Page 57 of Jayson (Gatti Enforcers #3)

JAYSON

T he city looks cleaner now. Not safe—just quieter. The kind of quiet that comes after a storm guts the skyline and leaves everything humming with aftermath.

And I know the difference. I know what silence means.

I used to think fate was a myth. A fairytale comfort for people who needed to believe suffering had purpose. I didn’t believe in destiny. I believed in violence. In control. In the things you can grip between your fingers and bleed dry.

Then I met her. Keira.

The girl fate handed to me not with a whisper, but a scream. The girl who showed up with fractured memories, haunted eyes, and the kind of truth that could crack this entire city in half if anyone ever listened.

But I listened. And now we’re here. And they’re not.

Richard Maddox disappeared three months ago. No note. No trace. His townhouse burned down in the middle of the night—no body recovered, just charred bone fragments too damaged for DNA. Investigators called it an accident. A gas leak. Tragic.

No one believed it.

And no one looked too hard .

Not after the story broke.

THE AVIARY SCANDAL: Deepening Corruption in the city’s Power Elite

By L. B. Marrington – Investigative Journalist

In a breaking development linked to the ongoing Aviary investigation, new evidence has emerged implicating former Police Commissioner Richard Maddox in a high-level cover-up spanning over a decade.

Documents leaked to federal agents indicate Maddox was not only aware of the Aviary’s existence—a now-dismantled trafficking and political blackmail ring—but actively participated in obscuring investigations linked to several of its most brutal enforcers.

A voice recording authenticated by FBI forensic labs includes Maddox discussing “erasing liabilities,” including multiple missing persons reports and connections to the late Mayor Simon Bishop, who vanished under similarly mysterious circumstances earlier this year.

With Maddox’s sudden disappearance, theories abound, but one thing is clear: the city’s elite are no longer untouchable.

“This is only the beginning,” said an unnamed federal agent close to the case. “We’re cleaning house.”

Already, a second wave of arrests has swept through the legal and business communities. Property seizures. Indictments. Retired judges. CEOs. Even another former police commissioner now under investigation for evidence tampering.

Survivors of the Aviary’s victims gathered yesterday in quiet protest, placing white flowers on the courthouse steps. Among them was Maxine Andrade, whose sister Sophia died as a result of the Aviary.

“This was never just about one girl,” Andrade said. “And now the whole city knows it. ”

We made him disappear, all right. But not in his own damn housefire. That was just the show.

Richard Maddox died screaming.

Not in some penthouse. Not in a courtroom. Not behind a podium, flanked by microphones and false morality. No.

He died in a warehouse an hour outside the city—bare concrete, rusted chains, the scent of gasoline and vengeance thick in the air.

He was strapped to a chair bolted to the floor, wrists bound in industrial cuffs, ankles tied so tight the bones turned purple. The last chair he’d ever sit in. Steel biting into skin. Back pressed to a cold wall stained with the confessions of better men.

He pissed himself when he woke up. Didn’t speak at first. Just whimpered. Looked around with that same smug entitlement he wore in that uniform. Like maybe someone would walk in and call it off. Like maybe we’d been bluffing.

But no one came. Just me. Scar. Kanyan. A camera. And the ghosts of every girl he erased.

We gave him time. Not out of mercy—but strategy. We wanted names. And he gave them.

Sloppy at first, but once the drugs wore off and the adrenaline hit, he started talking. Because deep down, Richard Maddox was a coward. A man who made a career of silencing the powerless, of trading innocence for influence, of bending justice until it snapped.

And now? Now he sang like a canary choking on its own blood. He gave us judges, corporate CEOs, police brass, even a priest or two.

High-profile names. The kind with foundations and streets named after them. Names we recognized. Some we didn’t.

It wasn’t just that he covered up the Aviary’s existence—it’s that he enabled it. He protected it. Funded it. Streamlined it. When girls were reported missing, he buried the warrants. When raids got too close, he redirected federal eyes. When victims clawed their way to safety, he slandered them.

We had to sit there, cold and silent, through every fucking name. Every ruined girl. Every dollar transferred. Every life broken.

And still, Maddox clung to hope. Like maybe if he said enough, we’d let him go. Let him crawl back to whatever rock he slithered from and live out his days quietly in exile.

But this wasn’t a negotiation. This was an execution. And Scar? He made sure it counted.

He started with the fingers.

A blade. A hammer. Something else I didn’t recognize. I didn’t ask.

Every time Maddox screamed, Scar smiled wider.

“Think they screamed like this?” he asked softly. “When your men stuffed towels in their mouths and zipped them into duffel bags?”

Maddox wept. Kanyan witnessed. I watched. Not because I needed to. But because I wanted to.

Because every cry that ripped from Maddox’s throat was an echo of what Keira couldn’t remember. Or maybe didn’t want to.

Somewhere in the middle of it, he started praying. To who, I’ll never know. Scar spat at his feet.

Eventually, we had enough.

Kanyan stepped forward, cool as death, and slipped a syringe into Maddox’s neck.

Sedative first. Then gasoline. We lit the match together.

Watched the flames take him. Watched the sins peel off his bones. Watched the man who played with girls’ lives burn like garbage.

No one came looking.

The fire was staged. The body? Gone before the fire ever touched it. The remains we left behind were fake—bone fragments. Burned IDs. The townhouse explosion would explain the mess.

The press ran with it.

Gas leak. Old wiring. The tragic end of a respected officer. But then the leaks started. Just enough. Audio files. A breadcrumb trail. A whisper of corruption that reached just far enough to ignite curiosity, but not suspicion.

Saxon released the rest when the press reached a fever pitch. He dropped evidence like ash from a lit cigar—casual, intentional, devastating.

The story hit the news cycle hard.

Maddox complicit. Bishop involved. The Aviary confirmed.

The city gasped. And then it moved on.

Because when monsters fall, people look the other way. No one wants to know how deep the decay goes. Only that someone finally cut the head off the snake.

And Keira? She sleeps through the night now. No more night terrors. No more bolting awake, gasping for breath like she’s drowning. No more flinching when doors slam.

She laughs in the mornings. Softly. Smiles when she’s making coffee. Sometimes sings when she thinks I’m not listening.

And when she reaches for me in bed, it’s not out of fear. It’s not to be held back from the edge. It’s because she wants me there.

We burned the past down. All of it. And for once in my life, I don’t feel cursed by fate. I feel chosen.