Epilogue #3
Blood mats his hair and streaks down the side of his face, swelling one eye nearly shut. The other is open and focused. Furious. Still alive in a way that has nothing to do with strength and everything to do with refusal.
Seeing my father like this guts me.
It’s the same look that made him untouchable in this city. The one who taught me how to hold a room without raising my voice. Seeing it here, bound, bloodied, and helpless, scrapes something raw and violent through my ribs.
My body surges forward on instinct. I lock it down just as fast.
This is real. This is happening. And if I lose control now, I lose everything.
My eyes keep moving even as my pulse roars in my ears. I register the restraints, the way his wrists are bound to a chair bolted into the cement, the shallow but measured rise of his chest. He has been here longer than anyone should have survived.
Then I see his hands.
Not the blood. Not the rope. The shape of them. The familiar angle of his thumb, the small scar near his knuckle that I have known as long as I’ve been alive.
Then the man with the knife presses his thumb into a fresh wound on my father’s shoulder.
The sound he makes is low and strangled, torn out of him despite his effort to keep it in and remain stoic. There’s no pleading or bargaining.
My grip tightens. I raise the gun and fire.
The first man falls back before he can react, more shock than precision, driving the moment. The report cracks through the warehouse with finality. His body hits the floor hard and doesn’t move.
The other two turn at the sound, confusion breaking into panic as they scramble. Their hands go for weapons that are suddenly too far away to matter. A knife. A wire. Useless.
I don’t wait to see what they choose.
I fire again.
The third man, the one with the birthmark, reacts faster than the others. He lunges for my father, hauling him back against the chair, the blade flashing once before I can close the distance.
It is over in a second.
“No,” I shout, the word tearing out of me, useless and too late.
My father’s body jerks once, a hard, involuntary movement, and then goes slack against the restraints.
I fire.
The bullet takes him low, tearing into his leg and dropping him with a scream that echoes off the walls. He claws at the concrete, dragging himself away, leaving a dark smear behind him.
I don’t slow down. I crash through the window, glass biting into my knuckles and forearms as I hit the floor inside. The smell hits me all at once. Blood. Sweat. Gunpowder.
Five steps. That’s all it takes.
I plant my boot between his shoulder blades and put him face down on the dirty concrete. He wheezes, ribs giving under the pressure.
“Who sent you?” My voice is low, stripped bare of anything human.
He sobs, pain and terror tangling together. “Boudreaux,” he chokes. “Laurent Boudreaux.”
The name lands louder than the gun ever could. Laurent Boudreux owns the largest staffing company on the docks. He's someone my father has worked with for his entire career.
I lift my foot off his back, and he turns slightly to look at me. I don’t give him time to say anything else. I pull the trigger a final time, ending it before the moment can stretch into something worse.
The sound is deafening in the enclosed space. The sharp crack ricochets off the concrete and steel before collapsing into itself. Then there is nothing. No movement. No screaming. Just the hollow rush of silence and the weight of what I have done settling into my bones.
This is not the world I usually move through, but it is the one in front of me now.
My attention drags back to the chair, back to my father.
His head is tipped back now, the position all wrong for a man larger than life. One eye is completely swollen shut, the other half-lidded but unseeing.
Blood coats him, running freely down his neck and chest before dripping onto the concrete beneath him. It pools there, spreading outward in a slow, deliberate bloom, as if the floor itself is trying to claim what’s left of him.
I step closer. My legs are disconnected, unsteady in a way I’ve never known. Each step is measured and careful, not because I’m afraid, but because some part of me is still trying to negotiate with reality.
He doesn’t move. I know before I reach him that the stillness is absolute and final. There’s nothing I can do to help him.
My chest locks, and my breath stalls. For a moment, I can’t draw in enough air, can’t make my lungs work the way they’re supposed to. He’s gone.
And it isn’t just my father slumped in that chair, broken and bleeding in front of me.
It’s Robert Stone, the man who built Stone Intermodal with his own hands and his own rules.
The man who taught me how to read a room, how to survive in a world that doesn’t forgive weakness, and how to stand still under pressure and wait for the right moment to strike.
He was untouchable my entire life.
Now he’s gone, and the reality of that settles in my bones in a way that I can’t quite comprehend.
I crouch beside him. For a moment, my hand hovers, suspended in the air, and then I set it on his shoulder anyway.
The blood is already cooling beneath my palm, tacky against my skin. There’s no tension there. No resistance. Just dead weight.
I swallow hard and shift closer, easing his head forward so it’s no longer wrenched back. It seems like the least I can do.
Memories crowd in all at once. His voice is sharp and demanding. The weight of his expectations, the rare moments of approval that meant more than praise ever could, because they were earned. All of it burns through me in a flash as I realize I’ll never breathe the same air as him again.
My hand comes away slick with blood. I can’t tell if it’s his or mine. I don’t hesitate, wiping it on my pants as I stand.
There’s no time to drown in it. He wouldn’t have allowed that. This isn’t how it ends. Not for him. Not for us.
I will decide how this ends.
Finish reading Ridge now!
Thanks so much for reading Keller. I hope you enjoyed it. I would appreciate any review or rating you can leave. Your voice matters so much to me as an Indie Author! Much love to you. xx-Blakely