CHAPTER 1
Sadie
I’ve lived on Beale Street my whole damn life. Grew up above a juke joint, fell asleep to blues riffs and the clink of whiskey glasses, and smelled like smoke long before I hit puberty. The floorboards creaked under every pair of boots that ever passed through my mother’s third-floor walk-up. The place was loud and gritty and alive.
It was home.
Now I’m five hours into the longest fucking drive of my life with no plan but out.
Not north. Not west. Just... away.
Away from the three-bedroom shotgun near where my husband died. Away from the pack that stopped seeing me as a person the second he did. Away from the city that watched me shatter and did nothing to help me.
I don’t know why I stopped driving, pulling in at some no-name gas station outside Memphis. Half the lights are busted and the guy behind the counter didn’t look up when I asked for the bathroom key. It smells like pine cleaner and piss. I’m parked out front in my truck with the engine off, phone screen glowing in my lap.
3:09 a.m.
I should be tired. Hours of driving. No dinner. No plan. No sleep.
But my brain won’t shut up. Just keeps replaying that damn email from Mayor Jake Marshall.
Subject line: MURAL OPPORTUNITY IN DRIFTWOOD COVE—URGENT
It’s a commission for six murals across town. I don’t know who threw my name in the hat. Haven’t shown in a gallery in almost two years. My socials are dead. I haven’t painted for anyone but myself since?—
Well. Since everything went to hell.
But the commission is solid. Fifteen grand up front. Housing. Travel. Full artistic control.
“Either it’s a scam,” I mutter, “or this guy’s desperate.”
I open the photos he attached. Driftwood Cove. Foggy little coastal town I’ve never even heard of. Lighthouses. Wind-bent trees. A red brick city hall with a massive blank wall screaming for color. It looks like something out of a postcard.
Quiet. Cold. Clean.
So unlike Memphis it almost hurts.
I swipe to the folder I shouldn’t open. The one marked “MAX” in all caps.
He’s there. Always is.
Max, shirtless and sunburned, sipping from the carton. Max pinning me to the kitchen sink, that smirk daring me to resist. Max carrying me down Beale Street, laughing loud enough to turn heads.
Max... buried before our story finished.
I scroll slower. Pause on the one where he’s dozing with my sketchbook in his lap, marker ink smudged all over his hands. He never understood my art, but he loved watching me do it. Said I was the only quiet he ever knew.
I click through to the next image. There’s one of us at a fundraiser. Me on his lap, arms around his neck, laughing so hard my eyes are closed. Max has one hand up my skirt and no shame about it.
“Still the sexiest asshole I’ve ever met.” I blink fast. “Still. Goddamn it.” My throat goes tight. “He’d hate this town,” I whisper.
He would. Too quiet. Too still. Too empty of everything we were.
But he’s gone. And the rest of them?
Fuck the rest of them.
I was twenty-one when Max died. And they were supposed to be my family—my pack. But without him, I was just some heat-drunk Omega they wouldn’t even look at unless they wanted to fuck me. No meals. No aftercare. No help. Just use and toss. Knot and walk away.
