Page 58 of Devil in Disguise

The woman nodded. “Try me.”

Taking a deep breath, I smiled. “Alright. You grew up in Diamond Creek. At sixteen, your parents died in a car accident. Instead of being put into the system, the local sheriff agreed to let you stay in your family home until you graduated. After high school, you got your BA and MA at the University of Oklahoma and graduated at the top of your class. Though you are a general psychologist, you are also board-certified in dissociative disorders. In fact, you did your dissertation online through Johns Hopkins University during the lockdown under Dr. Stephen Thomas, who by the way is a club brother in Disturbed. You are PhD-certified in both specialties. You work out of your home, seeing clients online, rather than in an office.”

“All of that is public knowledge, Danny.”

Leaning forward, I smirked. “And what if I was to tell you that your parents didn’t just die in a car accident? What if I was to tell you that someone ran them off the road that night because your parents saw something they weren’t supposed to see, and that the person who killed them is still walking around in Diamond Creek today?”

Sitting up, Haizley gasped. “What are you saying, Danny?”

“I’m saying I’m damn good at what I do, Haizley. I have to be. I know everything about everyone. I was here before, back in November, with Dante and our daughter. I researched everyone in Diamond Creek, not just the club brothers. I have a photographic and eidetic memory. It’s all there inside my head, just waiting for someone to pluck it out. Are you sure you’re ready to jump down the rabbit hole, because once you do, there is no going back?”

For the first time since I met Dr. Haizley Walker, she seemed unsure of herself.

The chill in the room wasn’t just from the air conditioning; it was the icy dread radiating off me. I hadn’t meant to terrorize her, this woman, Haizley. But she needed to grasp the brutal reality of my life, the razor’s edge I walked. My world wasn’t a game. It was a bloodbath, a constant struggle for survival, and just my voice, whispering her name, would paint a target on her back. One word in the wrong ear and my clients—predators, all of them—wouldn’t hesitate to tear her apart to get to me.

I liked Haizley. God, how I liked her. Sharp as a tack, the best damn therapist I’d ever encountered, a beacon of calm in my storm-tossed sea. But she had to understand. Associating with me was a death sentence.

The tightening of her jaw, the way her shoulders squared, the steel glinting in her eyes as she met my gaze... I knew she’d made her choice.

Her voice, low and unwavering, sliced through the suffocating silence. “I understand the risks, Danny. Your world isn’t some fairy tale. But I’m here to help, and I won’t be intimidated. I’m not afraid of your truth, your darkness. We all carry burdens, Danny. We all fight our demons. What you can’t seem to grasp is you don’t have to fight alone.” The scent of her perfume—something clean and sharp, a defiant contrast to the miasma of my life—hung in the air.

I saw it then, in her eyes, a mirror of the ruthless strength I’d seen in the eyes of the men I rode with, the men who lived and died by the barrel of a gun.

“Alright, Doc,” I rasped, the relief of a physical wave washing away years of suffocating silence. “You asked for it.”

I leaned back, the leather of the chair creaking under my weight, a counterpoint to the tremor in my hands. “It started years ago... when I was sixteen....”

My confession poured out of me, a torrent of buried pain and regret. Each word was a blow, each memory a fresh wound, but with each syllable, a knot untied itself in my gut. The air, thick with the weight of my secrets, began to lighten. The darkness within me, given a voice, no longer felt like a suffocating blanket, but a storm that finally began to break, leaving behind, for the first time in a lifetime, a sliver that grew into a glimmer... of hope.

“Danny,” Haizley carefully said, leaning forward in her chair. “You can’t keep this to yourself. It’s eating you from the inside out. You need to forgive yourself. You are only one man with the weight of the world on your shoulders. With everything you’ve said, I’m surprised you are still sane.”

A bitter laugh caught in my throat. Sane? The word felt like a cruel joke. My sanity was a fragile thing, a thin veneer over the gnawing terror that had become my constant companion.

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“Everyone has a choice, Danny.” Haizley’s words hung in the air, heavy with a truth I desperately wanted to deny. The truth was a venomous serpent, coiled tight within my gut, its fangs poised to strike. Because my truth was far more complicated, far more brutal.

I’d chosen to protect them, yes, but at what cost? The memory of the act, the cold calculation, the violation of everything I once held dear—it haunted me. It was a choice I’d made to save them, but one that poisoned my soul. I knew she was right, but the weight of my secrets was a burden I had borne for so long, it had become a part of me, a grotesque appendage I couldn’t sever.

“I know, Haizley. I know I need to let it out, but it’s not that simple. If I tell him, if I tell anyone, it could change everything. It could ruin lives.” My voice cracked.

It wouldn’t ruin lives, not entirely. It would just... redistribute the damage. Shift the burden from my shoulders to theirs. A selfish, cowardly calculation that went against everything I professed to believe in: honesty, fairness, justice.

The image of Dante’s face, trusting and open, flashed before my eyes. To betray that trust, to shatter his carefully constructed world... The thought was a physical blow. It was the ultimate betrayal, not just of him, but of the idealized version of myself I had striven to maintain. The man I wanted to be, the man I needed to be for Dante, wouldn’t have done what I did. That man wouldn’t have made this choice, wouldn’t have let fear dictate his actions, wouldn’t have sacrificed his own integrity.

Haizley reached out and placed her hand on mine, her eyes soft with understanding.

“Danny, you don’t have to carry this alone anymore. You’ve shouldered this burden for too long, and it’s time to let it go. You have to trust that the truth will set you free, even if it’s painful. And I’m here for you, no matter what.” Her words were a lifeline, but my fear was a tidal wave, threatening to pull me under.

Taking a deep breath, I whispered, “I know... I’m just scared, Haizley. Scared of what it might do to us, to everything Dante and I have built... scared of what it reveals about me.”

The truth was far more terrifying than any consequence because it showed me the ugly, compromised truth of who I had become—and I didn’t know if I could face that reflection.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Dante

Danny’s silence was a lead weight in my stomach. It wasn’t just his usual quiet. This felt different, charged. He kept picking at his food, his knuckles bone-white against his fork. I knew he was wrestling with something, something big enough to choke the air from the room. The thing was, I suspected what it was. A lie, a significant one, that threatened to shatter the foundation of our relationship—maybe even more.

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