Page 40 of Damascus & The Wildfire
I stared at the report until the words blurred. It would be so much easier if the world were simple—bad guys, good guys. No gray, no in-between.
My phone pinged with a group text from Eva. I tilted it so Merrick could also read the messages.
Eva:
Looked up the reporter’s name. It was one of the girls in Hatchet’s group at the self-defense class. She’s an intern at the paper.
Hatchet:
I went out with her, but I didn’t tell her shit.
Eva:
I’ll text the editor. He asked for an exclusive for the anniversary, and then he let this shit fly? She didn’t disclose that she was a reporter, and she never called us for comment.
And really, Hatchet? A college student?
I grimaced at the message. Hatchet was single. He wasn’t obligated to any sort of exclusivity with me. I’d told him I wasn’t ready to date. But it still stung that he’d gone out with one of the flirtatious sorority girls from the self-defense class I coordinated.
“You should go,” Merrick said, breaking me out of thought.
“How fucked am I with Thane?”
He rubbed his jaw, considering. “Give him a few days to cool down. Maybe let Eva handle the Mavericks business for a bit.”
“And what about you?” I asked, my voice small. “Do you think I was wrong?”
Merrick sighed. “I think you care. That’s not a bad thing. But you can’t storm in here like that. Thane’s only going to give you a pass once. He’s not the forgiving type. And if you’d pulled that shit in front of the entire club, I’m not sure I could have stopped him.”
“Stopped him from what?” I asked, my voice rising.
“You don’t want to know. I don’t want to even think about it. Just … don’t trust everything you read about us. There’s always more to the story.”
“It’s hard to trust this club when I find out shit like this from a newspaper,not you guys.”
He nodded. “Fair. You want answers, ask me next time.”
I swallowed, my anger deflating. “I just want to do the right thing. Be on the right side of the story.”
Merrick’s expression softened, just a fraction of a second. “So do we. In our own way.”
“Thanks. For showing me the file. For answering my questions. And for not letting Thane kill me.”
He gave a slight shrug. “Go home, Kenna. Try to stay out of trouble for a few days.”
I managed a weak smile. “No promises.”
Merrick’s lips twitched.
I drove home in silence, no music or true crime podcasts. Just the hum of the engine and the echo of Merrick’s words.There’s always more to the story.
Merrick hadn’t given me the whole account, but he’d trusted me with pieces of it so I could understand.
In a twisted way, it was almost comical how the Mavericks could be so gentle and so brutal in the same breath. They were the kind of guys who’d change your tire in the rain. And yet, I’d also seen the violence simmering just beneath the surface.
The Mavericks weren’t saints—not even close. The headline painted them as monsters, but the truth was messier. Sometimes the violence was their way of serving justice in a world that failed to offer it.
And at least they were honest about who they were. They wore their sins like tattoos. Visible. Real.
