Chapter 24
Gage
The wind howled like a dying animal, shaking the cabin with every gust. The windows rattled, thin glass useless against the cold. Smoke drifted from the woodstove, but the warmth never reached the corners. The place was rotting. Just like everything else. Just like me.
My arm throbbed where I’d sliced it open after wrecking my bike in the alley.
I hadn’t had time to right it, couldn’t risk hanging around in case they caught up with me.
So, I’d flagged down a taxi and had them drop me a mile away from the cabin and completed the rest on foot.
I’d sewn up the wound as best I could using an old first aid kit kept at the cabin.
I sat on the cot’s edge, boots caked in mud, hands bloody. A cigarette shook between my fingers as I lit it, dragging smoke deep into my lungs. Sleep hadn’t touched me since I ran,
since she ruined everything.
“Lucy.” I spat the name like poison. The smoke did nothing to quiet the buzzing in my skull.
That bitch. I should’ve killed her when I had the chance. Should’ve shut her up the second I saw her in town with that box. Didn’t matter what she had, I couldn’t show my face without tipping my hand.
There’d been no word from the Fangs since I went dark. Cowards cut me loose the second the heat turned up. And the Dead Knights? They were looking. Reaper would be looking.
I laughed low, bitter. Reaper never wanted to believe it. Caleb was his golden boy, Lucy the ghost he could never bury, and me? I was the one who got shit done. Until Lucy dropped the match. Now, Pres would have to stain his own hands.
I paced the floorboards like a caged animal, fists clenching, rage eating through me. “You think you’re safe, princess?” I muttered. “Think Jay’s gonna keep you warm and protected while you fuck him and play detective?”
Curtains twitched as I checked the tree line. Nothing. Too quiet.
“You don’t get to walk away from this,” I whispered to the trees, the ghosts, the thought of her.
Her eyes flashed in my head, hatred, fury, the same stubborn fire Caleb carried to his grave. She dug up the bones I’d buried, but she hadn’t put me in the ground yet.
The duffel waited on the floor. The pistol inside was clean and oiled, the mag full. Cash was stacked beside it, enough to vanish.
The cabin’s silence wasn’t peace—it was waiting.
I grabbed the last burner. One number saved. One brother.
I typed slow, careful. No names, only the signal we’d agreed on months ago.
Me: It’s time. Still want what you said you wanted? I’ve got the match. You light it. Burn them down.
The buzz came quick. One message.
Unknown: Where?
A grin stretched across my face.
Me: Sunday. Come alone. Leave the kutte.
Phone dead, ashes in the fire.
Reaper thought the threat was outside the gates now. Fool.
“You should’ve walked away when you had the chance, Lucy.”
Then, I disappeared into the cabin’s shadows. Not running. Not yet.
When I came back, I wouldn’t kill her fast. I’d make her watch everything fall apart before her eyes.