THREE
Jamie
I climbeda tree far enough away to watch the house burn. Flames licked up the side where Mitchell’s office had been, caught the porch pillars, greedy and elegant, curling around the old wood as if they’d been waiting all their lives to consume it. The windows shattered one by one, sharp cracks echoing through the night, sending glass spraying onto the grass like scattered stars.
Inside, I knew John Mitchell was already dead because of what he’d done to Robbie. That wasn’t why I was sitting here watching it burn. Not revenge. Not justice. It was about seeing something awful become magnificent for a few fleeting minutes.
“You’re beautiful,” I murmured, voice low andreverent, and palmed my cock, which was so hard I could blow right now. I didn’t often get hard when I burned, but tonight, killing Mitchell, watching him fight to stay alive, getting revenge for Robbie, that made me unsettled and yeah, hard. I winced as sirens grew close, hoping they didn’t get there quickly enough to save any of it. My breath hitched, pulse slow but heavy, and a low throb tightened in my gut. I was hard, and I didn’t care. It wasn’t about lust—it was about awe: that rush, that worship, that moment when everything ugly turned sublime. Fire made sense in a way nothing else ever had. No therapist, no drugs, no midnight walks had ever quieted the noise in my head the way flames did. It wasn’t about beauty alone—it was necessity. A language I spoke fluently, the only thing that reflected my chaos back at me, and said,I understand.
I loved fire most when it came alive at night. It moved as though it knew it was being watched, as if it performed just for me. Brighter, freer, untethered. I wasn’t close enough to feel the heat, but the smoke brushed over me and went partway to dissolving the tension I carried. A bit of peace bloomed in my chest when the house didn’t look ruined but transformed into art. Every flame a kiss against the surface of something that used to matter.
My heartbeat was steady. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t look away.
There was peace in the heat, something holy in destruction. And as the roof caved in and sparks floated toward the stars, I felt that strange, guilty ache in my chest again. Not regret—not quite—but something close to longing.
I stayed until the fire had eaten everything, until the house’s bones gave way and the night smelled like ash. I watched from the shadows as the first cruisers rolled in, lights flashing. Cops strung up tape as if they thought they’d find any evidence of what we’d done. The trucks followed, bright and hulking, and their men swarmed the yard with heavy boots and shouted commands, turning my masterpiece into steam.
I hated them for it.
Every jet of water felt like an insult, like someone pissing on art. They drowned her, but she didn’t go quietly, furious and defiant until the last of her breath curled into the air and vanished.
I waited even then, long after the blaze was gone. Only when the final ember dimmed and the heat finally lifted did I turn away, the taste of her still on my tongue.
Only then did I leave her behind.
I wanted more. I needed more. Tonight had been for Robbie, for family. I needed something for myself. I headed out to the highway turnoff where I’d left my car, pushed back into the shadows, and all too soon I was back on the road, and connecting a call to Rio.
“I’m heading out,” I said as soon as he answered. This was the rule: if I neededmore, I told Rio first. He understood that my world made sense in those moments when the spark and choice were mine, but he gave me guidelines, he held me accountable. I wasn’t allowed to go out and burn things whenever I wanted, I had to have it make sense.
“Why?” Rio asked, exasperated. He told me I’d go too far one day, and then, they’d take me in. But I was careful. My marks were researched, and there were reasons for every place I burned and every kill I made.
“For me,” I said. I needed the fire—the flicker, the pulse, the ache in my fingers to strike a match and feed it fuel. Just the thought of flames licking up walls, devouring oxygen, made something in my chest tighten and release. I could almost feel the blistering heat against my skin, smell the scorched paint, hear the deepwhooshas fire found fresh fuel. My fingers twitched, itching for the spark, the flare,the roar. It wasn’t a want—it was a need, curling tight and hot in my gut as if hunger and desperation had collided and set each other alight. I needed to feel in control again, to be the one who decided what stayed and what turned to ash. Like the first time—kneeling in the yard behind my childhood home, a tin can stuffed with newspaper and twigs, my hands shaking as I flicked the lighter. When it caught, all the screaming inside me stopped—just smoke and crackle and glow. I remember the way it warmed my palms and lit up the dark. Nothing else ever did that, not like fire.
I didn’t know where to start with what Mitchell had told us tonight, but we had names now, and tracking the others down was for later, once the monster inside me calmed down—so for now, it was another target from my list.
“Call me as soon as you’re done,” Rio ordered.
“I’ll come straight home.”
Rio sighed. “I’ll wait.” His voice caught a little, as if he wanted to add more but didn’t trust the words not to betray his fear. He was my best friend—the only one who understood me, and I owed him more than he could ever know. He and Tudor both. Tudor for taking me in, teaching me a trade, and financingmy hacking. Rio for keeping me within rigid guidelines when the need to burn took over. There was a long pause on the line before he finally said, “Don’t go dark on me, Jamie.”
“Once, Rio. It happened once.”
“And I nearly lost you.”
“It won’t happen again. Later, Rio.”
I found a spot to park, jogging the final distance to the house I wanted, run-down, blacked-out windows, and cars that came and went at hours too specific to be anything but business. Meth. A distribution spot. Maybe more. And it was too close to Redcars. I’d been surveilling it for weeks, cataloging faces, memorizing plates, and recording hours of footage using cameras no one else had noticed. Police presence was a big fat zero. I guessed they either didn’t have the resources or had been paid off, and Drift MC was moving into the space. Meth and bikers. The place had to go, and tonight was the night to get shit like this done.
It needed to go. Burned from the map.
I pulled the hood up on my sweatshirt as I got nearer, walked the block like I didn’t care who saw me, and caught a kid posted up near the stoop—fifteen, maybe. Scrawny. Nervous energy all overhim. Lookout. Smoking something cheap. He spotted me and squared up, but I was already on the move, my mask up over the lower half of my face. I grabbed him by the collar, and shoved him back against the chain-link, my hands on his throat.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
He trembled. His eyes were wide and panicked, and his voice cracked with something raw as he scrabbled at the hold I had. “Don’t hurt me, please.”
It hit me harder than I expected. He was terrified—barely more than a kid, caught up in something bigger than he could handle. I let go of his shirt and took a step back.
