Chapter 32 This Little Piggy
This Little Piggy
Jacob
The office door slams open so hard the glass rattles.
“Sheriff—I came as soon as I knew.”
It’s Deputy Calder Briggs, sweat streaking down his face, breath stuttering like he’s run from the lot. He’s clutching a folder so tight the edges are bent, and his eyes are lit with something close to desperation.
“What?” I bark.
“George Johnson,” he blurts. “One of Jackson’s men. I pulled him a couple days ago on a traffic stop. Brought him in, ran his prints. Got his last known address. He won’t have had time to move.”
The room stills. The men inside—Carter, Mason, Grove, and the others—turn toward him, like bloodhounds catching a scent.
“Show me,” I say.
Calder’s already moving, snapping the file open across the desk, shoving papers toward me. Mugshot. Print card. The name scrawled across the top in heavy black ink.
George Johnson.
“This guy might not know shit,” Calder admits, voice low. “But he might. And right now, he’s the only thread we’ve got.”
I don’t waste time. I glance around at the men—my men. Some retired, some barely hanging on to their oaths, all of them united by one thing: hatred for Jackson Moore.
Mason’s jaw ticks, that familiar haunted look tightening his face. His daughter’s blood has never left his hands. Grove leans against the wall, arms crossed, his stare as dead as the memory of the daughter he never got back. Carter’s already strapping on his vest.
I slam the folder shut. “Gear up. Now.”
The room explodes into motion. Drawers fly open. Weapons checked, magazines slammed home, radios clipped. Not one of them hesitates.
By the time we roll into the lot, the air’s thick with the weight of it, like the ground itself knows we’re heading into a fight.
Two trucks idle, exhaust curling into the night.
Carter and Calder lean against the hood, rifles slung, boots restless.
Mason checks and re-checks the chamber of his sidearm while Grove keeps his jaw locked, staring straight ahead.
Hayes stands off to the side, calm as stone, his shotgun balanced easy in hands that have gutted more deer than most of us have seen.
Beside him, Vance paces tight circles, shoulders twitching, a kid itching for his first real scar.
Reyes lingers in the shadows, silent, scar tissue twisting up his cheek. Nobody mentions it. Nobody ever does.
Before anyone climbs in, I stop them.
“Listen,” I say, my voice carrying over the rumble. They freeze, eyes locked on me. “I won’t beat around the bush. What I’m planning—it isn’t lawful.”
No one blinks.
I let it hang for a moment, let them understand. “This isn’t about due process. This isn’t about the system. This is about Jackson Moore. About ending him. About bringing Summer back alive. That’s it.”
My throat tightens, rage pressing hot against my ribs. “If any of you can’t stomach that, say it now. Because once we get in those trucks, there’s no going back. We find him. We tear his world apart. And we put him in the fucking ground.”
Silence. Heavy. Unflinching.
Then Mason steps forward. His voice is gravel. “That bastard’s been in my nightmares for years. My little girl was nine, Sheriff. Nine. Bullet in her chest because of his men. You think I give a fuck about lawful?”
Grove spits into the dirt, eyes burning. “I’ll watch that fucker burn. For justice. For my daughter.”
Carter nods once, clipped. “Whatever it takes.”
Reyes cracks his knuckles. “I’m in. For your girls.” He gestures to Mason and Hayes. “And for Summer.”
One by one, heads bow in agreement. No hesitation. No dissent.
I feel something pointy twist inside me. Not relief. Not hope. Something darker.
“All right then,” I say. “Let’s hunt.”
We split, boots pounding the asphalt, loading into the trucks like wolves scenting blood. The lot fills with the growl of engines, and for the first time tonight, I feel alive.
Because this—this right here—isn’t law. It’s vengeance.
And vengeance is all I have left.
The drive out is long enough for the air in the cab to sour.
No one speaks. Not Carter riding shotgun, not Mason, Hayes and Reyes who ride in the back.
Every man grips steel like it’s the only thing tethering them to sanity.
My own knuckles are white on the wheel. The glow of the dash paints us in sickly green, like ghosts on their way to haunt.
Calder rides tail in the second truck, headlights bobbing in my mirror. Vance rides shotgun with him and Grove rides in the back.
By the time we crawl off the highway and down into the backroads, I can smell the rot of poverty through the vents. This is the kind of place George Johnson would call home. Forgotten. Left to fester.
The house is squatting at the end of a dirt drive. Paint peeling, porch light swinging in the night wind, yard littered with old cans and tyres. A graveyard for lives long since abandoned.
I kill the engine. One by one, doors open.
Carter at my side. Mason hefting the battering ram. Grove spitting into the dirt. Reyes silent as a shadow. Calder and the others fan out from the second truck.
“Two round the back,” I order, voice low but firm. “Reyes. Hayes. Don’t let him rabbit.”
They nod, disappearing into the dark like they were born for it.
The rest of us stalk toward the porch. Masons got the ram slung like a weapon, but my blood’s running too hot for protocol. The second my boot hits that step, I don’t wait. I plant myself square at the door and drive my heel into the frame.
It explodes inward with a crack that echoes like a gunshot. The men glance at each other—one heartbeat of shock—before storming in.
The house smells like mold and piss. Hallway lined with broken picture frames. A TV still humming static in the corner. Movement at the far end. The scuffle of feet.
“Back!” Grove growls, charging down the hall. Carter follows, gun raised.
There’s a crash. A shout. Then Reyes drags him out—George Johnson, wiry and greasy, his shirt half off like he’d been caught mid-flight. His face slams against the doorframe once, hard enough to leave a smear of blood, before Reyes yanks him upright again.
But it’s not just him.
There’s a girl.
Christ—she can’t be older than eighteen. Thin as bones under skin, pupils blown wide, sweat slicking her face. She’s screaming, slurring, clawing at the air.
“You need a fuckin’ warrant!” she shrieks, voice cracking like glass. “You—You can’t just—”
Before she can finish, Mason snaps. He grips her by the waist like she weighs nothing and hurls her against the wall. Her body hits plaster with a thud.
She crumples, gasping, wide-eyed, every ounce of fight knocked clean out of her.
“I’ll be quiet,” she babbles, shaking. “I’ll be quiet, I swear—please don’t—”
I don’t look in that direction again.
George spits onto the floor, snarling like a cornered rat. “You got no right—”
My fist connects with his jaw before he can finish. The crack rings through the house, and his knees buckle.
“Rights?” I growl, hauling him upright by his collar. “You think you’ve got rights, you piece of shit? You run with Jackson Moore. That strips you of every fucking one.”
He knows fighting is useless— he’s outnumbered eight to one. In truth, he knows even one to one he wouldn’t stand a fucking chance against me, or any of my men for that matter.
The others are on him in seconds. Carter shackles his wrists behind his back. Grove digs the muzzle of his pistol into George’s spine like a cattle prod.
We drag him through the front door, his heels scraping over the porch steps, and hurl him into the back of the truck like garbage.
The sounds of the woman still whimpering inside, curled against the wall like she’s trying to disappear into the plaster. She won’t. She’ll remember this. She’ll remember us.
But tonight, I don’t care.
George Johnson is ours.
And he’s going to fucking talk.
Mason’s workshop sits half a mile out of town, tucked into the woods where no headlights wander by accident.
From the outside it looks harmless—sloped roof, stacks of firewood piled neatly along the wall, a porch light flickering yellow.
But inside? Inside, it smells like sawdust and oil. Old blood and new purpose.
We drag George across the dirt floor. His boots scuff, voice hoarse from yelling the whole drive. Carter and Grove shove him down into the heavy chair Mason uses for sanding. Thick, sturdy, made to take pressure. Rope bites into his wrists as they tie him down tight.
He thrashes once, twice. Then glares at me. “You ain’t gettin’ shit from me.”
Carter shoots me a warning look. “Boss, remember the plan. Don’t kill him. Not yet.”
I nod once.
I crouch in front of George. He stinks—sweat and fear and blood drying at the corner of his mouth. “You’ll talk,” I say quietly. Calm. Like I’m promising the weather.
He laughs. It’s ugly, broken. He spits, the glob landing just shy of my boot. “You might scare other folk in this town but you sure as hell don’t scare me.”
Wrong thing to say.
My eyes wander the workbench. Chisels. Mallets. Planers. And there—set gleaming under the overhead light—a pair of bolt cutters, heavy and razored at the jaws. I pick them up, test the weight in my hand. Perfect.
I step toward George and pin his left hand flat against the chair arm. The ropes strain as he jerks, muscles twitching uselessly. His pinky trembles under the steel, a pathetic little spasm that only makes me press harder.
“You’ll talk.” My voice is flat. “Or this little piggy goes to market.”
The cutters bite down, inflicting pain but not cutting through bone. Yet.
“Where the fuck is Moore?” I bellow
His laugh is half pain, half humor, “I aint telling you shit, sheriff.” He spits.
The snap is brutal, brittle—bone breaking like a dry twig. He doesn’t even process it until the blood sprays warm across the wood. Then it hits him. His scream rips through the rafters, high and raw, a sound that doesn’t sound human anymore.