocks, and vines. He should never have come this far. He should never have left her for hours.
What the hell had he been thinking?
He hadn’t.
That was the answer, and it wasn’t good enough.
The truth about Bobby had moved through him like fog, dulling every instinct he’d spent years sharpening. He had walked away from Remington hurt, angry, and blind to the fact that being shattered did not make him less responsible for keeping her safe.
The gatehouse had security.
It had hidden cameras. Motion sensors. A perimeter that only a handful of people knew how to cross without triggering a silent alert. His phone would have notified him of a breach. The system would have told him if someone approached.
Unless the system was down or someone figured out how to bypass it.
He ran harder.
The main trail curved wide around the broken southern ridge.
Too wide. Too slow. Everett cut left into the trees, taking the old shortcut he and Remington had used as teenagers when they wanted to reach the cliffs before sunrise.
The path was narrower now, half-eaten by the jungle, but he knew where it should be.
Knew the angle of the slope and the rocks that marked the safer ground.
Then the earth cracked beneath his foot.
The sound was soft.
A low, brittle snap.
Everett had less than a second to shift his weight before the ground gave way.
He dropped.
The cliffside vanished under him, soil and stone collapsing into open air. He slammed hard against the edge of the break, one arm catching rock, his shoulder wrenching with brutal force as the rest of his body swung over the ravine.
His gun tore loose from his waistband.
For a split second, moonlight flashed against metal.
Then it tumbled into the dark.
“Damn it.”
He couldn’t reach for it. Couldn’t watch it fall. His boots scraped at the crumbling wall beneath him, searching for purchase and finding only loose dirt. Rocks broke free under his heels and clattered down into the ravine.
They didn’t call this place the Breaklands for nothing.
Everett’s grip slipped.
He grabbed for anything.
A twisted vine slapped against his wrist. He caught it, fingers closing hard enough to burn.
The vine held.
Barely.
His body jerked to a stop several feet below the edge. Pain tore through his shoulder. His ribs struck the side of the ravine, hard enough to empty his lungs. He hung there, boots skidding against the unstable wall, one hand locked around the vine, the other clawing for a root buried in the dirt.
Below him, the ravine fell into blackness.
Fifty feet.
Maybe more.
Not fatal if the rocks were kind.
Everett gritted his teeth and pulled.
The vine creaked.
He froze.
For one brutal second, he saw Remington in the gatehouse, waiting for him. Calling his name. Needing him while he dangled over a drop because he had been too consumed by Bobby’s ghost to stay where he belonged.
Digging his boots into the dirt wall, he climbed.
Hand over hand. Inch by inch. The vine cut into his palm.
Dirt poured into his eyes. Every movement sent a fresh tremor through the ground above him.
The break widened near his left boot, another sheet of soil crumbling away and raining into the dark.
He kept climbing.
Remington had to be okay.
He hauled himself higher.
Who the hell was he kidding?
Remington wouldn’t ignore his call. Not after what she had told him.
The vine tore loose as he dragged himself over the lip of the ravine, breathing hard.
No time.
He rolled to his feet, checked the backup pistol strapped to his ankle, and kept running.
The gatehouse came into view minutes later.
Every light inside was on.
Everett slowed as his training overrode the fear clawing through him.
The shutters were open.
All of them.
The gatehouse stood bright and exposed against the dark, every window turned into a display case. Anyone outside could see into the living room, the kitchen, and the hallway.
He approached fast, staying low and keeping to the side of the windows as long as he could. His hand closed around the pistol. The smaller grip felt wrong in his palm, too light, too little, but it was a weapon. It would fire. That was enough.
Then he saw her.
The world stopped.
Remington was on a raised platform in the middle of the living room.
Her wrists were tied behind her back. Her ankles were bound. Silver tape covered her mouth. Her hair clung to her face, wild and damp with sweat. Her hazel eyes were frantic and desperate.
Everett’s stomach heaved.
A loop of twisted linen descended from an open ceiling panel and wrapped around her neck.