Page 28 of No Mistakes (No Mercy #2)

ANT

We passed the signs for Chicago about forty minutes ago.

Now we drive through the city to our final destination before we return to who we are.

It’s strange how a city can feel like both a birthplace and a grave. Chicago raised us. Taught us how to survive, how to fight, how to bleed without flinching. But it also broke us. And now, we’re driving straight through the belly of it.

We’re closer to Lake Forest than we have been in years. The last time we visited this house, it was as a family. My brothers, our parents, and I enjoyed the Fourth of July by swimming in the pool while my mother prepared her famous barbecue, with a rack full of meats and sides.

It was once our refuge when the world was too noisy, but now it holds memories that will never fade.

Mandy sits next to me, curled into the seat like she owns it, like she’s always belonged in my passenger side.

Her boots rest in the footwell, legs drawn up, fingers tapping against the armrest like she’s playing a melody only she can hear.

Her face is calm, but her eyes are somewhere else.

Watching the skyline rise like a beast from the shadows, waiting to swallow us whole.

This is my city.

And somehow, she makes me see it differently.

Last night wasn’t just sex. It was a storm. Years of silence, of keeping my distance while I hid in the shadows, burned away in a single spark, and it was she who struck the match. She lit a fire inside me that I thought was long dead. And now it’s burning through every part of me.

She doesn’t know what she’s done. How could she when she doesn’t know the monster that has been locked away for years?

I glance at the backseat. Carter and Gunnar are both out cold, heads tipped back towards each other, mouths wide open like they’re trying to catch flies. Music plays faintly in the background, but their snores almost drown it out.

I reach over and rest my hand on Mandy’s leg. Her body stills, just slightly. She doesn’t look at me, but I see the disappointment flicker across her face.

I haven’t said a word since we left the motel, and I know she was hoping I would, but how the fuck do I explain it?

Talking in front of the others feels like peeling my skin off, bone by bone.

Doesn’t matter that they’re my brothers.

Doesn’t matter that they’d never use it against me.

It still feels wrong. Still feels like a weakness.

She deserves better than my silence, but I don’t know how to give her more. Not yet.

She shifts, her thigh pressing into my palm, and it takes everything I have not to grip tighter.

I wish I could tell her this isn’t about her. It’s about me. That I haven’t been the same since that night. The night Carter protected me. When I heard the screams and saw the aftermath. He covered for me when our father asked questions. Lied through his fucking teeth to save me.

But that kind of damage? It carves itself into you. It stays, following you around no matter where you go.

The Ashford name is a brand. A legacy soaked in blood and built on fear. We don’t bend. We don’t break.

Except I did.

And Mandy? She’s the only person who makes me want to break all over again, just to feel something real.

She turns her head toward me, just a little. Enough to meet my eyes for half a second. I give her a small smile, sliding my thumb over the inside of her knee, and she places a hand over mine, squeezing lightly.

Her hand stays over mine. It’s small, soft, but somehow heavier than anything I’ve carried in years. Like the weight of her touch sinks into my bones and reminds me I’m still here. Still breathing. Still capable of something other than survival.

I don’t deserve that.

I don’t deserve her.

My mind goes back to the motel again. Her skin, her sounds, the way she looked at me like I was more than just a wreckage of my own bloodline. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t pull away. She let me have her, and I took it like a man starved, because I was. I still am.

The sign for Lake Forest flashes by, green and blue blurring past as I drive past it.

The road narrows. Trees thicken. Streets start to look familiar in that sickening way old wounds do. Everything is quieter here. Cleaner. Wealthier. As if money could scrub the blood from our family’s name.

I never wanted to come back here, to see my father’s office, but with Mandy beside me. It changes things. She changes everything .

I wonder if she feels it too, the shift in the air, the way this place hums beneath our tires with secrets and danger. She hasn’t said a word since she touched my hand. Maybe she’s giving me space. Maybe she’s trying to decipher me like a language that keeps rewriting itself mid-sentence.

I slow the car as the turn approaches. Trees loom over us, thick and heavy, swallowing the road like they’re trying to keep the past buried under the roots. The neighbourhood’s too quiet, too perfect. The kind of place that masks the rot behind crisp lawns and million-dollar fences.

The car turns, following the curve of the roundabout, bringing the gates to our home into view.

Black wrought iron, tall and sharp, just like I remember. Twisted into elegant spirals that could cut your skin if you got too close. And in the centre, still untouched, still gleaming is the gold ‘A’. Our family’s initial. A brand. A warning. A fucking curse.

I stop the car in front of it, chest tight from seeing it. It hasn’t rusted. Hasn’t faded. Just sits there like time never touched it.

It’s strange how something so polished can still reek of blood.

Carter stirs behind me, groaning like the past hasn’t wrapped its hands around his throat yet.

Gunnar mumbles something in his sleep and turns away from the window.

They don’t remember it the way I do. Not really.

Not the sounds, the arguments that happened between our parents.

The evenings when my father held meetings into the early mornings or the aftermath that happened when people arrived, but never left.

My hand twitches on the gearstick, but I don’t move. Not yet.

I hear the sound of another car, and look in the rear-view mirror to see Axel pull up behind me, waiting.

Mandy hasn’t said anything. She’s just watching, but her eyes aren’t on the gate. They’re on me.

I feel her gaze like a weight, feeling the hundred unanswered questions that are begging to be let free.

The window lowers, and I finally reach out, pressing the code into the keypad. The machine beeps once before the gates groan, opening slowly and reluctantly, like even they don’t even want to let us in.

The driveway curls ahead of us like a scar.

Long, winding, lined with trees that still bear the memory of summer, though winter’s already nipping at their edges.

I ease the car forward, tires crunching over the final leaves that have fallen, each inch closer to the house, scraping across my nerves like a knife against bone.

And then I see it.

The house.

It stands just as we left it, untouched by time, almost defiant in its stillness.

Pale stone walls stretch high, crowned with a terracotta roof that glows warm even in the muted winter light.

The cold December air dulls the colours, but nothing can dim the weight of the place. It’s too pristine. Too perfect.

Just like they were.

Landscaped flower beds curve around the circular drive, their once vibrant blooms now edged with frost. The grass is neatly trimmed, the hedges sculpted into perfect symmetry.

I know our maintenance workers have been looking after the place, but still, the sight of it looking exactly how our mother wanted it, hurts.

The front doors stand tall, flanked both sides by columns, and a golden light burns faintly inside the doors. I swear for a second I can almost hear her. Mom’s laughter floating down from the balcony, the click of glasses on the porch, Dad’s low voice murmuring something about pride and legacy.

My jaw clenches at the memories.

This house raised us and ruined us.

I slow to a stop in front of the entrance, and watch as Mandy leans forward, her face lit up by curiosity, not fear. She studies the place like she’s trying to map the history from the outside in. She doesn’t know what happened behind those doors, how many truths got buried beneath the floorboards.

No one speaks as we all stare, each one of us thinking something different.

Carter is the first one to move, clapping his hands together to break the silence. “Are we ready, boys and gal?” he asks, already climbing out of the vehicle. Gunnar follows shortly behind, leaving me and Mandy alone.

She turns to look at me, her eyes filled with concern, “Are you okay?”

I nod, giving her a small smile even though it’s all a lie.

I thought I was ready to come back here, to face my demons. But after looking at the house, I don’t think I’m ready at all.