Page 29

The phone feels slick in my palm as sweat beads between my fingers. I pace across the parking lot, each step heavy with purpose, my jaw clenched so tight I can feel the muscle twitch along my temple.

“Noah, I need your help,” I mutter into the phone, gripping it like my life depends on it. My voice sounds foreign to my own ears—strained, desperate even. Not like me at all.

The line crackles with silence before Noah’s rough voice cuts through. “With fucking what?” His tone is sharp, impatient—typical Noah. I can almost see him scowling on the other end, probably sprawled across his bed with a lit cigarette balanced between his fingers.

I glance over my shoulder, scanning the stream of students trickling out of the building. My eyes search for her—for Rhea—half-expecting to see her rushing after me, all wide-eyed panic and trembling defiance. But she’s nowhere in sight. Good.

“With a pretty little problem,” I say, lowering my voice as I stride toward my Tesla.

The sun beats down on the gleaming gray exterior, and I catch my reflection in the tinted windows—composed on the outside, but my eyes tell a different story.

The rage simmering beneath the surface threatens to boil over, and I need to contain it, channel it.

I hear shuffling from Noah’s end of the call—fabric rustling, something metallic clinking against a surface.

“We already have the cops up the team’s ass, Thatcher, so what the fuck do you need?

Is this Reaper shit?” His voice drops to a harsh whisper on those last words, the caution ingrained in us all when it comes to Reaper business.

My fingers find the key fob in my pocket, and I unlock the car with a click that feels too loud in the quiet of the parking lot.

“Yeah, the Reapers could do it. I just need to teach someone a lesson.” I keep my tone deliberately vague, but the message is clear enough.

Noah knows the language, the code we speak in.

The line goes quiet except for the slow exhale of breath—definitely smoking. I can almost smell the Marlboro Red through the phone. “The chambers?” he finally asks, his voice flatter now, all business.

I slide into the driver’s seat, the leather cool against my back despite the warm day. Sunlight filters through the windshield, casting patterns across the dashboard as I close the door with a solid thunk.

“No, it’s about the girl who killed Jack.”

The silence that follows is heavy, weighted with implications and unspoken questions. I can almost hear Noah’s mind racing, calculating, assessing the risk of what I’ve just revealed. I wait, turning the key in the ignition. The engine purrs to life, a gentle vibration beneath my feet.

“What the fuck does that have to do with me?” he finally scoffs, but there’s an edge to his voice that wasn’t there before. I throw the car in drive and ease out of the parking spot, my tires crunching over loose gravel.

“You’re going to have her arrested.”

My words hang in the air, a statement not a question, and I can feel Noah’s resistance building through the silence. When he speaks again, his voice is clipped, controlled.

“Meet me at the mansion right now.”

The call ends abruptly, leaving me with nothing but the dial tone and a sinking feeling in my gut. Noah’s tone wasn’t what I expected—not agreement, not even curiosity. Something else. Something that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

I toss my phone onto the passenger seat and press down on the accelerator, the campus blurring around me as I head toward the outskirts of town.

The drive passes in a haze of conflicting thoughts. Rhea’s face keeps flashing before my eyes—her defiance as she pushed me away, the fire in her eyes when she declared she’d never be mine. The memory makes my fingers tighten around the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white.

She doesn’t understand yet. She thinks she has a choice in this. She thinks she can just walk away, that she can deny the pull between us, the inevitability of what we are. The thought makes a dry laugh escape my throat, bitter and sharp.

Mine. She is mine. And she’ll learn that one way or another.

The rural roads narrow as I approach the mansion, trees closing in on either side, branches creating a canopy that darkens the interior of my car. The setting sun filters through in patches, creating a strobe-like effect that matches the pulsing in my head.

The mansion appears ahead, a looming structure of stone and dark wood, its windows like watchful eyes as I pull up the long gravel driveway.

Already, I can see figures moving in the shadows of the porch—silent, waiting.

The sight should be comforting—these are my brothers, after all—but something feels off.

The air is charged with a tension that makes my skin prickle.

I park and step out of the car, the crunch of gravel under my shoes seeming overly loud in the silence. No one calls out a greeting. No one moves to meet me. They just... watch.

The first warning sign comes as I mount the steps. Masks. They’re all wearing their masks—the black, featureless coverings that transform them from college students to Reapers. We don’t wear those unless it’s official business, or...

Shit.

The realization hits a second too late. Hands grab me from behind, powerful and unrelenting, yanking me through the doorway with enough force to make my teeth clack together.

I struggle instinctively, my body twisting against their grip, but there are too many of them—four, maybe five sets of hands restraining me, dragging me further into the mansion.

“What the fuck?” I spit out, straining against their hold. My heart hammers against my ribs, a mix of rage and confusion flooding my system. “Get the fuck off me!”

No one responds. No one even acknowledges that I’ve spoken. They just keep moving, dragging me down the hallway, past the ornate staircase and toward the hidden door that leads to the basement.

The chambers.

Ice floods my veins at the realization. The chambers are reserved for two things: initiation and punishment. And I’m well past initiation.

The door to the basement creaks open, and they shove me through, my feet stumbling on the first step.

The smell hits me first—damp concrete, old sweat, and something metallic that might be blood.

The air grows cooler as we descend, the light dimmer, until we reach the bottom where a single bulb casts long shadows across the concrete floor.

They force me into the center of the room, beneath that harsh light, and then the first blow comes—a fist connecting with my stomach, driving the air from my lungs in a painful whoosh.

I double over, gasping, but hands wrench me upright again, holding me in place as rope burns against my wrists, binding them behind my back.

“Where the fuck is Noah!” I shout once I’ve caught my breath, my voice echoing off the walls of this concrete prison. The sound bounces back at me, hollow and ineffectual.

A punch to the gut silences me, harder this time, the impact reverberating through my core.

Pain explodes across my abdomen, sharp and sickening.

I groan, my vision blurring as my knees threaten to buckle.

Through the haze of pain, I realize I can barely see—my eyes already swelling from blows I didn’t even register receiving.

Footsteps approach, slow and deliberate, the sound amplified in the stillness of the chamber. Tap, tap, tap. Measured. Unhurried. The footfalls of someone who knows they have all the time in the world.

“Who killed Jack?” Noah’s voice cuts through the silence like a blade, cold and precise.

I force my swollen eyes open, squinting against the harsh light to see his silhouette standing before me. He’s not wearing a mask. He wants me to see his face—to see the calculated emptiness in his expression.

“You fucking—” I start, but another punch interrupts me, this one landing with brutal precision in the same spot as before. The pain is immediate and blinding, stealing my words and my breath in one violent extraction.

I hang in my captors’ grip, struggling to inhale against the cramping agony in my gut. My ribs feel like they’re collapsing inward, piercing my lungs with every shallow breath.

“I’m going to ask you again,” Noah says, his voice eerily calm. The lack of emotion is more terrifying than any rage could be.

“Shit,” I murmur, the word barely audible through my gritted teeth. My mind races, trying to process what’s happening. This isn’t just about a phone call. This is something deeper, something I’m missing.

Noah was there that night. He came to the room seconds after I did. He might not have seen Rhea, but he saw Jack lying dead on the ground. And he did nothing. So why is he playing innocent now? Why the interrogation?

“The police have been circling us like fucking sharks, Thatcher,” Noah says, stepping closer. The light catches the edge of his face, highlighting the sharp angle of his cheekbone, the flat coldness in his eyes. “Who the fuck did it, and are you hiding her with your daddy’s money?”

The accusation is so absurd, so wildly off-base that a laugh builds in my chest, rising despite the pain, spilling out as a gut-wrenching sound that’s half amusement, half agony. Blood coats my tongue, metallic and warm, as I laugh in his face.

“Untie me, and I’ll tell you exactly who it is,” I manage through the laughter, watching his expression harden.

To my surprise, Noah nods, and suddenly the ropes fall away. I drop to the ground, my knees hitting the concrete with a crack that sends fresh pain shooting up my thighs. My wrists burn where the rope cut into them, the skin raw and chafed.

Standing is an effort, each muscle protesting as I force myself upright, facing Noah with as much dignity as I can muster. Blood drips from my split lip, spattering onto the concrete between us.