33. Wyatt

Chapter Thirty-Three

WYATT

Pain was my whole world. A deep, relentless ache throbbed in the back of my skull, radiating down my neck and shoulders with every pulse. My mind was a haze, sluggish and fragmented, but slowly, details began to creep through the fog.

The air was thick and damp. It clung to my skin like a second layer, rank with the scent of mildew, rotting wood, and the unmistakable bog of swamp. Beneath it all was the metallic tang of my own blood. The nauseating combination crawled into my nostrils, choking me and making my stomach churn.

My back ached and my shoulders were on fire, but I couldn’t figure out why until I noticed the sharp bite of something cutting into my wrists. My arms were wrenched behind my back, tied securely to something solid. A chair, probably. The texture of rough wood brushed against my fingers when I dared to twitch them.

Somewhere nearby, water was dripping steadily, a maddening rhythm that burrowed into my skull. I forced myself not to flinch, keeping my breathing slow and even despite the panic clawing at me. Focus. Focus.

My senses were blasted wide open, straining to pick out any details that could tell me where I was or how I’d gotten here. I could barely remember what I’d been doing…and then it clicked. Eden. The chapel. Dominic?—

“I know you’re awake.”

The quiet menace in his voice turned my blood to ice. My eyes snapped open instinctively, and the dim, grayish light that greeted me sent a fresh spike of pain through my skull. I squinted, struggling to focus as blurred shapes gradually sharpened into clarity.

We were in a dark, empty room made of wooden planks. Dominic was standing a few feet away, leaning against the warped frame of a doorway. He was still dressed in the same black clothes, but he looked noticeably less tidy. His hair was mussed, and his designer boots were caked in grime and muck. An oil lantern hung from a rusted nail in the wall, casting long, demonic shadows across his face.

“You don’t look so good.” His tone was almost conversational, but that only made it more menacing.

“Dominic,” I rasped, forcing myself to meet his gaze despite my watering eyes. “What the hell’s going on?”

“Let’s call it an intervention.” His whiskey-colored eyes gleamed like a fox’s in the flickering light. “You like the ambiance? It may be melodramatic, but I considered it fitting. A man like you, meeting his end here, in the place where Gage began.”

Confused, I scanned the room more carefully. The single room cabin reeked of neglect, bowing in at the frame like the bayou was pushing to climb inside. The walls were made of rough-hewn planks that looked ready to shed inch-long splinters at the slightest touch, and moist night air crept through gaps in the seams. A single, grime-caked window allowed just enough moonlight to cast ghostly shadows over a two-person dining table and a sagging, mouse-infested couch.

I knew Gage had been raised in abject poverty, so deep in the bayou it could only be reached by boat. I’d read about it in his file and listened to state psychologists during his adoption hearing, but I’d never seen it firsthand.

People talked about Eden being haunted, but we were all wrong. It was this place. No one had ever died here, as far as we knew, but the cabin felt utterly devoid of life. It wasn’t just rundown; it was grim and dark and hopeless. Antithetical to life.

I took a deep breath, but the clotted blood filling my nose and throat caught me short, triggering a fit of violent coughing. I must have broken my nose when I was coldcocked from behind.

“Sorry about that. Marcel should’ve caught you before you hit the floor.” Dominic didn’t sound sorry; he sounded viciously gratified. His lips curved into a pale, humorless smile. “It didn’t seem important at the time. After all, pretty soon that broken nose will be the least of your concerns.”

I barely remembered who Marcel was, only that he’d been set up as security at the house while Paulie was on the loose. He did a good job of staying hidden. I’d never even heard him coming.

“I tried, you know,” Dominic continued in the same conversational tone, like we were discussing a ball game. Like he wasn’t completely out of his goddamn mind. “For Gage’s sake, I gave you every chance. I stood back and watched you worm your way into his life like you belonged there. Like you were good for him.”

I cleared my throat and spat a glob of congealed blood onto the floor before I could speak. “I am good for him.”

Dominic’s smile didn’t waver, but his eyes hardened. All I saw was hate. “You’re the worst thing to ever happen to him. Gage has loved you since he was old enough to understand what love is. He grew up obsessing over how to make you proud, feeling unworthy because he knew he’d never meet your expectations. And you? You’ve been lying to him from the start.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” My pulse was hammering, my groggy mind racing to put the pieces together when I didn’t even understand the game.

Dominic pushed off the doorframe with infuriating ease and reached behind his back. My heart kicked against my ribs, and I instinctively strained against the zip ties binding my wrists. The plastic bit deep but refused to give. I was expecting a weapon, but instead, Dominic withdrew a file that had been rolled and tucked into his waistband.

He tossed the file into my lap. It landed across my thighs, flipping open and spilling papers onto the floor. I scanned the bold headers and familiar letterhead of a state lab report. I’d seen thousands of fingerprint analyses like it…but never with my name on it.

“What the fuck is this?” I demanded, glaring at him.

“The truth.” His eyes were burning as he stared down at me. “You’re the one who hid the gun for Vanderhoff that night. Then you cuffed Ben and threw him in jail without losing sleep. The only question is how much was it worth?”

“Someone must’ve planted my prints!” I snapped, jerking against the ties. “I got to the scene so late that night, I never even saw that gun, and you know it!”

Dominic’s eyes hardened. In one swift motion, he grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head back painfully. He hissed, inches from my face, “What I know is that Gage spent his entire life chasing after you. Believing in you. And all that time, you were stabbing him in the back. Nobody messes with my family and gets away with it.”

“You’re crazy,” I protested, trembling with fury.

Dominic’s expression twisted with loathing and disgust. He’d never been what I’d call handsome, but now, he looked downright monstrous. “You want to talk about bullshit? Fine. Let’s talk facts. Your print is on the gun. Your name is on the arrest report. I’ve had a clerk in the DA’s office combing through the sheriff’s department’s access logs, and your name is all over them. Every piece of missing evidence, every falsified report…guess whose badge number has accessed each record?”

The blood was rushing in my ears so loudly I could barely hear. “That’s because I’ve been?—”

Swiftly, he backhanded me across the face. “Don’t,” he said angrily. “Don’t try to spin it. I’ve had people watching you for months. I know who your closest buddies are—the same corrupt worms who’ve been lining their pockets while this parish goes to hell.”

“They’re informants, you stupid sonofabitch!” I spat, blood pressure surging until my head felt like it was going to pop. It felt like he was about to tear my hair out by the roots, but I ignored the pain, leaning forward to hiss right in his face. “I’ve been working with a state task force since last summer. Every file I accessed, every meeting I took, it was all reported to them.”

Dominic hesitated, searching my face, and then laughed outright. “You’ve got an answer for everything, don’t you? I bet you even have an explanation for those deposits in your bank account a few years ago, the ones you used to build that nice little house. But here’s the thing…if you’re such a fucking boy scout, why doesn’t Mason know a thing about it?”

I opened my mouth, but the protest lodged in my throat. Mason didn’t know for the same reason I’d never told Gage—because Langford had explicitly warned me to keep the operation airtight. Too many people had already died, more than even Dominic could imagine. But those excuses would fall on deaf ears. I had no proof, and Dominic did. It was staring up at me from that lab report.

He seized on my hesitation, and his nostrils flared, like a predator smelling blood. “The truth is, Deputy, even if you could produce some semblance of an argument, it still wouldn’t be enough. In all the years I’ve known him, I’ve only seen Gage cry twice. Once, five years ago…and when I passed him tonight. You’re the reason he’s still broken.”

He stepped back, and my stomach clenched when he pulled a set of brass knuckles from his pocket and slid them over his fingers. The edges were serrated, and the scrapes and gouges on the finish told me this wasn’t the first time they’d been used. His gaze never left mine as he tested the fit against his palm.

“I made a promise to protect my family, no matter what,” Dominic said, ice-cold and steady. “Even if that means protecting them from themselves. Gage will cry when you disappear, but then I’ll make sure he never cries again.”

His fist swung toward my face, blindingly fast. I didn’t even have a chance to brace myself. Not that it would have done any good. It felt like getting hit with a baseball bat. The brass knuckles smashed into my face with sickening force.

I waited for another rush of darkness, but it didn’t come. Dominic had checked his strength just enough to keep me conscious. That was the thing about him; he never let his emotions get the better of him. I wasn’t sure he even had them. He stuck to body shots after that. The first few blows knocked the breath out of me, but I stopped bracing. There was no deflecting, no protecting my soft points, no escape. Just embracing the suck. All I could do was clench my teeth and keep my groans behind them.

When he finally paused to catch his breath, I was so lost in pain I barely noticed.

“You can scream, you know.” His voice was so garbled it sounded demonic. “I don’t respect you more for staying quiet.”

I gagged on a mouthful of blood, coughed, and spat onto the floor. “F-fuck you, Dominic.”

“How original.” He grimaced and slipped off the brass knuckles, shaking out his stinging fingers before retrieving a phone from his pocket. My phone. “Let’s cut to the chase, Deputy. I want you to call Gage and confess. Give him the truth before you die. You owe him that much.”

The eerie blue glow of the lock screen nearly blinded me as he held it up to my face. I squeezed my eyes shut and turned my face away, but Dominic grabbed me by the chin and forced my head around until it felt like my neck might snap.

“Unlock it,” he growled, his whiskey-colored eyes drilling into mine. “Or we’ll take a different route, and I promise, you’ll like it even less.”

I pressed my lips into a thin line, but I couldn’t see a way out. If I refused, he’d tip the chair over and pry my eyes open himself. I flicked my gaze to the screen, and the device unlocked with a faint click.

Dominic’s smile was razor-sharp as he navigated my contacts and hovered his thumb over Gage’s name.

“Dominic, don’t,” I blurted, thrashing against the zip ties, ignoring the sting as they bit into my skin. “Don’t hurt him like this. You don’t have to do this.”

He ignored me, focused only on the screen. The phone rang once. Twice. Maybe Gage was too angry to pick up. I could only pray he didn’t. As much as I wanted to hear his voice one more time, I couldn’t bear to do this to him.

“Wyatt?” Gage’s voice was loud on speaker, confused and distracted and so, so beautiful. “It’s too late to rehash this tonight?—”

“Shut up, Gage,” I rasped, licking my cracked lips and tasting iron. “J-just…just shut up and listen to me for a minute, okay, baby?”

His tone sharpened in an instant. “What’s wrong?”

Dominic’s eyes flicked to mine, sharp with warning, daring me to clue Gage in. But we both knew I wouldn’t. Dominic was ruthless, but he was loyal to his brothers. Whatever happened tonight, I wasn’t going to let Gage lose both of us.

“Wyatt?” Gage sounded angry now…and scared. “Your reception sucks. Where are you?”

Pain and panic clouded my mind, and for a second, I wasn’t sure I could get the words out. Dominic’s hand shot out, catching my jaw in a vice-like grip. He tilted his head, gaze boring into mind, and the silent threat was crystal clear: choose carefully.

“I know it’s late, but I…need to tell you something,” I croaked, barely above a whisper. “Just listen, okay? Let me say this.”

“Okay,” Gage said warily.

“I’m sorry,” I said, forcing the tremor out of my voice. “I’m so goddamn sorry for ever making you feel like you’d let me down. That was all me. I felt stupid and helpless, like everything I’ve done amounts to nothing, but that wasn’t your fault.”

“Let’s talk in the morning, okay?” he interrupted, alarm creeping into his tone. “This isn’t the right time?—”

“No.” I clenched my fists behind my back. My fingers were slick with the blood oozing from my lacerated wrists. “It has to be now. Listen to me, Gage. You’ve got this soul…it’s the purest thing I’ve ever seen. The world has thrown so much at you, but you’ve never let it take your heart. You think it makes you weak, but it doesn’t. It makes you strong. It makes me want to be a better man…for you.”

“Wyatt—” Gage’s voice cracked. I hated that I couldn’t see him, couldn’t hold him. I hated that I’d waited too long to say this. Some tough guy I was.

“You’ve made me a better man, Gage. You made my life better in ways you’ll never understand. No matter what happens, I need you to believe that.”

Dominic’s short fingernails dug impatiently into my skin. “Tell him,” he growled, low enough for only my ears. “Tell him what you did so he doesn’t waste his heart mourning you.”

But Gage was speaking in my ear, making it difficult to concentrate on anything else. “You’re freaking me out. Are you breaking up with me? Is that what this is?”

“Never.” My breath hitched. Dominic was radiating fury like a physical heat, but I pressed on. If this was my last chance, I was going to take it, no matter the repercussions. “Just promise me you’ll remember this, okay? No matter what you hear about me in the future, remember that I love you. I believe in you. I’ll always be proud of you…even if I’m not there to tell you.”

Silence filled the line, heavy and unbearable. Gage drew a deep breath, and when he finally spoke, his tone was low and deadly serious. “Wyatt, you’re scaring the hell out of me. Just tell me where you are, and I’ll come get you.”

“Don’t worry about me, baby. Just remember what I told you.” My throat tightened, but I forced the words out. “You don’t need me, Gage. You never have. But I’ll always need you.”

“Wyatt—”

With a vicious curse, Dominic ended the call. The screen went dark, and he slipped the phone into his pocket with a trembling hand. “I didn’t give you enough credit for stubbornness,” he said, coldly furious. “You’re a better liar than I ever expected.”

I sagged in the chair. Any strength I’d had left was drained. My aching heart hurt worse than my body. “Go to hell, Dominic,” I rasped.

He smiled faintly, but his eyes were dead. “You first.”