Chapter Twenty-Two
The blood under my fingernails won’t scrub out.
I’ve been picking at it for twenty miles, watching the city lights blur into streaks of sodium yellow and neon red through the rain-streaked window, but the half-moon crescents remain stubbornly brown.
It’s not my blood. That’s the problem. Sterling drives with both hands on the wheel, knuckles white, eyes flicking to the rearview every few seconds.
Cam and Lila are slumped together in the backseat, Cam’s arm in a makeshift sling, Lila’s head on his shoulder.
They’re quiet. Too quiet. The kind of silence that comes after you’ve watched someone cross a threshold they can’t uncross.
I killed a man tonight, not in the heat of battle, not in the scramble for survival.
I executed him while he looked me in the eyes.
And the worst part—the part that makes my stomach clench like a fist—is that I don’t feel sorry.
I feel free. Like I’ve finally stopped waiting for permission to be the monster this world made me.
“Where are we going?” My voice sounds like gravel in a blender.
“Another safe house,” Sterling says. His voice is carefully neutral.
“It’s off the books. No ties to any of us.
” I nod, though he can’t see it. My fingers trace the edge of the tablet in my lap, the one I took from Asher’s cooling fingers.
It’s warm from my body heat, humming with electricity and secrets.
Sixteen years of questions encrypted behind a single password.
Sterling’s safe house is in a converted warehouse downtown—exposed brick and steel beams, the kind of place that looks expensive because it’s trying hard not to.
He leads us in through a service entrance, checking corners out of habit, then locks the door with three deadbolts and a biometric scanner.
Cam collapses on the couch with a groan.
Lila hovers nearby, wanting to play nurse but too shaken to move.
Sterling goes to a cabinet, pulls out a med kit, and tosses it to Cam without a word.
Then he turns to me. “Shower,” he says. Not a suggestion.
An order. “You’re covered in blood. Asher’s… and yours.”
I look down. My hands are shaking now that we’re still—tremors running through the muscles like plucked strings. There’s a cut on my forearm I don’t remember getting, and my shirt is stiff with someone else’s life drying against the fabric. “I need to see what’s on the tablet,” I say.
“You need to shower,” Sterling repeats, stepping closer. He’s careful not to touch me, questioning if it will end in violence or something that burns far hotter. “Cam can start on the encryption. You can’t help anyone if you’re in shock.”
“I’m not in shock,” I say, meeting his eyes. They’re bright blue in the harsh overhead light, sharp as broken glass. “I’m awake, Sterling. For the first time since I was eight years old, I’m actually awake.”
“Kiera..”
“I watched him die,” I say, and my voice doesn’t crack.
It should. The girl who cried in the shower over dead peonies should shatter when she talks about watching the light leave a man’s eyes.
But I’m not that girl anymore. I burned her the moment Asher took our friends.
“And all I could think was good. All I could think was finally.” I let the truth, raw and ugly, between us.
“I told you before we left that I wouldn’t be the same.
How many more ways can I tell you? I AM FUCKING brOKEN! ”
Sterling’s expression shifts, something dark and hungry flickering behind the concern.
He steps into my space, crowding me against the kitchen island.
His hands come up, caging me in—palms flat on the counter on either side of my hips.
“You are broken,” he says, voice low and rough, almost a growl.
“But you’re fucking mine. And I’m not letting you face this fucking shit alone, even if your stubborn ass tries to push me away like you do with everyone else in your fucking life.
” This time, I don’t argue, shoving my way to the bathroom.
I don’t have the energy left to deal with emotions.
The bathroom is all black tile and chrome fixtures—masculine, sparse, cold.
I strip methodically, dropping the ruined clothes into the trash.
There’s no saving them, not with that much blood soaked into the fibers.
I stand under the spray until the water runs cold, then hot again, watching pink swirl down the drain until it finally runs clear.
I scrub my skin until it’s raw and red, but I can still feel Asher’s pulse under my boot.
I can still see the surprise in his eyes when he realized I wasn’t bluffing.
You’re just like her. Weak. He had it backward.
My mom wasn’t weak. She would rather have died than sign me over.
And I’m not weak either. I’m the consequence.
When I emerge, I’m wrapped in Sterling’s old sweatshirt: a few sizes too big, sleeves swallowing my hands, carrying a faint smell of cedar and gun oil.
Cam is hunched over the tablet at the kitchen table, his good hand flying across a portable keyboard jacked into the device.
Lila is bandaging his other arm, her movements precise despite her hands still shaking.
Sterling stands by the window, silhouetted against the city lights, a glass of amber liquid in his hand that he hasn’t touched.
“Anything?” I ask, sinking into the chair across from Cam.
He looks up, and his expression tells me everything I need to know before he even speaks. “It’s… bad, Kiera.”
“Define bad,” I say. My voice comes out more demanding than I meant.
“The Cicada files aren’t just documents,” Cam says, voice dropping.
“They’re ledgers. Accounts. Years of transactions.
Human trafficking, adoptions that aren’t really adoptions, medical experiments.
” He swallows hard. “Your mother wasn’t just refusing to sign business papers, Ki.
She was refusing to hand over custody of you to a subsidiary of Hawthorne Corp’s medical division. A facility called… the Nesting House.”
The room spins. I grip the edge of the table hard enough to cut off circulation in my knuckles. “Custody.”
“You were the asset,” Cam confirms, his eyes filled with pity. “Not metaphorically. Literally. Wade needed her signature when you were eight to transfer guardianship to the program. Something about genetic markers. Rare compatibility.”
Sterling moves behind me, his hands landing heavily and possessively on my shoulders. “What was the program?”
“I don’t know yet,” Cam says. “Most of the files are corrupted or password-protected, but there’s a location. Upstate. The Nesting House is still operational.”
I stare at the tablet screen—at the stylized cicada with wings spread—and feel the last piece of the puzzle click into place.
My dad didn’t kill my mom because she refused to sign a corporate merger.
He killed her because she wouldn’t give me to them.
To whatever they’re doing in that facility.
And now that I’m twenty-four, legally an adult, I can sign myself over voluntarily.
Retroactively validate the transfer. That’s why he’s been so patient—why he let me plan his parties and manage his image.
He was waiting for the clock to run out on my childhood.
“He’s coming for me,” I say. No doubt in my mind.
“He sent a message ten minutes ago,” Sterling says, his fingers tightening on my shoulders. “To your burner phone. He knows Asher is dead. He knows you have the files.”
“What did he say?” I ask, the words coming out sharp, my pulse hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat.
Sterling pulls out his own phone and slides it across the table. One line glows on the screen.
I’m proud of you, Sunshine.
Now come home.
The childhood nickname hits like a gut punch. I close my eyes, seeing my mom’s face in that last moment, her lips moving around words I couldn’t hear. You’ll always be my sunshine.
“He’s using her voice,” I whisper.
“Then we take his,” Sterling responds darkly, his voice low, a dangerous promise that sends a shiver down my spine.
I push the chair back so hard it scrapes loudly against the floor. Sterling catches my elbow, but I’m not falling. I’m pacing the floor instantly. The energy surges back, but it’s different now. Not the cold, calculated rage from before. This is a wildfire. This is nuclear. “We go tonight.”
“Kiera, you’re injured,” Lila protests, her voice cracking with worry.
“Scratches,” I mutter, touching the cut on my forearm. The one I earned by slamming Asher’s head into concrete. It’s already clotting. “We go tonight before he moves them. Before he knows we’re coming for the facility.”
“We need a plan,” Sterling says, but he’s not arguing. He’s assessing. His eyes have that sharp, predatory gleam that means he’s already calculating every outcome. “Cam can’t run. Lila’s concussed.”
“Then I go alone,” I say.
Sterling catches my arm, spinning me to face him.
His grip is iron this time—undeniable. His blue eyes are electric, furious.
“You don’t get to martyr yourself,” he growls.
“Not after what I just watched you survive. Not after I just..” He cuts himself off, his jaw working, the words he almost said hanging between us.
“After you just what?” I challenge, stepping into his space. “After you watched me execute a man?”
“After I realized I’d burn every damn bridge, break every fucking law, and damn my own god-forsaken soul just to keep you breathing,” he snaps.
The admission hangs between us, raw and bleeding.
“So no. You don’t get to run off half-cocked to die in some fucking lab.
We do this together. We do this smart. And we come back alive. ”
The silence stretches. Cam clears his throat. “I can get you schematics. Floor plans. But I need time. Four hours minimum.”
“What if we finish this where it started?” I say quietly, lost in thought. “Not at some facility. At Hawthorne Manor. That will lure him away from the Nesting House and give us some time.”
Sterling’s brow furrows. “You want to walk into his trap?”
“No,” I say, looking down at my hands, at the blood still crusted under my nails that refuses to scrub out.
“I want to set one.” I pick up the burner phone from the table, turning it over slowly in my hands.
“He thinks I’m broken, that executing Asher scared me into submission.
And that I’ll come crawling back ready to sign his papers and be his dutiful daughter again.
” I meet Sterling’s eyes. “So let him think that.”
Cam leans forward, wincing as he shifts his injured arm. “You’re going to lure him to the manor?”
“Two days from now,” I say, the plan crystallizing as I speak. “Not tonight. We need time to prepare the grounds. But he’ll agree to a meeting if he thinks I’m surrendering. If he thinks I have no fight left in me.”
Sterling studies me, calculating every angle. “You’re proposing we turn your childhood home into a kill box. In forty-eight hours.”
“I’m proposing we give him what he wants,” I correct.
“A broken little girl coming home to Daddy. He’ll expect me to meet him there because it’s where he holds power—it’s where he killed her, where he thinks I’m still eight years old and watching through that peephole, too terrified to scream.
” One by one, I meet everyone's eyes. “But this time, I won’t be the one looking through the hole. I’ll be the one behind him. ”
Lila looks between us, her face pale but determined. “What about the Nesting House? The girls?”
“We hit the manor first,” I say. “Wade has the passwords. The access codes. Everything we need to burn that facility to the ground is in his head or on his phone. We take him out, we take control of Hawthorne Corp, and then we save them. But we do it on our timeline, not his.”
Sterling nods slowly, the predator in him waking up.
“Two days will give us enough time to set it up and see what files we can access. Cam can remote-access the security system and loop the feeds. I can scout the servant passages.” He looks at me.
“But you have to sell it. The text has to make him believe you’re done fighting. ”
I stare at the phone screen; Wade’s last message stares back at me, cold and mocking in its familiarity. I’m proud of you, Sunshine. Now come home. My thumbs hover over the keyboard.
Me: I’m tired. I’m done. I’ll sign the papers.
But I want to do it at the house. Where Mom
died. Two days. Midnight. Come alone, or I
disappear forever.
I show it to Sterling. “It’s good. It feeds his ego. Makes him think you’re seeking his approval one last time.”
“He’ll agree,” I say, hitting send before I can second-guess myself. “He’s arrogant enough to think I’d come back to the scene of the crime to validate the transfer. That I’d want his blessing in the same room where he slit her throat.” The phone buzzes almost immediately.
Dad: I knew you’d see reason.
I’ll be there. Don’t keep me waiting, Sunshine.
The childhood nickname crawls over my skin like ants. I set the phone down, suddenly exhausted. “He’s coming.”
“Then we have work to do,” Sterling says, turning to Cam. “Can you hack the manor’s security from here? Give us eyes on every room?”
Cam’s fingers are already flying across the keyboard. “I can loop the exterior cameras and disable the motion sensors on the west wing. But I’ll need the architectural plans. The blueprints for the servant passages Kiera mentioned.”
“I have them,” I chime in. “I bought them years ago. The tunnel from the gardener’s shed, the peepholes in the walls, the old servant stairs. If he knew about the peepholes…he never did say.”
Sterling says grimly, “Lila, you’re on perimeter. If he brings backup, if anyone follows him, you’re our eyes.”
Lila nods, cradling her head. “I can rig the grounds. Trip wires, cameras. If anyone steps on the property before the meeting, we’ll know.”
“Two days,” I repeat, eyes flicking to the calendar on the wall. Forty-eight hours. “We spend tomorrow prepping the house. Sterling, you and I go in through the tunnel at dusk, set up inside the walls. Cam stays here, running comms and the feed loop. Lila covers the exterior.”
“And when he walks into that library?” Sterling asks quietly.
“Then I show him what sixteen years of waiting looks like,” I say, voice ice cold with no remorse. “He’ll never see it coming…while he stares down my barrel.”
Sterling reaches out, his hand covering mine, warm and steady. “Two days. We do this right. We do it clean. And then we burn the rest of his empire down.”
I look at the phone one last time. Wade thinks he’s won. He thinks I’m coming home. But I’m not going home to sign his papers. I’m going home to bury him.