Chapter 024-Brian-book 2

I watched Cami walk away, her back rigid with fury and betrayal. She did not look back.

The rain pummeled me, but I stayed rooted in place. My chest felt split open, torn between the truth I carried and the ruin I had caused. I had not meant for it to go this far. I had not meant for her to find out like this. But intent meant nothing when the damage was done.

With a roar, I slammed my fist into the nearest tombstone. Pain shot up my arm, sharp and grounding, but it did nothing to ease the storm inside my head. It had to end. No more lies, no more half-truths.

But how could I tell her everything. How could I make her understand the kind of man I was, the kind of legacy I carried. She hated me now, and she was right to.

The wind howled through the cemetery, carrying my failure with it. The graves stood as silent witnesses to the lives I had ruined, including hers.

The storm matched the one inside me as I paced like a caged animal, each strike of lightning throwing shadows across the headstones. I had to tell her the truth. All of it. No more games.

Snatching my phone out of my pocket, I hit her number. Straight to voicemail.

“Cami, it’s me. We need to talk. I will explain everything. I promise. Just please, call me back.”

My voice cracked as I ended the call. The silence that followed was suffocating. Slowly, I made my way out of the cemetery, the storm kept me company, but so did my ghosts.

~CAMI~

Everything I had ever believed about myself was a lie. I did not know who I was anymore. I had killed a man in cold blood. Not in the name of the law, not in the line of duty, but because I wanted revenge. Because I wanted him to suffer.

That side of me was a stranger, a monster that had been lurking beneath the surface all along, waiting for Brian Remington, or whoever he truly was, to pull it into the light.

For twenty-six years I had thought of myself as upright and moral, a woman who lived by the book and stood for justice. But justice had not been anywhere near that cemetery. Only me, soaked to the bone, shivering in the realization that I was capable of the very darkness I had sworn to fight.

The cold felt good. The sting of the rain was a punishment I welcomed. It reminded me that I was still alive, that I could still feel, that the shadow inside me had not completely devoured me.

The cemetery gates rose in front of me, their iron bars rusted and heavy, black against the mist. When I pushed through them, the squeal of metal was loud and final, like a lock slamming shut. I carried the weight of my actions behind me, dragging it like chains.

Brian, or Remington, or whatever name he chose, had vanished into the storm, leaving me to face the wreckage alone. The truth pressed down on me until I could hardly breathe. He had been pulling the strings. He had played me, twisted me, used me. The man I trusted, the man I had begun to care for, was nothing more than a lie.

The cobblestone path had turned to a river beneath the downpour, water rushing around my boots as I stumbled toward my car. Each step was a battle. Each breath tasted of regret.

The drive home was a blur, rain and tears turning the world into streaks of gray. The wipers fought to keep up, squealing across the windshield in protest.

When I stepped into my house, the warmth hit me like a wall. It should have been comfort, but it smothered me instead. I stripped off my wet clothes, each piece clinging stubbornly to my skin as though even fabric refused to let me go.

Mr. Whiskey padded into the room, his eyes wide and unblinking. His soft mewl broke something inside me. I knelt down, scratching behind his ears, but the small comfort did nothing to ease the weight pressing on my chest.

The book I had left on the couch lay on the floor where it had fallen. Its pages were damp, ink bleeding into the carpet. The story of a detective and a dark green truck mirrored my life too closely. I hurled it aside with a shudder.

I crawled into bed and pulled the covers over my head, praying for the darkness to take me. But sleep refused me. My mind turned in circles, a storm fiercer than the one outside, replaying every choice, every touch, every lie.

Morning arrived like a punishment. My body ached as though I had been beaten, but it was truth that had done the damage.

The buzz of my phone jolted me. A message glowed on the screen from an unknown number.

“Meet me at the docks tonight. I have answers. - Remington.”

My thumb hovered. I wanted to delete it, to erase him, to erase what I had done. But a thread of something fragile, hope or desperation, pulled me back.

“Why should I trust you?” I typed.

The reply came almost immediately. “Because you do not have a choice. We are in this together now.”

His words burned. He was right. I did have a choice, but it was one I did not want to face. To accept what I had become.

A killer.

For him.