Chapter 25
RYKER
The door opened.
“Ryker?” Sebastian’s voice cut through the fog. “What the hell?”
He was next to me in seconds, dropping to a knee, one hand gripping my shoulder, the other tipping my jaw and looking for damage.
“Talk to me,” he ordered. “Ryker. Hey. Look at me.”
I couldn’t. I tried, and nothing happened.
Sebastian looked at the floor and toward the phone. Toward the screen.
His whole demeanor changed like he’d seen something that didn’t belong in my house. His grip tightened on my shoulder.
“Jesus … Who is that?” His attention snapped back to me, his eyes widening with worry.
“Mate, you don’t look good. Can you hear me?” He waved a hand in front of my face.
I tried to answer but the pain in my head took over again.
“Fuck. Ryker, stay with me.”
The black swallowed the edges of my vision anyway. But even as everything else faded, that image stayed seared into my brain, sharp and bright, like someone had carved it into me.
It had taken me five minutes to talk Sebastian out of calling 9-1-1, but he finally dropped it.
“How long has this been going on, mate?” Sebastian sat on the kitchen floor across from me, his voice was steady, but his expression said the opposite. He kept searching me for the moment I might flip out again.
The ache pulsed slow and deep, and my head felt packed with cotton. I was upright, but barely.
“Don’t tell Death.” I rubbed the back of my neck.
He gave me a look that said he didn’t like it, but he heard me. “Not sure if I can hide it forever, but I’ll try. He has a nasty tendency to pop up uninvited.” His forehead pinched with his words.
The attempt at humor landed thin. His mouth parted then closed, like he might be holding back everything he really wanted to say.
I leaned my head back. “It started after the beating. Flashes. Smells. Sounds. Then I’m out.”
A flicker of concern flashed in his expression. “How often?”
I hesitated.
His expression sharpened. “Ryker.”
“Enough,” I admitted. “Not every day. But enough.”
He didn’t respond, but I suspected he filed it away. Then he looked at the phone sitting next to me now.
“And that? You’ve never been one to keep a picture on your phone.” His tone softened, as if he already knew the answer would cost me.
I followed his glance. The screen was still lit, and that face was still there. My chest tightened before I could stop it.
Sebastian didn’t push yet. The bastard knew exactly when to wait because pushing wasn’t how you saved someone mid-bleed. You stayed close and let them come apart at their own pace.
“When I was in rehab. I put it there to give me something to help me remember the good times. What I might have again one day.” That hope had slipped through my fingers like grains of sand. I’d been feeding myself a line of bullshit to get through the darkest days of my shitty life.
Sebastian’s expression changed, just a flicker. Not pity. Something closer to understanding.
“I’m not sure why. It’s not like I’ll ever see him again.”
Bass stayed silent, letting the words breathe before he spoke. “Who is he? There’s a woman …”
Regret gripped me so hard that I struggled to breathe. “When we were in college,” I started, “I met someone.”
Sebastian’s brow lifted. “You never told me you dated anyone.”
“I got good at keeping secrets.” I shot him a knowing look.
He held my gaze. “We all did. Tell me now, though.”
Her name scraped out of my mouth. “Evelyn.” Something loosened in my heart and tightened at the same time.
Sebastian’s eyes shut for half a second, the smallest tell, as if he’d taken a hit for me.
“She was smart.” I stared at the tile. “The kind of person who felt normal when nothing around me was. We were together six months.”
Sebastian nodded. “And you cared.”
“I did.” The admission tasted bitter on my tongue. “I was going to propose. I would have, but I knew what I was tied to. I knew what protecting Death meant. I didn’t want Evelyn anywhere near it.”
Sebastian’s voice stayed steady. “I know you’ve made a huge sacrifice, mate. I’m sure he knows that too.” He leaned his head against the wall. “What happened between you and Evelyn?”
“She went home to Indiana for summer break. We planned on her coming back early. She never did. I kept asking why. After a lot of calls, she finally told me she was pregnant.”
Sebastian’s eyes widened a fraction, but he didn’t interrupt.
“I wanted it. I wanted the baby. I wanted the family. I wanted to be a dad.” The words cracked on the edge. I forced them through anyway. “She was scared of her parents. Of what it would do to her life. I begged her to come back. I told her I would take care of them, and I meant it.”
“Did she ever say why she wouldn’t?” Bass asked.
“No.” Air stalled in my lungs for a beat. “She kept saying she couldn’t. That it wasn’t that simple.”
I dragged a hand down my cheek. “She had my son on May eighth … Gavin.”
Sebastian looked toward the phone again. “That’s him?”
I hesitated. “Yeah, that’s my son.” I stared at his little face, grief consuming me all over again.
“She sent pictures. We talked on the phone. I sent money.” My voice went flatter.
The old pain trying to turn into something manageable.
“I visited a handful of times when she agreed to it. I asked to move closer. I asked to be involved. She kept saying no.”
Sebastian’s mouth tightened. “That’s … strange.”
“Yeah.” I let out a humorless breath. “That’s one word for it.”
I forced the next part out before I changed my mind. “The last picture she sent was the one on my phone. He was almost two.”
Bass didn’t move. “Then she stopped?”
The words stuck in my throat then tumbled out.
“They died.”
Silence hit the kitchen like a wall.
Sebastian went perfectly still. “Mate, I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine …” His accent was thick with his apology. Even though he hadn’t lost any kids, I knew he could imagine how fucking much it could hollow a person out. “How did it happen?”
“A car wreck.” The words came out too clean, too practiced. “Both of them gone instantly.”
“Fuck,” Bass whispered, like he didn’t have anything else that fit.
I pushed myself off the floor before I could sit there and feel it. I needed to move. Needed to not look at the phone again.
“I’ll never see him again.” My chest cracked wide fucking open. “I’ll never kiss his forehead again. Never hear him laugh. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. To be a dad. With what we do, I won’t have more kids. Not after that.”
Sebastian watched me as if he could see straight through the steel I tried to wrap around myself.
“You don’t have to give up on finding someone. Look at Kip and Holland. Ella—”
“I can’t,” I snapped, and it came out sharper than I meant. “I can’t risk it.”
Sebastian didn’t flinch. “Ryker.”
I stared at the floor. At Gavin. At the tiny strip of yard in the background of the image. The normal I didn’t get to have.
Sebastian’s voice lowered. “Did you ever pull the accident report?”
I’d known Bass since we were kids, so I understood that he wasn’t changing the subject. He was giving my grief somewhere to go that wasn’t straight fucking through me.
My head snapped up. “What? Why?”
“Because you’re telling me she kept you away. She wouldn’t let you move closer. Wouldn’t let you be in their daily life. Then they die and you’re left with a photo and no answers. If it was clean, you deserve to know. If it wasn’t, you deserve to know even more.”
“It was an accident.” I didn’t have the energy to believe anything else at the moment.
Sebastian held my gaze. “Do you know that for sure? Or do you need it to be true?”
I didn’t answer fast enough.
Bass nodded, like my silence did the talking. “Okay. We’ll come back to it. But I’m not letting you pretend the blackouts are nothing.”
“It’s PTSD,” I muttered.
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s the stress and sleep deprivation and you refusing to deal with pain until it puts you on the fucking floor.”
I huffed a bitter laugh. “Sounds like me.”
Sebastian didn’t smile. “Let’s say it’s stress. What happened to trigger the episode?”
My stomach tightened.
He saw it immediately. “Ryker. What else happened?”
I stared at the hallway like there might be an exit there. Then I forced the truth out.
“There’s a woman. She used to be a detective. Her name is Sloane.”
Sebastian’s expression sharpened. “Hmm. You being friends with a detective or cop other than Ryan doesn’t make sense. Does she have something on you?”
I blew out a sigh.
“The other night with Mick. She saw everything. I kept her for three days, then let her go. I told her if she talked there would be consequences. She gave me her word and I believed it. She’s also tied to the rabbit—her missing brother has the same tattoo.”
Sebastian’s attention went to my tattoo, then back to me. “No shit? How so?”
“Cold case. He went missing. Same mark.”
He stared right through me as he let that sink in. “Christ.” His body tightened but he didn’t explode. “And you meant the threat? If she talks …”
The question cut. I hated it because it was fair. I looked away for a second. “I needed her scared.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I exhaled hard. “No. I don’t think I could hurt her. Men that hurt women and kids—I’ll destroy them all day long.”
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed, not in warning, but understanding. “I get it. But she’s still a problem.”
“I know. There’s one more thing.” I gave him the rundown on the message.
He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “And it said?”
“Too Late.”
Sebastian went still again. “On your screen?”
“Yes.”
“Not automated?” he guessed.
“No. It looked like a person typed it while I sat there.”
Sebastian stared at me as if he was trying to see the whole picture at once. “That means someone knows you were digging.”
“Yeah.”
“And you told me your parents dropped something on you too.” His gaze sharpened. “About when you were a kid.”
My stomach pitched. “They admitted I went missing for four days when I was eleven. They think an old friend had something to do with it. His number is in my phone. I haven’t called yet.”
Sebastian’s gaze locked on mine. “You’re telling me: a rabbit tattoo, missing time, a detective connected to a missing brother, and someone warning you you’re too late?”
I nodded.
Bass exhaled slowly. “Holy shit. That’s a lot, mate.” He went silent, thinking. “Okay. Then we move smart.”
He leaned in closer as if he was planting himself between me and the darkness.
“First, I will do everything possible to keep Death out of all of this for now, unless we have to bring him in. Second, you tell me every detail about Sloane. Where she lives, who she’s close to, what she knows.
Third, we pull everything we can on that message.
Devices, access points, anything. Fourth, we dig into your parent’s friend before he gets wind that you’re digging, or you contact him. ”
My pulse kicked. My head throbbed. This is what I needed. When shit went sideways, Bass got into problem-solving mode.
“You’re carrying too much on your own. That ends now.”
I hated the way relief hit my chest, quiet and immediate.
I swallowed it down anyway. “Fine.”
Sebastian shifted. “Good. Now start at the beginning. Tell me exactly what happened with Sloane from the moment you realized she was on your trail.”
I dragged a breath in through my nose.
And this time, I didn’t try to outrun the truth.