Epilogue 3
Shepard
“Where the fuck did you find him?” I ask Austin, shoving open the basement door.
“You don’t want to know. Turns out he was a witness to a hit.
His testimony earned him immunity from any charges, and WITSEC gave him a whole new identity.
Six years later, after a leak involving another case his handler was working on, it was deemed necessary for all the handler’s people to get new identities again as a precaution.
It was thought someone was using his list as a hit list. The marshal was killed, and anyone he was handling was moved to someone else.
A clusterfuck for sure, and one that made it nearly impossible to find this motherfucker. ”
I stomp down the steps and stare at the man formerly known as Leroy Jones—one of the men who killed my family.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Austin says, stepping up beside me.
“Too fucking long. When I first came to you, and you found Fargo in six months, I was fucking elated because finally they would pay and this shit would be over.”
“And it would have been if this fucker hadn’t had help from our own damn government,” Austin complains as I walk over to the fucker hanging from a hook by his wrists.
He lifts his head, sensing my approach. His face is swollen, his nose and lips bloody as he takes me in. When his gaze snaps to my badge, he chokes with relief. “Please, you have to help me. That guy’s crazy. He kidnapped me. He’s gonna kill me.”
I reach out to pat his head. “No, he’s not.” I feel him relax a fraction before I grip his hair and yank his head back. “I’m the one who’s gonna kill you.”
“No. No, you’re a cop. You can’t.”
“You know what I was before I was a cop? I was a son. I was a brother, and you took that all from me. You and that fuckwit Fargo.”
The color bleeds from his face at the mention of his old partner’s name.
“Ah, you remember him, huh? You should. Funny how when I spoke to him, he blamed you for everything.”
“He’s a liar.”
“Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. I really didn’t care, because what he wasn’t was innocent. That title was reserved for my family.”
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry for everything.
I was a different person back then. I was high all the time or looking for my next fix.
It’s all I could think about. I’m not that guy now.
I got clean. I got married. I have a wife and a son.
Please, I’m begging you, don’t do this to me. Don’t do this to them.”
“I didn’t do this. You did, the second my little brother took his last breath.”
Austin moves up beside me once more and hands me his hunting knife, the same one he handed me years ago to take care of Fargo.
My hand doesn’t shake when I take it this time.
I’ve been waiting for this moment for what feels like a lifetime.
While he’s still alive, I’ll always have one foot in the past. I can’t do that anymore, not with Calliope in my life.
She deserves better than loving half a man.
With that in mind, I plunge the knife into his side.
It slips between his ribs, ripping a scream from him before I pull it out and stab him again.
I allow myself to get lost in the past one final time as I stab him over and over with a frenzy that’s been years in the making.
By the time I’m done, I know he’s dead, but it doesn’t stop me from dragging the knife across his throat.
I cut so deep I almost sever his head from his body.
Only then do I feel like I’m done, like I’m free.
Now my family can finally rest in peace.
“Feel better?”
I turn to Austin, who is watching from the far side of the room, with zero judgment on his face.
“Yeah. I do.”
“Good. Now you’d better strip, sheriff.”
I look down at myself. There isn’t a part of me that isn’t covered in blood.
“Fuck.”
“Don’t sweat it. I’m pretty good at getting blood stains out.” He grins at me, and it’s anything but friendly.
I don’t argue. I strip until I’m buck-ass naked and then call him every name under the sun when he sprays me with freezing water.
He turns it off with a laugh, tossing a towel at me. “Head on upstairs and get showered. Grab something of mine from the closet to wear. Nothing too fancy, you don’t want Cece asking questions.”
I flip him off before wrapping the towel around my waist and heading upstairs, leaving him alone in the basement with the carnage I created.
I’m not worried that he’ll turn on me and keep evidence that might incriminate me later.
Maybe once upon a time that would have been different.
After killing Fargo, I waited every day for two years for the cops to turn up on my door and arrest their sheriff.
It would be a scandal of epic proportions.
I was prepared for it, though, unable to find any regret from ridding this world of that piece of shit.
But the years continued to pass with nothing but silence.
I passed Austin dozens of times, but we never spoke.
We barely acknowledged each other’s existence.
We’d probably have continued to do so until Calliope came home and threw all our lives into chaos.
I stand under the stream of water, my head bent as years of grief drain away.
I stay there until the water runs cold, then climb out and dry off.
I head to Austin’s room and rummage around until I find a pair of gray sweatpants and a black Henley.
I pull them on before making my way back downstairs.
I find Austin in the kitchen pouring bourbon into two glasses. He looks up when I enter and slides one my way. “Here.”
“Thanks.” I press the glass to my lips, tip my head back, and drink it down in one, relishing the burn.
“Another?”
I nod, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand before sliding the glass back.
“So…” he begins as I take a seat at the island.
“So?”
“You gonna tell her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
He sighs, drinking down his own drink as he slides my now full glass back.
“You don’t think I should?”
“Honestly, no. Not because she’d judge you. I mean, she accepts Riggs and me, mostly, just as we are. She finds comfort in our depravity. But that’s not what she needs from you.”
“Oh yeah, and what is it you think she needs from me?” I tip my head back once more and swallow down the amber liquid.
“Light. She needs you to hold on to her as tight as you can so she doesn’t fall so far into the dark she can’t climb out. She can’t get that from Riggs or me. We only know how to navigate the shadows.”
“So I should just keep lying to her?”
“If it means guarding her sanity, yeah. There’s only room for one crazy fucker in this relationship, and that’s me. You’ve gotta guard her conscience like it’s a precious commodity. Not just for her sake but for Hannah’s too.”
“You make her sound like a psychopath in the making. Psychopaths feel nothing. Calliope feels everything. She loves harder than anyone I’ve ever met, you know that.”
“I do. Now ask me if there is anything she wouldn’t do to keep those she loves safe.”
My mouth snaps shut at that. I already know the answer.
“Power corrupts, Shepard. It’s true in all walks of life.
What we have here with Cece is good. Better than good.
And with the whole community backing us, it’s like having a security blanket wrapped around us, shielding us from the world.
But one day that world will seep in. Someone will come and stir up trouble, maybe hurt someone Calliope cares about.
You might be the only one of us who would be able to talk her down from doing something reckless. ”
“I just fucking killed a guy in your basement,” I remind him.
“Yeah, you did. And nobody will ever know. And if Calliope kept her kills behind closed doors, everything would be okay. But if she snaps…”
“And does something public that pushes the line of what others are willing to live with, there will be no putting the genie back in the bottle.”
“Exactly. In the day and age of social media, she can’t just execute someone in the street and get away with it.”
“You really think she’d ever do something like that?”
“You shot me. You didn’t think twice about the repercussions. Now imagine if someone shot Hannah like they did Dawn, right there in the middle of town. Now picture the shooter is there too, and Calliope has him in her sights.”
I close my eyes, knowing exactly how it would play out. My beautiful, brave woman would tear them to shreds, consequences be damned.
“I can keep the town safe from her powers, and Riggs has a hold on her heart that truthfully, I’m not sure we’ll be able to replicate.
But you, you hold her sanity in the palm of your hand.
And for that, your palms need to remain blood-free.
Her moral compass points to you, and it needs to stay that way. ”
“Fuck.” I run my hands through my hair, but nod. “I get it. I suppose it doesn’t matter now anyway. Leroy and Fargo are dead. They’re history, and Poppy is the future.”
“Exactly. Besides, everyone has secrets. We like to think relationships mean being open and honest at all times, but that’s impossible. Someone is always going to get hurt unless you can soften the blow or just omit the truth when you know it brings nothing to the table but pain.”
“I guess.” I get to my feet. If I drink any more, I won’t be able to drive. “I’d better head back before she wonders where I’ve been. What about you?”
“She thinks I’ve got a meeting. She’s not expecting me until late. I’m gonna get this place cleaned up first.”
“Alright.” I walk to the door barefoot, glad I have spare boots and a jacket in my cruiser.
“Hey, Shepard?”
I turn at Austin’s voice just in time to catch my badge. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. And I mean that. As far as Calliope is concerned, before she came along, we were nothing but strangers who passed each other on the street occasionally.”
“I guess if I take out the part where I paid you to hunt down two murderers so I could kill them myself, it’s true.”
“All the best lies are wrapped in truths.” He grins.
I roll my eyes at him. “I still hate you.”
“I’ll cry myself to sleep at the knowledge, you know, while my dick is still wet with our woman’s juices.”
I flip him off and head out even as my dick gets hard at the thought of watching him fuck Poppy.
Some moral compass I make. If they knew half the things I fantasized about, it would blow their fucking minds.