Page 106 of Jayson
My jaw locks. My free hand curls into a fist on the edge of the dresser, and the phone groans under the pressure of it.
I stare at my reflection in the mirror. Clean-shaven. Dressedto kill. But it’s the eyes that matter—flat, merciless. The kind of eyes men don’t come back from.
“No more nightmares,” I murmur. And I hang up.
The estate isquiet when I arrive, but the round table glows like something sacred.
Mason’s already there, arms folded, expression carved from stone. The devil behind his eyes doesn’t blink. He nods when I enter. A greeting with no warmth; just acknowledgment. We bleed on the same battlefield, and that’s more than enough.
Kanyan leans against the far wall, hulking in his tailored black. His arms are crossed, but it’s the stillness that gives him away—he’s thinking. Planning. Calculating the body count it’ll take to get to the root.
Scar’s seated to his right, one hand on the table, the other tapping against his thigh.
Lucky stands at the head of the table, blazer slung over the back of his chair, sleeves rolled to the elbow. The cuff of his dress shirt rides just high enough to show the coiled ink on his wrist—a serpent tangled around the barrel of a pistol, the body of it disappearing beneath the glint of his Rolex. Time and violence, tattooed together like gospel.
He looks calm. But it’s that particularLucky Gattikind of calm. The kind that means someone’s already dead and just doesn’t know it yet.
His gaze lifts to mine. “I came as soon as I could.”
His jaw ticks once, and I see it—the edge of restraint. He’s been waiting to let something off the leash. Something brutal.
I step forward, eyes on him. “I want to know what Richard Maddox wants with Keira Bishop.”
The room stills.
Kanyan breaks the silence, voice deep and dangerous, like thunder clawing behind a locked steel door. “Might’ve been better to ask Keira,” he says. “I don’t imagine Richard Maddox is an altogether trustworthy narrator.”
My stomach turns. I see her again—in the woods, on her knees, breath fogging in the night air. Her tears, her trembling hands. Her memories bleeding through skin that still carried someone else’s fingerprints.
“I can’t ask her,” I say, voice quieter now. Rougher. “She doesn’t remember who he is.”
Scar lifts his head then, lazy and sharp. One brow raised. “Yet somehow he knows her.”
Mason leans forward, hands clasped, voice like ice cracking beneath feet. “What do we actually know about this man?”
Lucky’s already moving.
He steps toward the end of the table, presses a concealed button beneath the lip of the wood. A hidden panel hums open and a screen lights up on the wall, cutting through the low amber glow of the chandelier above.
The smiling face of a man in full police regalia pops up on the screen. Fifties. Salt-and-pepper hair. His smile is polished and false. The kind of smile that belongs to men who’ve buried their sins under concrete and citations.
Lucky glances at me. “I reached out to The Jekyll. He had no problem joining the dots.”
Kanyan steps forward, arms crossed, gaze hard. “Richard Maddox?”
“The one and only.”
Scar shifts in his seat, boot tapping against the table leg. “And what’s his connection to Keira?”
They all look at me when he asks it.
Like they can hear it in my voice. The obsession. The weight. The undeniable truth I haven’t admitted to myself.
Lucky turns back to the screen, giving me space I didn’t ask for. “Interesting story,” he starts. “Richard Maddox and Simon Bishop—Keira’s father—were thick as thieves from high school onward. They stayed close, all the way through Simon’s political climb.”
My jaw tightens. The name tastes sour.
Lucky continues. “They were in contact right up until Bishop’s disappearance a few weeks ago.”
