Chapter 26
LUKE
“You can’t just go over there like this,” Gabe calls after me, his tone sharp but threaded with something dangerously close to fear. “Think it through.”
Think? The word hardly penetrates. Any tether to reason snapped the moment he told me Isla’s number was hidden in my father’s phone.
Nathaniel didn’t just deceive my mother. He didn’t just deceive me. He threatened the one woman I can’t lose again. And something deep in my gut tells me this isn’t the first time.
As a sheriff, I know better. I should be biding my time, collecting evidence, and building a case. But reason and training have bled out of me, leaving nothing but a single, burning truth:
If Nathaniel knows something that’s keeping Isla in danger, he answers for it. Today.
I crouch low in the bedroom, careful not to wake her. Isla is curled into the blankets, hair spilling across my pillow like sunlight across fresh snow. The sight of her nearly breaks me in half.
My fingers fumble through the scattered clothes on the floor, dressing in silence. Before I leave, I steal a final glance at her peaceful face. She shifts, sighing in her sleep, and that small sound becomes my anchor.
If I don’t unravel this, I risk losing her again.
The door clicks softly shut behind me.
Gabe is pacing the living room like a caged animal. He stops when I step into view, scanning my face the way a medic checks for signs of trauma.
“Luke.” He grips my elbow, his fingers digging in with purpose. “You need to stop. Whatever Nathaniel’s into, he’s not in it alone. You storm in there now, you’re walking into a fight you don’t understand.”
I wrench free, jaw tight. “I don’t care.”
“You don’t care if he’s the one who tried to have you killed?”
My gaze snaps to his, fury boiling hot and sharp. “Especially if it was him.”
Gabe drags a hand through his hair. “You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“And he doesn’t know what I’m capable of.” My voice steadies into steel. “If he’s behind this, my mother has been living with a monster for decades.”
Silence falls. Heavy and final. Then Gabe exhales a humorless laugh. “Fine. Fuck it. Let’s go.”
“You can’t come with me.”
The edge in my tone freezes him mid-step. He opens his mouth, but I cut him off. “I need you here. With Isla. If anything happens to me, she cannot be left unprotected.”
His jaw locks. “Luke—”
“I can’t breathe knowing she’s vulnerable. If you want me steady enough to confront him, you stay. I’m begging you.”
The fight drains from him slowly. Finally, he nods, defeated. “Then call me the second it’s over. Hell—call in backup.”
“Not yet.” I shake my head. “This is between him and me. If he’s moving outside the law, I catch him by looking him in the eye.”
His nod is reluctant, but it’s permission.
I’m out the door.
The drive is a blur. The forest road twists like a black serpent, headlights carving brief tunnels of light through the darkness. My hand grips the wheel so tight my knuckles pulse with ache.
By the time I pull into the expansive driveway, dawn is bleeding orange over the horizon. Adrenaline thrums like electricity under my skin as I shove the truck into park and step out.
I don’t knock. I don’t ring the doorbell. The front door yields under my hand like even the house knows I have a right to be here.
Raised voices slice the air inside, reverberating through marble and wood.
“How could you lie to all of us?” my mother’s voice cracks.
“What would you have me do, Elizabeth?” Nathaniel fires back, voice like a whip.
“You owed me the truth!”
“I owed you nothing,” he spits. “You chose to whore around. I did you a favor by marrying you and concealing that bastard’s identity.”
I storm into the doorway of his office just in time to see my father’s fingers locked around my mother’s arm, her body twisted as she cries out.
“Get away from her!”
Nathaniel freezes. His grip loosens, and she stumbles free, arms wrapped protectively around herself. Tears streak down her face, shining proof of what he really is.
He turns to me, lips curling into a smile that hides knives. “Luke. Your mother’s being dramatic. She’s exhausted.”
I step between them, blocking him from her completely. “I’ve had enough of your lies.”
His eyes sharpen, pupils constricting. “For God’s sake, what is wrong with everyone this morning? I’ve had a rough night. I don’t need this shit.”
“I don’t give a damn what kind of night you’ve had.”
I advance. He steps back. For the first time, I see unease flicker across his face.
“You and I,” I say, voice low and lethal, “are going to have a long conversation about who you really are.”
Nathaniel exhales sharply, like a bull preparing to charge. “Don’t be absurd.”
“Mom.” I keep my eyes on him. “Go upstairs. Lock the door.”
“Luke, I—”
“Now.”
Her footsteps retreat, each one tight with fear. The click of the lock upstairs lands like a promise.
Nathaniel smirks again. “So. You think you have it all figured out.”
“I know you’re not my father.”
He laughs—a sound like glass breaking. “That’s hardly worth mentioning. Look at you. No drive. No vision. No business sense. You’ve always been painfully…average.”
His words are meant to cut, and once they might have. Now, they slide off me like rain against stone. If anything, the confirmation steels me.
“No,” I say, the word landing like a blow. “I’m nothing like you. I don’t lie. I don’t bully people into submission. And I don’t destroy lives for sport.”
Nathaniel snorts, almost bored. “Sometimes you have to apply pressure to the weak. It’s how the world works.”
“Why Isla?” My voice cracks like a whip. “What did she ever do to you?”
For a split second, I think he might deny it. Instead, his lip curls, and it’s ugly, honest, and hateful.
“I could have made you into something extraordinary,” he says. “If not for her. You were moldable. Focused. Then that girl sank her claws in and filled your head with nonsense about happiness and integrity.”
“So, you tried to kill her?”
“I wanted to scare her,” he says with a nonchalant shrug, like he’s discussing a quarterly loss. “But she didn’t take the hint—even when the threats began to involve you. So yes. Drastic measures were taken.”
The world tilts. Heat surges under my skin.
“Did you set the fire?”
“I don’t dirty my hands with trivialities.”
The last thread of restraint snaps.
I lunge.
My hand slams against his throat, pinning him back against the gun case. The glass shudders violently, the metal frame groaning under the impact.
“Who set it?” I snarl.
His face mottles purple. He claws at my arm, nails scraping my skin. “S–some girl.”
“What girl?”
“The one who works for your brother,” he wheezes. “Stacy…something.”
Revulsion hits like a punch to the gut. “You dragged her into this?”
“She was eager,” he rasps, baring stained teeth in something that should never be called a smile. “She did exactly what I asked.”
My grip tightens. “You’re a goddamn sociopath.”
“No, Luke.” Even choking, his eyes burn with fanatic certainty. “I’m a realist. I do what it takes to win. You’ve always been too weak for that.”
“Did you kill Gretchen Tanner?”
His gaze sharpens. “Her death was…unfortunate.”
“What did she have on you?”
“In my world,” he says, voice cracking as he fights for breath, “accidents happen.”
My stomach churns. “And me? Why was I supposed to die?”
Something flickers in his eyes—regret, fear, or just the moment he calculates a new lie.
“You were never supposed to get hurt, Luke. But you just had to keep digging. I never wanted it to come to this!”
“You were fine up until my murder? That’s where you draw the line, huh?”
“Walk away, Luke,” he whispers. “Let me fix this. They’ll leave you alone. I can reason with them.”
They. The word strikes cold.
The weight of my gun drags at my hip, but I don’t reach for it. Not yet. I want answers more than I want justice.
“Who are you working with? Why are you tied to Ares?”
At the name, his mask fractures. His skin drains of color.
“Ares is not someone to challenge,” he snaps, not in anger, but fear.
“Was he here? In this office?”
I realize too late he’s slipping—his eyes glazing, knees starting to buckle. My grip has turned vicious without me meaning it to. I rip my hand away.
Nathaniel folds forward with a strangled gasp, both hands flying to his throat. He coughs and chokes, spit stringing from his lips as he drags in desperate, broken breaths. His shoulders seize and shudder, the sound of him fighting for air sharp and ugly in the room.
For a moment, he looks less like the man who’s orchestrated half my nightmares and more like something wounded and cornered.
I step closer. “The person listening outside your office at the party—is that who wanted me killed? Someone who overheard me asking questions?”
“I’m begging you to stop asking questions, Luke. Just go back to handling small, mundane crimes and leave my business alone.”
“What are you scared of?” My yell of frustration bounces off the polished floors.
“If you had a clue,” he roars, “you’d be scared too!”
He lunges.
Not with the precision of a fighter, just the raw, reckless violence of a man who sees no other way out.
He swings toward the gun case. I intercept him, shoving him sideways. His shoulder slams into the desk, sending papers and a crystal pen set crashing to the floor.
He recovers faster than a man his age should. His fist cracks across my jaw, snapping my head sideways. Pain explodes through my skull, stars bursting in my vision.
I stagger.
He doesn’t hesitate. He shoves me hard, driving me back into the edge of the oak desk. My gun slips from its holster, skittering across the floor and disappearing under a chair.
He knows exactly where to hit me. His fingers slam into my injured shoulder—right where metal tore through muscle and bone.
White-hot pain detonates. My knees buckle. A sound tears from my throat—raw, animal.
“Nathaniel—” I gasp.
But he doesn’t stop.
He grabs the nearest object—a heavy pistol from the open gun case—and brings it down in a brutal arc.
The butt of the weapon cracks against my temple.
Light erupts. The world fractures. My body collapses sideways, vision dissolving into a dark, pulsing haze.
Somewhere far away, through water and static, I hear a door slamming and my mother screaming my name.
I fight the darkness clawing at me. I try to rise. But the world keeps tilting, slipping, folding in on itself—
And then everything goes black.
I awaken to the sound of a familiar voice. Scared. Feminine. It anchors me.
Savannah.
“Luke, can you hear me?”
My eyelids peel open, heavy as stone. She looms above me, eyes sharp with worry.
“Sav,” I croak, blood thick on my tongue. “We have to find him.”
Dalton’s grip clamps under my arm, hauling me upright. His strength steadies me even as pain detonates in my skull. “We’re on it.”
Behind him, Chase stands like a flame barely contained, fury blazing in his eyes.
My mother huddles against Eden, both trembling, their grief-stricken faces nearly undoing me.
“I called the sheriff’s station,” Mom whispers. “Then I called your brothers and sisters.”
I grit my teeth, sucking in air through the pain. “Good. Because Nathaniel’s not finished, he’s involved in something out of his control, and he’s scared. There’s no telling what he’s capable of.”
Tim barrels through the doorway with two deputies on his heels, eyes already raking the office like a crime scene. Papers litter the floor like confetti after a parade no one wanted to attend.
My gun glints from under the desk where it settled. The glass-front gun case hangs open, a jagged spiderweb where his fist—or my back—hit it.
Tim takes in the scene. “What the hell happened here?”
“Nathaniel,” I say, forcing the words through a throat lined with glass. “He’s responsible for Isla’s accident. And my shooting. He’s in deep with some horrible people. As soon as I started looking into it, they tried to have me killed.”
A collective inhale—sharp, disbelieving. Savannah’s hand flies to her mouth. Chase stiffens like he’s been struck. Dalton’s jaw squares into stone.
Tim’s gaze lifts to mine, flickering over the blood at my hairline. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.” The room tilts for a beat; I steady myself on the edge of the desk. Pain pulses behind my eyes in wicked, steady waves. “We’re not discussing this here. We need to move. He’s armed and desperate.”
Tim nods once, clipped and all business. “On it. BOLO goes out now.”
“Pull traffic cams, highway ramps,” I add. “Notify Cedar Hollow PD we need a K-9 if they can spare a unit. And pick up two people for questioning. Alan Gordon and Stacy Rivera.”
Savannah’s head snaps toward me. “Stacy?”
My mouth tastes like pennies. “He used her. She set the fire that almost killed Isla.”
The words make my stomach pitch.
Sav takes a step back, absorbing the blow, then plants her feet like she always does—bruised, not broken.
Tim’s already radioing as he moves, rattling off coordinates, license queries, and contact names.
I turn to my mother. She’s upright because she refuses not to be, but tremors ripple through her arms. Eden has both hands clamped around one of hers, squeezing tight, her own eyes wet and wide.
“I’m sorry,” Mom whispers. “I slept beside a stranger for thirty years, and I brought his lies to my children.”
I grip her fingers. “We all believed what made life bearable.” I glance at the bruising already rising on her forearm, then back to her eyes. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
She shakes her head. “Just shaken. And ashamed.”
“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” Savannah says fiercely, arm circling our mother’s shoulders. “He does.”
I nod to the deputies. “Take Mom, Sav, and Eden upstairs. No one opens the door but me, Tim, or a uniform you recognize. If he doubles back, you call before you breathe.”
Sav gives me that steady sister look. “We’ve got her. Go.”
Dalton angles closer. “What’s the play?”
The word hits awkwardly and right all at once. I pull air into my lungs; it scrapes as it goes down. “Nathaniel’s terrified. Which means he’s sloppy. He’ll run to ground he knows or to whoever’s holding his leash.”
“We hunt him,” I say. “Dalton, you’re with me. Chase, hit the south access roads. If he stashes cars, they’ll be there. Call me about anything that smells even a little wrong.”
They both nod, already moving toward the door.
I yank my phone from my pocket and dial Gabe. He answers on the first ring.
“Luke?”
“He got away. Armed. We’re canvassing the grounds. I need you with Isla. Doors locked, eyes up.”
“Damn it!” Gabe’s shout cracks under the weight of everything we both know.
“Nathaniel’s desperate,” I grind out. “He’s cornered, and that makes him unpredictable. He may run or look for a hostage. And in his twisted mind, Isla is the root of every problem—me becoming sheriff, me digging into his business, all of it.”
“Jesus Christ,” Gabe breathes, the fear sharpening his voice.
“As long as he’s out there, Isla isn’t safe.”