“What’s going on?”

When his head lifted at the sound of my voice, and I got the first glance at his teary gaze, I nearly lost it. Keenan was known to be overly emotional but there were only two times I remember seeing him like this—the day he found out I killed our mother and the day he almost lost Sheldon in a car crash.

“I—there was—fuck.” He stumbled over words even as his eyes filled with more tears.

“Spit. It. Out.” His undoing was provoking mine. I knew this was bad, and I wasn’t all that sure anymore that I wanted to know.

“Dash, man. He was shot after the hearing.”

Every fiber of my being crumbled into a questionable existence. My mind couldn’t quite piece together all he was telling me. It was probably why I didn’t move or speak for far too long.

Dash had been shot after the hearing.

I didn’t need to ask if his injuries were serious. The emotional state of my brother was enough to go on, but then it clicked.

Lake had been with Dash. He was supposed to take her somewhere safe, but something happened to him. I could have very well lost my best friend, but my mind was now stuck on one thing.

“Where’s Lake?”

“We don’t know. We do know she was with him when he was shot. She sent a message to the group just before he was shot.”

“What did it say?”

“Summit County Hospital. It’s where Dash was found shot in the parking garage.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Why would she be at the hospital in Summit?” I knew Keenan wouldn’t have these answers with Dash injured and Lake missing, but the questions that tormented my mind spilled out anyway.

Guilt was already chipping away at what remained of it. I was given a family to care about with the same in return. I was supposed to keep them safe. Instead, my best friend was probably dying, and the girl who fearlessly chased away my monsters was missing.

I finally realized they were safer when I walked among the monsters, so I stopped running away from the inevitable. I knew what I had to do.

“Find whoever touched them, and I’ll kill them. I’ll do it. I don’t care if I have to destroy my goddamn soul in the process.”

There was no turning back.

I let the monsters back in.

* * *

Keenan had looked on in disappointment before he silently stood up from the table and left. I waited for the guard to come for me and led me back to my cell. When the bars loudly shut behind me, I embraced the darkness of my heart once again and melded with the shadows of the cell. I leaned my forearms against the concrete wall and hid my face. I willed myself to breathe when all I wanted was to kill.

I was useless behind bars and as helpless as Lake and Dash, but if I had to keep the motherfucker who tried to take them from me on ice for twenty years, I’d welcome the anticipation.

“Inmate!” The nightstick hitting my cell door caught my attention and pulled me back to temporary sanity. “You’re popular today. You have another visitor.”

I ran through the list of people it could be and came up short. Thompson had to return to Seattle to wrap up a case. I was led back to the visiting room I had left only an hour ago. When I walked inside, I stopped short, taken aback once again.

I might have been staring at a ghost. She sat ramrod straight with her attention on a man sitting next to her. I blinked hard to clear my vision of the reddening haze. I recognized him instantly as the PI behind Kennedy’s kidnapping and John’s death. I still wasn’t sure whether to believe the latter considering the source it had come from.

He looked up at the same time she did. I knew she sensed me. Her body tensed when she found me standing there, but my attention wasn’t on her. It was focused on the grinning fucker who also stared back at me. When he reached up to twirl a lock of her hair, I lost it.

I rushed forward, intending to kill him here and now. Turns out, I wouldn’t have to wait twenty years after all.

No one saw me make my move. They were all oblivious. It was the perfect window of opportunity. I could practically smell his blood, but then Lake stood up, her chair scraping the floor as it slid backward. The plea held within in her blue-green eyes won me over.

Damn her.

“Why?” I growled at her—or rather, the monsters did. They smelled blood and retribution.

“This isn’t you anymore,” she reminded.

I snarled at her and watched her shrink back. “You’re wrong. It is me. It always has been.” She knew what her disappearance had done to me. What if Dash didn’t make it?