Page 119 of Jayson
Jayson flinches at the sound—then looks down at the body at his feet. No words. Just a sharp nod of thanks.
I toss him a fresh clip and a spare Glock. He catches both without missing a beat, sliding the magazine in with that quiet calm that only comes from living with death.
My voice is gravel.
“Let’s finish this.”
He nods once. Resolve. That’s all we need to get the job done.
We move. Side by side. Two bloodied titans, stomping through the wreckage of our kingdom. There’s no fear. We have no mercy. And we seek only vengeance.
And for every bastard still breathing on this property? They’re about to learn what happens when you come for our blood.
46
KEIRA
It’s too dark.
The silence isn’t really silent—there’s this low, humming roar in my ears, like my own heartbeat’s trying to escape.
I sit with my knees tucked to my chest, arms wrapped around my legs so tight that my muscles burn. Jayson said not to move. Not to speak. To stay hidden is to stay safe.
But it’s hard to believe in safe when the air down here feels like it’s thickening with every breath. The trapdoor sealed over me like a coffin. No light. No sounds now—just the echo of gunshots thatwere… and the waiting.
Too much shooting. Too much shouting. It went on for too long.
He’s just one man. There was more of them than there were of him.
I close my eyes. Breathe in, then out. Except I can’t. The air’s not going anywhere. My chest keeps rising, falling faster, tighter. It’s like I’m drowning in it.
I try to count. One, two, three—and that’s when it hits. Not the fear of dying. I’ve made peace with that before. This is different.This is memory. And it’s stale and old and it hits me out of left field.
The Past
I was nine and I was crying too loud.
That’s what he said. That’s what made it happen.
His belt was already on the floor, but that wasn’t the punishment this time. No. He dragged me through the hall, past my room, past the kitchen, to the guest room closet.
“You want something to cry about, Keira?”
My mother was already gone by then—long gone. Not dead or buried. Just… gone.
She walked out one morning without looking back, leaving behind the scent of her rose perfume, her silence, and a daughter she didn’t have the guts to fight for. She left me with nothing. Just a ghost of a woman who chose her own survival over mine.
And I?
I was left to face the monsters alone. And to this day, I can’t stand the smell of roses.
There were no lullabies. No safe arms. No one to pull me from the dark when the door slammed shut and the real nightmares began. Just me. Small. Shaking. Learning too early that sometimes the scariest thing in the house wasn’t under the bed—it was standing in the hallway with a belt and bad company.
And without her… there was no one left to stop him.
He opened the closet door. Pushed back the coats. Pulled out a plank of thin, warped wood behind them.
There was a hole in the drywall.
