Chapter Seven
Nash woke with a start, a crick in his neck and a dull throb behind his eyes.
Took him a second to place where he was—Margie’s living room, slumped on her lumpy as hell sofa, boots still on.
He’d only meant to sit for a minute, knock back a coffee and sober the fuck up, but the booze had dragged him under.
Unless…Margie had slipped one of her nerve pills into his cup.
Mental note: never drink anything that woman hands him.
He pushed upright, vertebrae popping, and dragged a hand down his face. The room was dark, light slipping in at the edges; coffee drifted from the kitchen—Margie already at it. He followed the scent, bare boards creaking under his boots…and stopped cold in the entryway.
Cassie sat at the table, shoulders curled forward, hair a mess like she’d been dragging her hands through it. In front of her sat a cardboard box, Connor’s name scrawled messy on one side, its contents spread across the table.
His old wallet lay open, the brown leather worn soft from years in his back pocket. The slots were emptied out—driver’s license, Nash’s missing credit card—a handful of crumpled receipts, and what looked like a photograph folded in half.
A half-pack of Juicy Fruit sat off to the side—the brand Connor had chewed forever. A cheap blue lighter. A scatter of coins. His black-bone pocketknife lay open, the blade nicked in several places. His silver Kings’ ring sat stark among it all, heavy and unmistakable.
Nash’s throat worked, suddenly dry as the bottom of a bottle. Watching her there, small as she looked, surrounded by all that remained of her brother, his chest went and locked right up on him.
Cassie glanced up sharply, her eyes were red and swollen, her cheeks blotchy.
“Just grabbin’ some coffee,” he muttered, pushing forward.
“There’s a coin.” Her voice was rough with tears, barely audible.
Nash paused midway to the pot, turning. “What?”
She opened her hand, revealing a recovery coin, bronze-colored, stamped with a triangle, a circle inside of it. A 1 was engraved inside the circle. One month. Thirty days of sobriety.
“There’s a coin,” she repeated, fresh tears brimming.
Nash shook his head, voice low. “He had ’em before. Plenty. They hand ’em out at that church off Route 19—Saint somethin’ or other. Sometimes it was a month, sometimes three. Didn’t matter. He never stuck with it.”
Her lips trembled. “But he didn’t have any other ones—just this one.”
“Gimme a sec,” Nash muttered, turning back to the pot.
He poured himself a mug and stood there with his back to her, hand braced on the counter, steeling against the ache in his chest. That goddamn box was enough to knock him sideways—Connor’s whole life whittled down to…
fucking scraps. But Cassie…back in Clifton after all this time and bent over what little remained…
was a whole other kind of blow. He forced breath in, out, shoving everything down where it wouldn’t show.
Returning to the table, he took the chair opposite her.
Setting the mug down, he grabbed the coin, turning it over.
Bronze still shiny, triangle and circle sharp.
The motto—To Thine Own Self Be True—not worn down at all.
It was new. Too new. Most things that spent time in Connor’s pockets came out looking beat to hell.
“He always wanted me to think he was tryin’,” Nash muttered. “He’d show up with these sometimes, use it to talk his way back in. Next thing I know, the safe’s cleaned out and half the booze is gone.”
Cassie’s face pinched tight, the hope in her eyes flaring and breaking all at once. “When was the last time you saw him?”
Nash shook his head, thinking back—Connor on his doorstep, begging for money, claiming he was hungry but refusing food. “Hell, three weeks ago maybe. And he wasn’t sober—not even close.”
He lifted the chip between two fingers, the shiny bronze catching the early morning light. “This? It don’t mean shit. Not for him.”
“But the sheriff’s office,” Cassie rasped, clearing her throat. “They said he had fentanyl and meth on him, enough that they had to log it as intent to distribute—”
Nash’s head snapped up. Connor, dealing weight? No way. Sounded more like Sheriff Tate was spinning a story.
“They said he had a ton of cash on him too,” she continued. “They kept pushing me for information on who he was working for.”
Working for. Christ. Nash couldn’t even get Connor to come to work—or if he did show, stay awake long enough to finish a shift. The man was always broke, always pawning shit that wasn’t his just to get by.
“And then Ollie tells me that the Kings have expanded—that you’re working with the Silver Demons now—and that you know everything that goes on in your territory.” She paused, looking him in the eye.
Nash’s hand closed around the chip, fighting the urge to slam his fist against the table. This wasn’t about Connor at all. This was about the law playing Cassie and using her brother’s death to paint a target on the Kings.
“Are you kidding me? You’re listenin’ to Officer Fuckin’ Friendly?”
“Why would he lie?” she demanded.
“You been gone so long you’re lettin’ that piece-of-shit traitor put ideas in your head?” Nash shot back.
“Not sure how he’s any different than you—badge or cut, you’re all the same."
Nash’s lips twitched, not a smile. “That badge-wearin’ fuck wouldn’t know loyalty if it hit him in the goddamn face. He’s been gunnin’ for the club ever since he started playin’ dress-up.”
“Maybe that’s because your stupid little club is doing some seriously illegal shit,” she bit back. “The Silver Demons—really, Nash?”
“You got love for the law now?” Nash barked a humorless laugh. “Those same motherfuckers who left your mama hangin’ from the rafters, jokin’ out on the porch like it—”
Cassie’s scream tore out of her before he’d finished.
She shot to her feet, chair slamming the wall so hard it bounced back, sending her crashing into the box.
The box tipped and Nash moved without thinking, reaching for it—his elbow knocking the coffee.
The mug toppled, dark liquid flooding across the table, soaking everything across the surface.
Cassie shrieked, panicked; frantic hands flying over the mess, trying to scoop up soggy pieces. Cursing, Nash moved quick, grabbing—wallet, ring, the photograph—
“Give me that,” she seethed, ripping the photo from his hand, the paper splitting with a wet tear.
She froze. In her fist, half a picture—Connor, grinning, his arm slung around her shoulders.
Nash looked down at what he still held. The other half—Cassie, bright-eyed in her graduation cap and gown, grin stretched wide.
Cassie seemed to dissolve, chin wobbling, eyes filling even as they stared daggers. She shoved everything she was holding at Nash and bolted from the room, nearly colliding with Margie, who’d just turned the corner in a robe and slippers.
Margie stumbled back a step, her eyes cutting from Cassie’s retreat to Nash. “Lord above. I’ve seen marriages burn out quieter than the two of you just standin’ in the same room.”
Cassie didn’t stop to grab her bag, or even shoes. She shoved past Margie, tore through the house and out the back door, skirting the garden shed before plunging into the woods.
The path wasn’t marked, but her body knew it.
Each step sank into soft earth, damp in patches, mud popping at her heels as she broke into a run.
Clay smeared her feet; roots clawed her ankles; moss-slick stones sent her sliding sideways; greenbrier snagged her calves.
It felt less like running and more like desperately trying to shake the whole goddamn town off her.
The trees closed in, oaks and maples knitting their branches into a canopy that fractured the early morning light into pale shards.
A ghost of smoke threaded sharply through the damp air.
A lone thrush sang once, liquid and mournful, then fell quiet, leaving only the slap of her feet and the rough scrape of her breath.
When the woods began to thin and the ground dropped off beneath her, she slowed.
Ridge Hollow Cemetery lay just ahead, tucked where the ridge split wide open, an old iron archway crowning the entrance.
Beads of dew clung to the iron; the gate sagged on corroded hinges, one side hanging crooked.
Beyond, the graveyard lay in neglect—headstones leaning in uneven rows, some half-swallowed by moss, others split down the center and crumbling to dust.
The last time she’d been here was the day they buried her mama. She remembered the sting of rain on her cheeks, the mud clutching her church shoes, and the dull thump of dirt hitting the casket.
She’d sworn she’d never come back—never set foot in this place that got to hold both her parents when she no longer could.
But here she was, heaving at the crooked gate, its hinges letting out a squeal as it opened just wide enough for her to pass. Deeper inside, she walked past stones smoothed by decades—families buried here longer than the roads had been paved.
Eventually the land gave way to a neater stretch of graves.
Newer. Her steps slowed, twigs snapping beneath her feet as she stopped in front of two headstones side by side.
The first blunt and square, dark granite mottled with lichen.
The second smaller, softer, with a violin carved shallow near the top.
A cloudy mason jar sat between them, stems floating in brown water.
Malachy Berry: June 3, 1963–August 27, 2002.
Bridget Berry: September 12, 1966–July 16, 2003.
July 16, 2003.
July…16…
The numbers blurred as fragments of that day rose: a chair knocked on its side, a cigarette still burning in an ashtray, the sound of crying—maybe Connor, maybe her.