34. Gage

Chapter Thirty-Four

GAGE

I paced the kitchen like a caged animal, nearly crawling out of my skin in panic. Rain pattered against the roof, building into a hell of a storm so early in hurricane season. Gideon leaned against the counter, watching me with the detachment of a man waiting for paint to dry.

When I’d started spinning out, I’d sought him, because of all my brothers, he was the one I trusted to give it to me straight, no chaser. Mason and Dominic were too cynical, and Ben was too kind.

He was eating a cold drumstick with all the grace of a lion devouring a carcass when I’d stalked in, and he’d only raised an eyebrow at me. He didn’t push. He just waited, patient as ever, until I started talking. And once I started, I couldn’t stop.

I told him everything: the fight, the sick pleasure I’d felt beating Paulie to a pulpy mess, and the terror afterward, knowing what that reaction said about me. Then I told him about the guilt I felt, bone-deep and heavy as hell, that Wyatt had been forced out of his job because of me.

Gideon listened without interrupting, chewing methodically as if the mess of my life was just background noise. When I finally ran out of steam, he licked grease from his thumb, wiped his hands on a napkin, and leveled me with a gaze so piercing I had to look away.

“That guilt you’re carrying is self-indulgence at its worst, Gage,” he said bluntly. “Wyatt made the choice to give up his badge. You’re not his keeper.”

“I still feel like shit about it,” I muttered, staring at my boots.

“That’s because you’re making it about you,” Gideon had said bluntly. “If you want to be with Wyatt, then you need to treat him as your equal, not some idol on a pedestal. That means letting him make his own choices and take the consequences. You don’t get to decide what’s right for him.”

I hadn’t wanted to hear it, but he wasn’t wrong. Still, it hadn’t eased the ache in my chest. I could feel the guilt lodged there, just behind my sternum, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to pry it out until I settled things with Wyatt. But then he’d called, and all my insecurities had taken a backseat to the gut-wrenching dread that something was wrong.

Now, pacing the kitchen while Gideon watched me like I’d lost my mind, that dread had bloomed into something ugly and afraid. It plucked at my stomach, twisting it into knots until I felt ready to puke.

I’d known something was wrong the moment I heard Wyatt’s voice rasping in my ear. In all the years I’d known him, he’d never sounded like that, wrecked and desperate and wrong. Everything about that call had been wrong, from the static on the patchy connection to the call itself. Wyatt hated phones. He needed to look people in the eye when he spoke. He’d never have an important discussion any other way. When I tried to call him back, it went straight to voicemail, over and over again.

“You’re sure Wyatt didn’t leave right after he dropped me off?” I demanded, rounding on Gideon.

“Loretta said he stopped to talk with Ivy,” Gideon replied coolly. “She mentioned it when I ran into her downstairs.”

“And you didn’t see him leave?”

Gideon raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t stand at the window to wave goodbye, if that’s what you’re asking. I figured he took off when the house got quiet.”

“But you didn’t hear him pull out?” I pressed, struggling to lock down the worry surging through me. My palms were starting to sweat, and I wiped them on my jeans.

“I didn’t hear anything, but I was keeping to my room until Dom left,” Gideon said with a sigh. “Didn’t hear him or Marcel leave either. I came down about twenty minutes after you stormed upstairs, and the house was empty.”

I planted my hands on the kitchen table, gripping the edge so hard the wood bit into my palms. The kitchen was warm and cozy, thick with the lingering smells of fried chicken and coffee, but it felt stifling.

“He didn’t go home,” I mumbled, staring at the scarred tabletop until it blurred beneath my fingers.

“How do you know that?”

“I know what it sounds like when he calls from his house. It’s always quiet there, but tonight, I could barely hear him through the static. It sounded like the call was about to drop any second.”

“There’s only one place in this parish where the signal is that shitty,” Gideon said, brow furrowing.

I swallowed thickly. “Yeah.”

“The bayou.”

Nothing good ever happened in the bayou; I’d known that all my life.

“You don’t think…” I lifted my head, forcing myself to meet Gideon’s gaze. “You don’t think Dominic?—”

“Would interfere?” he asked gravely, and for the first time tonight, his calm facade cracked. It was the same expression he always wore when Dominic was around these days. “If you’re asking me if it’s possible? Yeah. Dom’s capable of more than you know. But if you’re asking if he’d hurt Wyatt because of you…I can’t answer that.”

A heavy silence followed, broken only by the steady tick of rain and the chime of the grandfather clock in the hallway. The cheery lamplight and buttery yellow walls should have been comforting, but all I saw were shadows stretching from the corners, dark reminders of all the ways the world could destroy a man.

All I knew was that Wyatt wasn’t home. He wasn’t safe. He and Dominic had always hated each other, and they’d left Eden around the same time.

“Fuck this.” I grabbed my phone and jabbed at the screen with shaking fingers. After three rings, the call went straight to Dominic’s voicemail. Then the next…and the next. I clenched my teeth and dialed Marcel. It connected on the first ring.

“Landry,” Marcel answered, clipped and impersonal, but sounding angrier than I’d ever heard. The reception was shit, tinny and distant, with static cutting in and out like a bad radio signal. Just like it had with Wyatt.

“Landry,” Marcel said, clipped and impersonal, his voice edged with an unfamiliar anger. The line crackled faintly, static cutting in and out like a bad radio signal. Just like it had with Wyatt.

My mouth went dry. “Where the hell are you? And don’t give me any bullshit. I know you’re with Dominic.”

“I’m always with Dominic,” Marcel replied, and for the first time since high school, he didn’t sound happy about it. “What’s this about, Gage?”

“I’m looking for Wyatt,” I said, barely holding back my anger. “I know you’re out in the bayou, Marcel. Dominic didn’t drag you out there for a fucking fishing trip. Where is he? What’s he doing?”

He hesitated, and alarms started blaring in my head. He’d always been my brother’s cheerful, impulsive shadow—a cross between bodyguard and conscience, but one thing he never did was second guess Dominic. When he finally spoke, his tone was guarded. “You’re jumping to conclusions.”

“Am I?” My voice rose, and I started pacing again, eating up the tile floor on each turn. “Wyatt’s not home, and y’all left Eden around the same time. Dom’s not answering his phone, but you and Wyatt both sound up to your knees in swamp. So, tell me, what conclusion should I make, Marcel? Because right now, I’m thinking Dom dragged Wyatt out there to settle some fucked-up score, and if that’s true?—”

“Whoa, slow down,” Marcel interrupted. I could almost picture him pinching the bridge of his nose, the way he did whenever he thought someone was acting crazy. “Look, Gage. You don’t got all the facts. You don’t know what he’s dealing with.”

“I don’t care!” I bit out furiously. “If he lays a hand on Wyatt, he’s gonna regret it.”

Static flared, followed by a long silence. Just as I thought the call had dropped, Marcel’s heavy sigh crackled down the line. “He was hoping it would never get back to you. Just make the problem disappear, comprené? But it’s gone too far. This isn’t what he needs.”

“Tell me where they are,” I demanded.

Another pause. When he finally spoke, it was with heavy reluctance. “An old cabin in the bayou, a jon boat ride south of the Devil’s Hand. You know the one.”

It was like someone had ripped my worst nightmare directly from my brain. My blood ran cold. “You don’t have to do this,” I whispered hoarsely. “You can still stop him.”

Marcel’s tone hardened. “That’s not my call to make. I’ve already done what I can. The rest is up to you.”

The line went dead.

The phone slipped from my fingers and hit the counter, spinning once before it settled. I stared at it blankly, frozen in shock. “Why there?” I rasped. “Why the hell would he take him there?”

The place where my life had nearly ended so many times. The place where Wyatt might lose his now.

A hand gripped my shoulder, and I flinched. Turning, I locked eyes with Gideon.

“You’re not going alone.” His face was set in the kind of hard, implacable lines that didn’t invite argument.

“I don’t need you holding my hand,” I shot back reflexively, but even as the words hit the air, I hated them. Felt ashamed of them. This was exactly what Wyatt had been trying to get through to me.

You’ve got people who care about you. People who’d do anything for you.

I couldn’t keep carrying everything alone. It was killing me.

Gideon didn’t blink, calm and rooted in the chaos. “You’re not going alone,” he repeated, slower this time. “Dominic’s not someone you can talk down when he’s like this. If you go in there playing hero, he’ll double down out of spite and end up hurting you and himself.”

I hated that he was right. Hated it more than the dread crawling up my spine. I couldn’t lose Wyatt, but I couldn’t lose Dominic either. When he got like this, there was no telling what would happen. He never did anything without reason, but his reasons weren’t the same as normal people.

I dragged a hand through my hair, trying to clear my head, and said, “All I care about is Wyatt.”

“And Dom cares about you,” Gideon said with quiet certainty. He grabbed his keys from the hook by the door and motioned for me to follow. “You get Wyatt out of there. That’s your job. Let me worry about Dom.”

Rain lashed us the moment we stepped outside, a relentless downpour that made it almost impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. Mud sucked at my boots as we jogged to Gideon’s truck, the junker he used for deliveries to food pantries.

He climbed wordlessly behind the wheel and hit the gas, spinning up mud as we tore down the driveway. The headlights cut through the darkness in thin, watery beams, illuminating nothing but the endless sheets of rain. It was safer this way. My shaking hands and lead foot would wrap us around a tree before we got there.

“Keep your head, no matter what you see when we get there,” Gideon warned. “Focus on Wyatt. Dominic is mine to handle.”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

Because the truth was, if Dominic had laid a hand on Wyatt, not even Gideon would be able to hold me back.