46. Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Six
Reaper
The city blurs past me in streaks of gray and amber as I tear down the road. My bike roaring beneath me like it’s trying to vibrate the thoughts out of my skull. I don’t let it slow. I don’t let myself think too long. If I do, I’ll turn around. And if I turn around, I’ll break.
The wind cuts cold against my face as I push deeper into the industrial district, empty warehouses, cracked pavement, streetlights flickering like dying stars. The sun isn’t even fully up yet. The world still looks half-asleep.
I’m wide awake. Too awake. My chest feels split open, raw, like I carved something essential out of myself and left it bleeding on that war room table beside the tracker and Max’s note.
By now, they’ve found everything. The note.
The tracker. The video. The thought makes my stomach twist. God...
Wrenley. I pray she doesn’t break. Not like last time.
Not like when Max was taken and she shattered in front of us, violent, then quiet, then so heartbreakingly empty I thought I’d lost her forever. Before she was even mine.
I grip the handlebars harder. Hurting her is the last thing I ever wanted to do, but this is the only way. The only path that ends with her breathing. The only move that keeps his fangs off her skin.
The only sacrifice that makes sense is me.
Not her. Never her. She’d tear the world apart to protect us.
Now it’s my turn. A part of me hopes she screams. Fights.
Rages. Letting Max hold her back from following me.
But the other part, the part that’s drowning, hopes she forgives me one day.
I hope she understands why I had to walk away.
I take a long turn, tires skidding slightly on gravel, and the city falls away behind me. Ahead, the outskirts loom. An industrial wasteland of empty fields and the skeletons of old factories no one bothered to demolish.
There it is. The place I found last night in a file Sebastian never meant for any of us to see. Coordinates scrawled in code. Maps of old tunnels. A supply chain routed through a name I recognized only because Torque once spat it out like venom.
The moment I saw it, I knew. This was it. Where he’s been hiding. Where he built his next stage. Where he wants the final act to play out. Where he expects her to come. I’ll go instead.
I pull up to the chain-link gate, half collapsed and choked by low shrubs and dying vines. The factory behind it is a rusted carcass, with broken windows, a sagging roof, and silence thick enough to choke on.
To anyone else, it looks dead. But I see what others don’t. The faint shift of a shadow behind a window. The glint of metal that’s been left too clean. The unnatural stillness. He’s here. Or his men are.
I kill the engine. The silence hits louder than the roar. I walk the bike off the road, tucking it beneath a curtain of low-hanging brush, hidden unless you know exactly where to look. It won’t matter if they find it. I won’t be riding it back.
I adjust the gear strap on my back, knife holsters, extra mags, a weapon he doesn’t know I carry, and the weight of a choice I can’t undo.
The wind kicks dust across my boots as I start moving toward the factory.
Slow. Silent. Every sense is sharp. I feel eyes.
Maybe real. Maybe imagined. But I keep walking.
Because this is the only way. I promised her always.
This is how I keep it. Even if I’m not there to say it again.
The factory swallows me whole. The air inside is stale, dust, rust, mold, and something sour underneath it all, like old insulation and older secrets.
Every step echoes off concrete and metal like a warning shot.
No birds. No wind. Not even dripping pipes.
Just silence. The kind that presses against your eardrums and dares you to breathe too loud.
I move through the first corridor slowly, clearing corners the way I’ve done a thousand times. The walls are flaking paint, industrial green peeling away like dead skin. Old machinery sits abandoned in the shadows, hulking shapes that look like they could wake up and lunge.
My boots crunch over broken glass. My breath ghosts in front of me.
The place is cold. Too cold. A chill crawls the length of my spine.
It smells wrong. Like it hasn’t been touched in years.
But also… like someone has been here, recently.
A faint whiff of bleach. Old cigarette smoke.
Something chemical and sharp. Sebastian.
I follow a narrow hallway that feels like it stretches forever, lit only by what sunlight manages to cut through broken windows overhead. Left turn. Right turn. A catwalk groans under my weight. Staircase down. Another hall.
The deeper I go, the more wrong it feels, too quiet, too untouched, like everything was cleaned, cleared, staged. Purposefully. The hair on the back of my neck rises. He wanted someone walking through here. He wanted someone to feel this. He wanted her to feel this.
My jaw tightens, breath leaving me in a low hiss. Not happening. I keep moving, gun in hand, every sense sharpened so hard it hurts. Then I reach it. The hallway opens into a massive chamber, a factory floor that’s been completely gutted. I stop dead. Because the center of the room… is a theater.
An actual fucking theater.
Rows of seating, red velvet chairs that don’t belong in a place like this are arranged in semicircles, facing a raised platform that used to be a loading dock. But that’s not what makes my chest cave in. The stage itself—
My stomach drops. It’s a bedroom. Pink walls. White bedframe. A dresser with stickers. A lamp shaped like a rabbit. Bookshelves full of children’s books. A small desk. A cracked mirror with a child’s handprints still smudged on the glass.
On the edge of the bed, a tiny stuffed animal, a fox with patched fur. I know that fox. I’ve seen it in photos that Wrenley was sent by him. This. This is her childhood bedroom. Recreated. Down to the damn stitching.
My hands go numb around my gun. This isn’t just staging.
This is an obsession. This is a ritual. This is a shrine built out of memory and madness.
I see seven chairs lined up on the side of the stage.
Seven identical metal chairs facing the bedroom like a panel of judges.
Bile rises in my throat. This isn’t for Wrenley.
This is for witnesses. The air hums, electric. Then—
CLICK.
A speaker crackles overhead, warped with static, before a voice slides through the system, smooth and taunting.
“Well,” Sebastian purrs. “What a surprise, I hadn’t even sent out the invitations yet.”
My blood goes cold. His smile bleeds through every word.
“But since you came all this way…” A low chuckle. “…drop the gear. And all the weapons.”
I look up at the dark rafters, knowing he’s watching, knowing he can see every twitch of my jaw, every rise of my chest.
“Come in.” The speaker hums. “Let’s talk.”
The loudspeaker cuts out, leaving the massive room in a suffocating silence. I don’t move at first. I stare at the stage, the pink walls, the tiny bed, the stuffed fox, the chairs arranged like vultures, and fight the urge to tear everything apart with my bare hands.
Instead, I exhale once. Slow. Controlled. I force myself to step forward. I keep my gun raised until I reach the edge of the seating. Then, with deliberate slowness, I crouch and set it on the floor. My other weapons follow, one by one.
The knives from my boots. The Glock from the shoulder holster.
The spare mags. The rifle. All of it. Except one.
The dagger. Her dagger. The second one I ever gave my Little Warrior, sleek steel, balanced, and deadly.
She sleeps with its slightly larger twin under her pillow.
I slip mine deeper under the waistband at my back, hidden beneath my jacket. Insurance.
I straighten and walk toward the stage. Toward the bedroom.
Toward the man who built a shrine to her childhood.
A shadow shifts behind the set pieces. Then Sebastian steps out.
He looks exactly like he did in the photo that Wrenley could barely stand to look at.
Just older, taller, thinner. Eyes too bright, too sharp.
A smile carved onto his face as if someone taught him the mechanics, but not the feeling behind it.
He wears a button-down, sleeves rolled, hands clasped behind his back like he’s greeting an old friend, not one of his sister's husbands. He circles the edge of the stage. I circle the floor beneath him. Neither of us turn our backs.
“Liam,” he croons.
The sound of my name in his mouth feels like a violation.
No one calls me that. No one gets to. Except for her.
Except for my brothers, when things are bad enough, they forget to hide their fear.
But never him. Never this piece of rot wearing a smile.
I freeze for half a heartbeat. Sebastian sees it.
Sees the twitch in my jaw. Sees the flicker of instinct to reach for the dagger. He fucking smiles.
“It’s strange,” he continues lightly, “Finally saying your real name out loud. I’ve heard her use it so often, but always quietly… softly… like it belongs to the two of you.”
My blood goes cold. He’s been listening.
He tilts his head with that too-bright smile. “She says it differently, you know. Like it matters.”
I take a step forward, very, very close to ending this prematurely. He takes a matching step back. Like a dance. A taunt.
“No need to get emotional,” he murmurs, circling down the steps and onto the factory floor. “We have a great deal to discuss.”
“Start talking,” I growl. “Why all this? What do you want from her? Money? The Ashford name? The estate? She would’ve given you all of that if you’d just left her alone.”
Sebastian laughs. Not a normal laugh. A delighted, childlike sound that doesn’t belong in a rusted factory full of ghosts.
“Oh, Liam.” He shakes his head, pacing slowly around me as I mirror him, never showing my back, never blinking. “You really don’t understand her at all, do you?” he says. “Or me.”
“Enlighten me.”
He smiles wider, edges sharp.
“It was never about money. Or influence. Or even vengeance. She can keep all of that.”
My fingers twitch toward the hidden blade. He notices it. Encourages it.
“I want her legacy,” he says softly. “Our legacy.”
My stomach drops. “What?”
Sebastian’s smile widens again, serpentine, gleeful, sick. “You are thinking so small, Liam. Titles? Inheritance? Approval? No. No, no, no.”
He gestures around the recreated bedroom with a sweeping flourish. “This isn’t about her past. This is about our future.”
Every muscle in my body goes tight, ready to snap. “What future?” I ask, voice low.
“I want the line to continue,” he whispers. “Our line. The one our family began generations ago. The one she owes me.”
My vision goes red. “You think she’d ever—”
“No,” he interrupts, soft and simple. “She wouldn’t. Not willingly. Not even under threat.”
His gaze slides toward me, hungry. “But fear not—I don’t need her willing.”
My heart slams against my ribs. Because now I see it. All of it. The room. The chairs. The stage. The shrine, the fixation, the obsession. This wasn’t meant to be a confrontation. It was meant to be a ceremony.
My voice comes out as a snarl. “You sick son of a bitch.”
“Oh,” he breathes, stepping closer. “But you… you are a surprise.”
His smile sharpens into something predatory. “I know why you came instead of her,” he says.
I clench my jaw. “Why don’t you tell me, then, if you know so much?”
“Because you love her,” he says. “Enough to take her place. Enough to die for her. Enough…” his eyes glitter. “…to offer yourself in exchange for her freedom?”
The world narrows. He knows. He fucking knows. I would trade myself for her in a heartbeat. Sebastian turns his back deliberately, mocking me, knowing I won’t strike yet, and walks toward the bedroom set, letting his fingers trail across the white bedframe.
“Well then,” he says softly, “This changes everything.”
I force my breathing to be steady. I force the rage down. I force myself not to tear his throat out with my bare hands. Because I came here for one reason. To end this.
“Sebastian,” I say, voice low, sharp, controlled. “Enough games. You said you didn’t expect me. Fine. Then listen carefully.”
He turns toward me, eyebrows lifting with theatrical curiosity.
I take a step forward. “I’ll stay,” I growl. “Whatever you want—whatever this is—I’ll do it. I’ll be the one you keep. I’ll be the one you hurt. I’ll be the one you use.”
His smile grows slow and serpentine, sickly pleased. I keep going.
“But in return—” my voice sharpens, cutting the air between us. “—You swear to leave her alone. Forever. No more threats. No more messages. No kidnappings. No traps. No serpents. You stay the hell away from them all.”
Sebastian watches me like he’s watching a performance he’s already memorized.
“Just one more time, so it’s perfectly clear,” I add, stepping closer. “You never, ever go after my wife again.”
Silence stretches. His eyes go bright. Too bright. “Interesting,” he murmurs. “A trade of one life… for her entire world.”
“It’s the only offer you’re going to get.”
He tilts his head, thoughtfully. Then he nods. Once. “Very well,” he says softly. “I decline.”
Rage boils under my skin. It’s time to do what I came here for.
I might not make it out alive, but I will take him with me.
I surge forward dagger raising in my hand.
Before I can complete two steps, something sharp pricks the side of my neck.
Fast. Clean. Precise. My hand snaps up on instinct, finding a dart in my neck.
I continue forward, my legs stumble under me.
My vision wavers. I fall forward to the floor, the dagger missing him completely and plunging into the stage.
Sebastian steps forward, hands clasped gleefully in front of him, smiling like a child who just solved a puzzle.
“Oh, Liam,” he says sweetly, “You didn’t think I’d let you negotiate while standing on both feet, did you?”
I lunge at him again, everything in me igniting, rage rising fast enough to drown the drug. But my limbs aren’t listening. My hand claws for the dagger. My knees buckle when I try to stand. The room spins faster. The stage blurs. The pink walls bleed together. I meet the floor again.
“Not to worry, Liam,” Sebastian says, crouching to meet my failing stare. “You’ll wake soon. And then, my friend… the real fun begins.”
I try to speak, to snarl, to threaten, to tell him I’ll rip him apart with my teeth if I have to. But the drug hits hard. Too hard. Too fast. My vision narrows to a tunnel. His face is the last thing I see. That smile. That sickly sinister smile, before everything fades to black.