Page 10 of Worshiping Faith

“Had it coming.”

“I was bored.”

A cold chill skates down my spine.

Dax was a MC enforcer. His violence was controlled, purposeful. His crimes were strategic, revenge, dominance, protection.

Zachs?

He didn’t need a reason. He just did it.

I swallow, pushing through the reports, looking for something, anything, that might explain how he became this.

I flip to the back of the file, expecting to find the start of his record.

Maybe the petty stuff. Theft, assaults, something small before it escalated.

But there’s no build-up. No gradual path from bad to worse.

Just murder.

The very first offense.

He was a teenager.

While other men were breaking into houses, running drugs, or pulling small-time heists, Zachs was already killing.

A sharp sting snaps me out of my thoughts.

“Shit.”

I glance down.

A thin line of red beads up on my fingertip. Papercut.

I press my thumb over it, grounding myself in the sting. It’s nothing. A meaningless thing. But I can’t shake the feeling that it’s symbolic, somehow.

A wound so small, but enough to bleed.

I stare at the file, my pulse beating against my ribs.

What happened to him? What broke him so deeply that this was how his story started?

My heart clenches painfully, just for a moment.

And God help me, I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that I’m horrified by what I just read.

Or the fact that it doesn’t make me afraid of him.

“I brought lunch,” Zachs says.

I jump, heart lurching in my chest.How the hell does someone like him move so quietly?

“Christ, make a noise.”

He grins, unbothered, and holds up a tray of food. Our rations. A simple, everyday thing. And yet, my brain latches onto something ridiculous.

Our first official date?