Page 117 of Jayson
The city vanishes in my rearview. Towering steel bleeds into pine and shadow. The sun’s barely risen, but the sky’s already painted in blood—orange and crimson smearing across the horizon like a goddamn warning.
The sound of gunfire is faint, distant, but sharp, but it becomes increasingly loud as I near Jayson’s estate. It’s a sound I know better than my own damn voice.
My grip tightens. My boot slams the accelerator flat. The car surges forward like hell’s chewing at its tires.
Jayson’s house comes into view—and so does the wreckage.
The gate is gone, obliterated by what looks like an explosion. Twisted metal is still smoldering, blackened from the blast. Smoke curls lazily into the sky, like it’s proud of the damage it’s done.
The gravel drive is chaos—scorched rubber, spent casings, footprints in blood. There’s a smear where someone wasdragged. Another where they likely died. It looks like a battlefield.
And Jayson, I know, is in the center of it.
Fear doesn’t scream through me—it slides in silent. Cold. Efficient. A scalpel in my gut.
I yank the wheel. Slam the brakes. The car jerks to a stop half on the lawn. I’m out before the door’s open. My boots hit gravel, and my coat flares behind me as I draw both guns. There’s no hesitation. No warning required. I need to make a point here, and I need to go to war.
There’s a man at the edge of the treeline, crouched behind a shrub with a scoped rifle, his eye trained on the upper floors. He doesn’t see me coming.
I squeeze the trigger once and get in a clean neck shot. His body jerks back, hands clawing at air before he collapses into the brush with a wet gurgle. Dead before he can blink.
I move fast, low. A shadow with a mission. Another to the left—near the fountain, backlit by firelight. He’s on the radio, murmuring something in a foreign tongue.
I shoot him in the face, leaving no time for mercy and no space for doubt.
I jog to his corpse, rip off his vest, check his pockets. Nothing but a half-empty clip and a lighter. No insignia. No ID.
Maddox sent in a Ghost crew as his hired muscle, which means he isn’t sending his best—he’s sending expendables.
That tells me one thing: he was out of options. It’s good to know not many would shake hands with that kind of evil.
I reach the outer veranda just as another wave of gunfire rattles the windows. Short bursts. Close. Inside.
My heartbeat stutters.Jayson.
I sprint up the steps two at a time, pausing only to flatten against the exterior wall. My shoulder brushes blood. I don’t flinch. My brother is inside that house, probably bleeding alone.My head spins just considering what I might find inside the house once I step over the threshold.
I breach through the front—gun raised, breath locked.
The interior is carnage.
The entry hall is slick with blood. A body slumped against the staircase—throat cut so deep I can see vertebrae. Another by the doorway, still twitching from a gut shot. The floor is shredded from boot tracks, broken glass and shell casings littering every surface.
I stalk forward.
Another shot rings out upstairs.
Hold on, brother. I’m coming.
A breacher appears on the landing, rifle swinging in my direction. He’s fast, but I’m faster. There’s a reason why they call me the Enforcer.
I drop to one knee, fire two rounds into his torso. His vest takes one—barely—but the second hits just below it. He grunts, buckles, then I charge and kick him through the railing.
He screams all the way down and lands with a dramatic thump at the bottom of the stairs.
I move deeper—sweeping every corner, my footsteps discreet as I take in every room.
The kitchen is clear, but the dining room is torn apart—blood on the tablecloth, knives on the floor. A body slumped by the bar. Eyes open. Neck twisted.
