Chuck wheezes, voice rattling in his throat. “They worked for Donovan… well, used to. He killed them.”
“Where is Donovan?”
His head shakes before he even speaks. “I can’t.”
I draw the gun slowly, letting the click of the safety fill the space. The sound echoes through the air, a countdown in steel and tension. I press it to his kneecap. “You’re going to tell me everything I want to know.”
“You won’t kill me?”
I huff a laugh. “I’m still gonna kill you. Just might make it quicker.”
Something in his eyes breaks. Shoulders slump. Fear turns to grim acceptance.
“He’s… he’s at a lake house. One they used to stay at—him, his wife, and stepdaughter. Before the wife died.”
The cold in my chest spreads. A lake house. Hidden. A place for monsters to rest between sins.
“Tell me about the auctions. The one you were gonna sell Candace in. The one Darla’s old man was part of.”
He hesitates. Too long.
I grab his jaw, force his bloodied face up to mine. His skin is clammy, stubble rough against my palm. “Tell me.”
Still nothing. So I hit him again. Hard enough that his head snaps sideways. I want to put a bullet in him, but not yet. Not until I squeeze out every damn name, every secret.
He chokes on a mouthful of blood. “It’s Alice,” he croaks. “He’s working with Alice Brighton.”
I freeze. Alice. The name echoes, sharp and sudden, through my skull. I turn to face him slowly, my balance gone, everything tilting.
“Who?”
He looks up, one eye swelling shut. “Alice. Brighton. She’s behind it now. The auctions. Funding. The recruitment. Donovan’s just the muscle. She’s the brain.”
I stagger back a step. My mind rifles through memories I buried like corpses. Cornelius. That name. He warned me once; told me Alice Brighton wasn’t dead, just dangerous. Said if I ever heard her name again, to run or burn the world down. I didn’t listen.
“That’s not possible,” I whisper.
Chuck gives a broken little laugh that curdles in my gut. “Yeah, well… she’s back.”
Then he drives the final nail in.
“She’s Candace’s mom.”
Silence slams into me with the power of a freight train. I can’t move. Can’t think. Can barely breathe.
Alice. The ghost Candace mourns. The absence she hates. The woman who’s supposed to be dead. Helping Donovan. Trafficking girls. Selling her own daughter.
My throat burns. Images collide in my head of Candace smashing a bat into a mirror, humming a war song beneath her breath, folding her arms over herself, wrapped in armor forged from wounds. All this time… she doesn’t even know.
Chuck knows.
“You got into bed with her,” I murmur, my voice going sharp and dangerous. “You were going to sell your own daughter. Why?”
“I needed money!” he spits, blood flecking the floor. “And my own fucking daughter cut me off!”
I backhand him. Hard. The chair rattles beneath him. My heartbeat pounds in my ears, a distant and relentless thunder.
“She should’ve cut you off years ago,” I growl. “She took care of you more than you ever did for her.” I lean in close again, my voice a promise. “You’re not walking out of this room.”
