Page 55 of Jayson (Gatti Enforcers #3)

JAYSON

W e rigged the pool two hours ago.

But it’s not for swimming. Not for therapy. Not to wash away sins. This water won’t cleanse. It will drag the truth out by its hair and make it scream.

The ferris wheel cabin came from an old amusement park Lucky found, half-swallowed by vines and time. He said it felt poetic—something that once brought joy, now rusted out and ready to break.

The metal groaned as we hauled it into the loading bay. It took hours to retrofit—reinforce the doors, seal the gaps, install the winch system. I welded the bolts myself, grinding sparks off steel with hands that needed to hurt.

We tested the tilt. We tested the descent. We made sure it could go under—and stay there.

It’s perfect now. A rusted confession box with no priest. Maddox sits in the center of it, shackled and slumped, wrists zip-tied to the bars.

Blood clots at his temple. His white shirt is soaked with sweat and dirt, half torn open. His feet are bare. He looks small inside the cage now, despite the arrogance still clinging to him like a destructive scent.

But fear is creeping in. I can see it—just behind his eyes.

That twitch. That swallow. That subtle lean away when I crouch in front of him.

Around us, the air is silent.

Kanyan’s by the controls, jaw clenched, pacing like a lion that’s learned patience. Scar leans against the back wall, arms folded, smoke curling from the cigarette burning between his fingers. Mason hasn’t said a word as he watched me put my plan in motion.

No one smiles. No one speaks. They’re waiting for me. Because they all know that this is where I end it.

Maddox licks his cracked lips. His voice is sandpaper. “Fucking lunatic. You’re making a big mistake. I’ll make sure you pay with your life.”

I crouch lower, just enough that he’s forced to look me in the eye. “No, Maddox. Mistakes are what little girls make when they trust men like you.”

His face doesn’t move, but something flickers beneath the surface—like glass cracking.

“You think this will make her whole again?” he rasps.

“No,” I say. “But it will sure as hell give her freedom. And give me peace.”

I stand. And I nod to Kanyan. He pulls the lever.

The winch groans, a mechanical shriek that cuts through the silence like a scream. The cage lifts from the ground, the chains rattling against metal supports.

Maddox’s breath shortens. “Wait. Wait— WAIT ?—”

But we don’t wait. The cage drops. Water erupts upward as steel hits the surface, then swallows the cabin whole. The splash echoes off the concrete like thunder. Bubbles churn to the top, thick and fast .

Inside the cage, Maddox thrashes. The shape of him blurs beneath the water—arms jerking, knees slamming into the bars. The light above ripples. The silence deepens.

Twenty seconds. It’s more than enough time to panic, yet not enough to kill.

Kanyan reverses the lever. The winch churns again.

The cage rises, dripping, groaning.

Maddox gasps the second his head breaches the surface. He coughs, sputters, water gushing from his mouth like bile. His eyes are wide, rimmed in red, lips trembling around whatever pride he has left.

I step forward. Squat down again. Close. Calm. Cold.

“Tell me about Keira. Tell me what you did to her. To Riley.”

He coughs, chokes, spits. “I don’t know what you’re talking about?—”

I slam my fist into the bars. The cage rattles with the force. Maddox jerks back like he expects the cage to fall apart.

“You don’t lie to me,” I growl. “You don’t get a lawyer. You don’t get a last request. You get one choice, and one only—talk, or drown slowly.”

He opens his mouth. Then closes it. That’s the crack. The fracture I was waiting for.

“Again,” I say.

Kanyan doesn’t hesitate. The cage drops. This time we leave him under longer. Thirty seconds. Forty. He thrashes. Then slows. Then nothing. Just bubbles and silence.

Kanyan hauls the cage back up. The gears grind. Water streams down like rain off a coffin lid. Maddox is slumped forward now, coughing up lungfuls of pool water, veins bulging at his temple, body trembling.

I say her name. Softly. Like a phantom curse.

“Riley Kincaid.”

He doesn’t respond. So we drown him again. By the third cycle, he breaks. Not with a scream or a plea. But with a whimper.

A full-body shudder. Shoulders curled inward like a dog who knows the belt is coming.

“She wasn’t supposed to die,” he breathes.

The men go still, every breath held.

Scar flicks his cigarette to the floor, crushes it beneath his boot. Mason lowers his gun. Even Kanyan stops breathing for half a second.

I lean in. Voice low. Dangerous.

“Talk.”

Maddox doesn’t lift his head. Just speaks into the blood and spit on his shirt.

“Riley was… a mistake.”

He swallows. His voice shakes.

“Bishop and I—we were… bored. We did things. It was supposed to be harmless. Easy. They never would have known. Never. ”

My stomach turns. But I don’t stop him. Riley Kincaid was just a kid. Fourteen years old. As was Keira. They didn’t deserve to have their lives shattered the way they were.

I step back. Not because I’m done. But because if I stay any closer, I’ll kill him.

As though sensing the inferno that rages through me, Kanyan steps forward and puts a steady hand on my arm, telling me he’ll finish what I so visibly can’t.

Maddox hangs in the rusted ferris wheel cage, soaked, shivering, lips blue around every lie he hasn’t told yet. His wrists are raw from the zip ties. Blood trickles from his temple. But none of that stops him from talking once Kanyan asks Maddox to tell him more.

Men like him never stop talking. Not until someone makes them choke on their own tongue .

“We’ve known each other since boarding school,” he starts, his voice hoarse, thick with phlegm and fear. “Legacy kids. Old money.”

He coughs, spits. Looks right at me as he speaks, as though he’s hoping to stick the knife in deeper.

“We liked control. And girls like Riley and Keira?” His lips twitch. “They were too trusting. Too easy.”

My fingers curl into my palms until my knuckles split. Blood beads on skin that doesn’t register pain anymore.

Kanyan goes still.

Mason shifts beside me, ready to hold me back should the need arise.

Scar exhales slowly, the way men do when they’re about to do something unspeakable.

“We’d spike their drinks,” Maddox says, like he’s telling a bedtime story. “Tea. Juice. Whatever they’d take. They’d laugh at first. Then go quiet. Eyes glassy. Heads heavy. That’s when we’d…”

He trails off, eyes flicking toward my face, maybe hoping for mercy. Maybe testing the edge.

“Spare me the details,” I snap. My voice cuts through the yard like a blade. “What happened to Riley?”

Maddox hesitates. That little flicker of doubt, of guilt trying to fight its way through his sociopathic calm—but it doesn’t win.

“The night it happened… we had people over. Friends. Too many. We spiked their drinks. Someone grabbed Riley. I don’t know who. The rohypnol didn’t work like it was supposed to and she woke up unexpectedly. She started panicking. Screaming. Bishop put his hand over her mouth. He didn’t let go.”

He looks at me now. Dead eyes. Hollow.

“She stopped moving,” Maddox says.

Just like that. Like it was nothing .

I fee rage. Horror. Bone-deep sorrow. All of it suspended in the air like the cage itself.

Scar turns his face away.

Mason lowers his eyes.

Kanyan’s knuckles are white on the lever.

My heart is thunder. My hands shake. My throat burns.

But I need the rest.

“And Keira?” I manage to ask. My voice is brittle, splintered glass holding back a scream.

“She saw.”

Those two words gut me more than any blade.

“She stumbled out of the room. I don’t think she even understood what she was seeing. She kept saying her head hurt, that the lights were too bright. Crying. Asking where Riley went.”

He pauses. Looks sick now. Looks somehow human. When he’s anything but.

“But she was too out of it. She couldn’t connect the dots. So we gave her another dose. Stronger this time. Buried her under it. Thought it would fade like everything else.” His eyes close. “She did forget.”

The weight of it presses into my chest until I can barely breathe. The kind of hurt that breaks a man from the inside out.

“You tried to take her,” I hiss, knowing with everything in me that it was him. “You fucking detestable…”

Saxon yanks me back by the collar just as I lunge, the move so fast it chokes off my next breath. I stagger, rage boiling over, but before I can recover, Scar steps in—broad shoulders blocking my path like a goddamn wall of concrete.

His stare is cold. Calculated. A silent warning carved in steel: don’t be a fucking idiot.

We need Maddox breathing. We need him talking. And as much as every part of me wants to crush his skull into the floor and watch the light drain from his eyes, Scar’s right—vengeance can wait.

But answers can’t.

“What did you do with Riley Kincaid’s body?” Kanyan asks.

“We buried her under a new church site downtown. New foundation was being poured. It was easy enough to slide her in before the concrete set.”

No one breathes.

“The site was sealed. No one ever looked.”

I want to throw up. I want to tear the cage apart and feed him to the chlorine. I want to go back in time and save that girl before her last breath was smothered under a coward’s hand.

I force the words out. “And Bishop?”

Maddox exhales. “Gone. He disappeared the moment Keira started remembering. She asked him about that night. She was putting things together, talking about voices she’d heard. He knew she was close. So he ran.”

“And you?” My voice is ice. “You ordered the hit.”

He nods, slow. “I had to. If she remembers everything—if she talks—it’s not just me. It’s all of us. ”

I step back. The pool reflects across my boots like moonlight over a grave.

“You killed her once,” I say. “Drugged her. Broke her. Left her gasping in a memory you buried her in.”

I look up at him—and I don’t see a man. I see the kind of monster who struts into courtrooms in tailored suits, smiles for the cameras, and walks out clean, untouched, and smirking.

He was never afraid of justice. Because it never touched him.

There are more like him—I know that now. Men in silk ties with bloodied hands. Predators hiding behind power and protocol. And God, there’s a part of me that would love to put a bullet in his skull. To blow his brains out and buy back Keira’s freedom with the echo of a gunshot .

But I can’t. Not yet.

Because there are more girls out there. Lost. Used. Forgotten.

And there are more Maddoxes—hiding behind forged smiles and polished influence—waiting to be dragged out into the light.

Bishop was only the beginning. And I swear, I’ll find every last one of them. And when I do? They’ll beg for the mercy he never gave.

Kanyan’s voice breaks the silence. Low. Controlled. Terrifying.

“Done?”

I stare at Maddox. At the blood crusted to his hairline. At the pathetic tremble in his limbs.

A girl died. Another forgot. And he went on living like it was just another unfortunate blip on his history.

“For now,” I say. “Your death is going to be slow and painful,” I tell Maddox. “By the time we’re finished with you, you’re going to be begging us to end it.”

Kanyan steps back from the lever. We leave him in the cage. Suspended just above the waterline. Dripping. Shivering. Terrified.

The truth has been spoken. But it’s not over yet. Not by a long shot.