Page 135 of Jayson
Saxon drops the file on the table between us like it’s a loaded weapon.
“We’ve got him,” he says.
I don’t need to ask who. Because I already know.
I open the file. Black and white photos. Property maps. Shell corporations and donation records scrubbed within an inch of their life. But even all that bureaucratic noise can’t cover the stench of corruption underneath.
Richard Maddox.
Saxon paces. Controlled, like always. But there’s something off tonight. His voice isn’t detached. It’s razor sharp, honed by fury.
“The name floated through the air for years,” he says. “Whispered in interrogation rooms. Scrawled in redacted files. Mocked in prison blocks where the real monsters still hide behind country club fences.”
His eyes meet mine.
“The Ringmaster.”
My stomach turns.
“He wasn’t just part of it,” Saxon goes on, his voice low. “Heran it. Quietly. Strategically. The guy behind the curtain. Never on-site. Never on camera. Just the architect. Just the one who curated the pain and let other men build his kingdom with blood.”
I clench my jaw. My hand tightens around the back of the chair.
“You knew him?”
Saxon nods. “Not by face. But the name came up enough. Two years I worked that ring. Undercover. Breathing the same air as monsters wearing Rolexes and crucifixes. I bled out leads in boardrooms and bar bathrooms. The Ringmaster was legend—untouchable. Invisible. So invisible that I refused to believe in his existence.”
He jabs a finger at the file. “Until now.”
The bastard’s name burns off the paper.
Richard.Fucking.Maddox.
“It fits,” Saxon says. “The timelines. The locations. The connections. Every property he’s ever had? Within driving distance of known victim recovery sites. One of his shell corps funded a foster home in Jersey that shut down six months after we started sniffing around. Every move he made—it was always just one step ahead of the law. And now we know why.”
He pauses. Lets that settle like poison.
“Because the police commissioner has access toeverything,” Scar hisses. He’s a millisecond away from smashing his fist into something.
“But the one thing that tied it all together—the nail in the proverbial coffin—was Mayor Bishop.”
I go still. Keira’s father.
“He was never just a crooked politician,” Saxon says. “He was a fucking gatekeeper. Old money. Old blood. Deep connections. We always knew he had his hands dirty, but proving it? That was the wall.”
“And now he’s dead,” I say, my voice flat. And I have to wonder if he didn’t take the answers we’re after to his grave.
Saxon nods once. “Bishop placed a seventeen-minute call to Maddox the day he died. Pulled the phone logs two hours ago. You said your girl turned up at the house hours before he was killed - lines up with the timeline. I believe she went home to confront him and ask him questions about Riley Kincaid. He called Maddox in a panic, and must’ve told Maddox that Keira was remembering things that should have stayed buried. In Maddox’s eyes, Bishop and his daughter were loose ends - I believe it was a given that Bishop would end up with a bullet in his brain, because Maddox would have already started planning it. The fact that someone got to Bishop before he did means that someone did Maddox a favor - but Keira Bishop represents the one last loose thread in that story.”
Kanyan throws me a look across the room—sharp, silent, and steeped in understanding. We both know I showed up at Bishop’s house with blood on my hands and fire in my chest at exactly the right time. Because if I hadn’t pulled that trigger… someone else would’ve.
And Keira?
Keira would be in the ground.
That’s the truth humming beneath Kanyan’s stare. It’s not judgment—it’s calculation. Grim relief wrapped in steel. He’s not the kind of man to thank someone for doing what needed to be done, but his eyes say it plain:You bought her time. You bought us all time.
Still, I feel the weight of it settle in my bones.
