Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 102754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
I should’ve gone after him sooner, we all should have. But he’d been a ghost—no digital trail, confirmed name, or public identity.
My phone buzzed against the dash, the screen lighting up with a name I hadn’t expected to see, especially not at this hour—Ned Dahl.
I answered without slowing down. “Dahl.”
“Morning,” Ned said, voice calm but alert, like someone who hadn’t slept much either. “Sorry to call so early, but I think I recognize the guy in that grainy video clip Hurst sent me.”
My jaw tightened. “Go on.”
“I met with the mayor of Palmerstown yesterday,” he continued. “He brought a bodyguard—tall, broad, tight jaw, thick scar near his left ear. Matches the guy in your footage.”
That caught my attention. “You’re sure?”
“Not a hundred percent, but close enough to follow up on. He moved like ex-military, quiet and cold.”
I was already reaching for my comms. “Thanks, sir. I’ll take it from here.”
I ended the call and immediately hit Judd’s number. He answered on the second ring.
“Talk to me,” he said, voice as rough and ready as mine.
“I think we’ve got him. The guy from the footage might be working as security for Palmerstown’s mayor. Ned just saw him yesterday.”
Judd let out a breath through his teeth. “That makes sense. I’ve been going through what we found at Topper’s, and it links back to the mayor’s office—shell companies, payments hidden in infrastructure budgets. All of it quietly approved.”
“Titian’s got protection,” I mused.
“Or he is the protection.” There was a beat of silence, and then Judd added, “We need to meet, there’s more. I’ll bring everything with me.”
“Where?”
“Lay by on the old service road between Palmerstown and Piersville. The one near the dry creek.”
“On my way,” I said, checking the rearview mirror to ensure Kai and Keir were still behind me.
In the rearview mirror, the headlights of the vehicles behind me stayed steady, unwavering beams cutting through the early morning haze. Kai and Keir—loyal as hell, always close, and always ready. They hadn’t said anything during this nightmare aside from asking questions, they just showed up at my side without hesitation. That meant more than I could say.
Their presence kept me anchored and reminded me I wasn’t doing this alone, even if it felt like I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders.
I turned off the main road, tires crunching over loose gravel as I veered onto the old service route that curved between Palmerstown and Piersville. The world got quieter out here. Trees framed the road in tall, silent rows, their shadows reaching across the asphalt like fingers.
Something shifted inside me as I took that turn. This wasn’t blind rage anymore, and it wasn’t the spiraling, helpless fury of not knowing. I had direction now. All the anger, the guilt, the relentless ache in my chest—it finally had somewhere to go.
I wasn’t chasing ghosts anymore, I was hunting something real.
And when I got there—when I stood face-to-face with the man who had dared to come into my house, to threaten Sayla, to terrify my children—I wasn’t going to hesitate.
It ended today.
I pulled into the lay by just as the sun began rising, streaks of light cutting across the sky like they were trying to burn through the darkness still clinging to everything. Gravel crunched under my tires as the truck rolled to a stop. Seconds later, Kai and Keir pulled in behind me, their headlights swinging wide before settling into place. They were out of their vehicles before I shut the engine off.
“What’s going on?” Keir asked, his voice calm, but I saw the tension in his shoulders—he could feel it, too. Something was shifting.
I stepped out, the cold morning air hitting me like a slap, but I barely felt it. I was too hot inside, not from the sun or the drive, but from the pressure building in my chest. The barely restrained need to do something, move, rip the world apart until I found Sayla and the kids.
But I kept it down, I had to.
If I lost it now—if I gave into the tightness in my throat and the images clawing their way into my head—I wouldn’t be any good to them. I wouldn’t be able to see straight, let alone lead this thing. And right now, every second mattered. We had to find a clue somewhere in the chaos and this mess. Something that told us where they were.
So, I focused.
“Ned called me,” I relayed, voice tight, clipped. “He thinks he recognizes the guy from the video. He might have seen him yesterday with the mayor of Palmerstown acting as his new bodyguard.”
Kai frowned. “I didn’t even know the mayor had changed his security detail.”
“Neither did I,” I muttered. “But the pieces are lining up. Judd found links between the mayor’s office and the shell companies Topper was tied to. Titian’s name—if you can call it that—is in there somewhere. If that guy’s working with the mayor, we’ve been staring right past him.”