Chapter 46
Slow, deep breaths helped with the pain in my arm.
I try not to make a sound because I don’t want to attract Henry’s attention.
He’s currently pacing like a caged animal while Laurel sits in a chair, her phone in her hand as if she hadn’t stabbed me in the shoulder with one of Henry’s knives because I refused to answer any of her questions.
“Fuck, Laurel,” Henry shouts at her. “Do you know what will happen if she bleeds out before we get the information we need?” He throws an arm in my direction.
“We need to figure out where the money is or what she knows about their plans. Or hell, if you wanted to bargain with them, you sure as hell shot that to shit.”
Laurel rolls her eyes. “They aren’t going to kill me. Not if they want what I know. Plus, my family will have their heads if anything happens to me. I am protected.”
“I’m fucking not,” he roars. “I’ve taken your shit for years. Seduced your fucking daughter. Got her addicted to the drugs you gave me to give to her. Threatened her. Made her life hell. But fuck if I am going to fucking die for your cause. Especially since it looks like there is no fucking money!”
My stomach twists. This isn’t the first time he’s mentioned that it was on Laurel’s order that he get my mother addicted to drugs. Not the first time he’s insinuated he ruined her to gain information.
I can feel Henry’s eyes on as he continues to rant, but I don’t lift my gaze to meet his. Instead, I continue staring at the floor.
“No one is going to die, you pathetic boy,” Laurel replies, sounding annoyed. “They will either give me what I want, or she will suffer the consequences.”
“It’s been over an hour since you delivered your message,” he says to her. “Maybe you are overestimating how much she means to them. Or maybe they are planning something that is going to get us both executed.”
Laurel smirks. “Colter is deeply obsessed with her, and John won’t want to lose another family member. Not like he did Emma. They will give me what I want.
The two of them bicker back and forth on what to do. As time wears on, the throbbing in my arm eases, which I’m not sure is a good thing, especially since I have a migraine forming. The two of them won’t quit arguing, which isn’t helping, and the noise from outside isn’t making things any better.
But I am thankful there isn’t complete silence. Their distracting voices are keeping me from delving into the depths of my mind in self-pity as I look back on everything I can remember growing up.
Henry had been there throughout. Every time we moved, he’d find us. Every time my mother relapsed, he was there. All the pieces of my childhood are beginning to fit together to form a puzzle I never realized I needed to solve and at the center of it all is one person.
The missing piece that kept me from seeing the pattern.
Laurel.
My childhood wasn’t bad luck or bad choices or a broken mother who couldn’t stay clean.
It was orchestrated.
A slow, methodical ruin carried out by people who move pieces instead of living lives.
My gaze drifts, unfocused, to the stained concrete floor, but my mind keeps drifting back to snippets of conversation I’ve been overhearing between Laurel and Henry.
Earlier, when he’d been questioning me, Henry kept asking me about the family.
I didn’t understand then what he’d been talking about.
But now, as they openly discuss what they are going to do, it dawns on me what I’ve been missing since my arrival in Crimson Ridge.
Colter standing a room and everyone going quiet.
Men twice his age waiting for him to speak before they did. My father included.
If there is one thing I’ve learned about John Denver, it is that he doesn’t wait on people. He may not be the loudest voice in the room, but when he speaks, people listen. But with Colter…it is different. Subtle. Almost invisible. Like the argument in my father’s office.
At first, I thought it was respect because his father is the boss.
Now, I’m not so sure.
The Shaw name carries weight. I know that much. People in town straightened when they heard it. Whenever Sutton took me shopping it was like a flip switched for the workers in the store. Doors opened. Problems vanished. All of the security that no one would explain.
I told myself it was money. Influence. Or small-town power families like theirs collect over generations.
But it always felt bigger.
Heavier.
Scarier.
Laurel said protected like it was a shield no one would dare challenge. Like there were rules in place I didn’t know existed. Rules written in blood and loyalty and fear.
And Colter.
My chest tightens when I think about him.
And the way Laurel spoke about him.
Obsessed.
Not love. But obsession. She says it with so much confidence. Like she’s seen this kind of thing before. Like obsession isn’t a flaw, but a weapon. Something to leverage, something predictable.
I don’t want to believe that everyone has been lying to me since I arrived. Not about something this big, but I can’t deny the truth staring me in the face. It hurts like a bitch. Knowing that they didn’t trust me with the truth. That they hid something so crucial from me.
They let me believe it is all money and influence. That Colter is a man with a dangerous edge, not someone people fear because they should.
But the more I replay memories, the clearer the picture becomes.
Colter doesn’t ask twice.
He gives an order, it is followed immediately. No hesitation. No questions. It makes sense why no one wanted to call the police after I was nearly choked and abducted in the bar.
My stomach churns.
If what I think is true…if my family stems from something this dark, this violent…can I live with that? Can I live ignorant to what Colter and my father do? Was I really protected or was it an excuse to keep me in the dark so I wouldn’t ask the wrong questions?
A sharp spike of anger cuts through the haze.
They decided for me when they thought they couldn’t trust me.
That sting barely has time to settle before the world shatters.
The first gunshot cracks through the warehouse like a thunderclap, so loud it feels like it punches straight through my skull. My ears ring instantly, a high shrill whine drowning out everything else as concrete explodes near the door. Dust and debris rain down, tiny stones biting into my skin.
Laurel jerks upright with a sharp gasp, fury flashing across her face before fear has time to catch up.
Henry spins toward the sound, eyes blown wide, panic finally breaking through his bravado.
“What the—”
The door doesn’t open.
It detonates.
Wood splinters inward in a violent spray, metal hinges screaming as they rip free. The force sends a gust of cold night air crashing through the room, carrying with the sharp scent of gunpowder and rain.
The men flood in.
They’re silent. Deadly. Moving with exact precision.
Gunfire erupts in controlled bursts, measured and intentional. This isn’t a chaotic rescue. It’s choreography. A ruthless rhythm of shots and movement that tells me these men have done this before Many times.
The family.
Henry barely has time to lift his gun.
A shot cracks—his wrist explodes in red, bone and blood, the weapon clattering uselessly across the floor.
His scream is animalistic, high-pitched and panicked, but it’s cut short when another bullet tears through his thigh.
He collapses hard, the sound of his body hitting the concrete sickeningly final.
I flinch, a sob tearing loose before I can stop it.
Hands grab me—firm and steady—and I scream again, my body instinctively curling inward as pain flares though my shoulder.
“Easy,” a voice snaps, close and controlled. “She’s injured.”
I’d recognize that voice anywhere.
The soft timber. The hard edge.
My head jerks up.
Colter.
He’s already there, crouched in front of me like the rest of the world has ceased to exist. His movements are sharp and precise, eyes scanning the room once before locking onto mine with terrifying intensity.
His gaze hits me like a physical force.
Something dark and violent flashes across his face when he sees the blood soaking through my sleeve. I’d say it is pure, unrestrained rage, but it vanishes as quickly as it appears, replaced by something colder. Deadlier.
Behind him, Hudson Shaw moves through the room like a shadow given form.
He doesn’t shout. Doesn’t hesitate. His gun bucks twice and two men drop where they stand, their bodies crumpling before they even understand they’ve been hit.
Pace is already covering the far side, barking clipped orders, directing men into positions like pieces on a board.
They respond instantly. No questions. No delay.
And then—
My father.
John Denver steps through the wreckage of the doorway, gun raised, posture rigid. His face is carved from stone, but his eyes burn as they fix on Laurel.
“Get away from her.” Everything still when he speaks.
His voice cuts through the gunfire, through the screaming, through the ringing in my ears like a blade.
Laurel lets out a soft, incredulous laugh, even as blood pool around her fallen men.
“Well,” she says, smoothing imaginary wrinkles from her clothes as if this is a business meeting gone slightly awry. “you certainly didn’t waste any time.”
John doesn’t spare her another glance.
He crosses the room in three long strides and drops to his knees in front of me. His hands are gentle, but efficient as he grips my arm, fingers probing carefully around the wound. His jaw tightens when he sees the damage.
“She stabbed you,” he says quietly.
It isn’t a question.
I nod, my vision blurring.
Something inside him breaks.
He rises slowly, deliberately, like a predator unfolding itself. The air in the room shifts, thickens, every instinct screaming danger.
Laurel straightens, lifting her chin, certainty etched in every line of her face.
“You won’t kill me,” she says calmly. “My family will—”
The gunshot cuts her off.
The impact spins her backward into the chai, her scream ripping through the room as blood blooms across her shoulder. Shock flashes across her face, disbelief replacing arrogance as she stares down at the spreading red.
“I will kill you,” John growls, his voice terrifying level. “I need you breathing long enough to tell me everything.”
Hudson steps closer, his gun settling against Laurel’s temple with surgical precision.
“You should’ve left the girl alone,” he says mildly. “That was your fatal miscalculation.”
Henry sobs from the floor, dragging himself backward with his good arm, eyes wild and wet.
“Please,” he chokes. “I didn’t—I swear—she made me—”
A single shot.
Pace doesn’t even look at him as Henry collapses, screaming anew.
“Shut your fucking mouth,” Pace says flatly.
My father cups my face, his composure finally cracking.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “I should have told you. I should’ve protected you better.”
I don’t pull away from his touch and instead, lean into his hands, my eyes closing for a moment as I let the warmth of his protection washes over me.
John Denver.
My father.
Colter turns back to me, blood spattered across his knuckles, his thumb gently brushing against my cheek.
“You’re safe now,” he says. “This will never happen again.”
Not a promise
A statement of fact.
And I believe him.
That’s the part that terrifies me.
Because as I take in the bodies, the weapons, the men who moved the instant he arrived—I finally understand the truth they hid from me.
The Shaw name isn’t respected.
It’s feared.
And now that I see it…I can never unsee it.
And I don’t want to.