Page 82 of Sinner’s Torment

“My real name is Dominic Ward, not Griffin. I took my wife’s last name when we got married to protect my family from my past. My father was Dominic Ward, the older brother of Nicholas Ward, and the real President of the Silver Shadows. My uncle Nicholas who went by Titan, with help from the Society, had my father killed to assume control of the Silver Shadows. He orchestrated the whole thing—made it look like a rival club was responsible, rallied the members around him in their grief and rage, and then took the throne he believed should have been his all along.”

“Holy fuck,” Mercy gasped, spinning toward Torment. His face had gone pale, his eyes wide with the implications of what I’d just revealed. “That means Brandy is a⁠—”

“Legacy,” Torment whispered, his eyes going wide with shock as the pieces finally clicked into place. “She’s not just connected to the club. She’s royalty.”

I nodded slowly, the word tasting like ash in my mouth. “After my dad died, my mom took my sister back to South Dakota. She wanted nothing to do with the club or the life anymore. She couldn’t stand to be around the people who had taken her husband from her, even if she didn’t know the truth. I stayed. I was young, angry, and I wasn’t ready to lead, so my uncle—Titan—took the role as Prez and made me his VP. Over the years, I never suspected that my old man died at the hands of his younger brother. I trusted him completely. Titan took me under his wing and groomed me to take over the club when the time was right. To take my rightful place as the true heir to the Silver Shadows’ legacy.”

I paused, the memories flooding back—all those years of loyalty, of brotherhood, of believing I was being prepared for something honorable. All the nights sitting around the clubhouse, learning the business, making connections, proving myself worthy. “But that never happened. That day never came.”

“Because you went to jail,” Torment spoke up, his voice quiet but certain, like he was putting together the final pieces of a puzzle.

I nodded, feeling the familiar bitterness rise in my throat. “Yeah. It was a shit move I should have seen coming from a mile away. My cousins were useless shits who couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag. They thought because their dad was the prez, they could get away with anything. And technically, they did. They got away with framing me for a crime I didn’t commit.”

Dutch stepped forward, his broad shoulders squared and his expression hardening like steel. The air in the room seemed to shift with his movement. “The meet was nothing special. Just a typical arms buy—the kind we’d done a hundred times before without incident. What Hex and the rest of us didn’t know was that little fucker Stone had set us up. Well, set up Hex specifically, knowing damn well that Hex would do the honorable thing. Stone counted on Hex’s loyalty and weaponized it against him.”

Smokey jumped in, his voice carrying the weight of a man who’d watched good brothers fall and had the scars to prove it. His jaw clenched as he continued, “The meet went to shit fast, faster than any of us could react. Bullets started flying, chaos erupted, and an undercover FBI agent was killed in the crossfire. When the Feds came calling with their warrants and their threats, Hex did exactly as Stone suspected he would, as he was the VP of the club and felt responsible for his brothers. Titan knew what was happening and didn’t stop him. He just stood back and watched Hex fall on his sword. So Hex was sent up for twenty-five to life, locked away in a concrete tomb while the real guilty parties walked free.”

I felt Hannah’s hand tighten in mine, her fingers intertwining with my own, her silent support the only thing keeping me grounded as the past came rushing back like a tidal wave. Five years in a cage for a crime I didn’t commit. Five years of watching my life slip away through bars and razor wire while Titan consolidated power and my brothers suffered on the outside. Five years of cold steel bunks, tasteless food, and the constant threat of violence from men with nothing left to lose.

“But”—Dutch grinned, and there was something truly evil in it, something that spoke of patience and planning and revenge served ice cold—“that fucker forgot about me. He underestimated me, dismissed me as irrelevant. My club brothers think I’m damaged, broken if you will, because of my past—because of the things I’ve seen and done. I play stupid because it suits me and allows me to be around without anyone thinking I’m a threat or paying attention to what I’m really doing. I knew eventually Stone would fuck up, get cocky, make a mistake. And I was right. I’d been waiting, watching, gathering evidence piece by piece because I knew that bastard’s day of reckoning was coming.”

He leaned against the workbench, his calloused hands gripping the edge, his eyes distant with memory as if he were watching the past play out on some invisible screen only he could see. “For years Hex’s attorney tried appeal after appeal, filing motion after motion, fighting tooth and nail through every legal channel available. And when I overheard Stone talking with his brother Steel and Titan about bribing the prosecutor to hide evidence exonerating Hex, I recorded them. Every damn word.” His jaw tightened at the memory. “I gave the information to Hex’s attorney, who later found irrefutable evidence that the prosecutor had the lab falsify the ballistics reports and deliberately omitted the DNA evidence that would clear Hex’s name. It was a conspiracy that went all the way to the top. Hex’s attorney finally had the concrete evidence he needed to exonerate Hex and get the charges completely overturned.”

“Dutch and I were there when Hex got out,” Smokey added, his voice heavy with the weight of those dark years. “We were waiting outside those prison gates, ready to bring our brother home. We knew Titan was bad. Just didn’t know how bad things had really gotten until it was almost too late.” He shook his head, disgust etched across his weathered face. “After Hex went down for killing the FBI agent, shit got bad in the club. Real bad. Titan’s wife, Kimberly St. James, was a fucking bitch and used her connection to the Society to ensure the Silver Shadows’ standing in the criminal underworld. She wielded that power like a weapon, making sure everyone knew who was untouchable. To make matters worse, Titan aligned himself with William Doherty and George Stone, two of the most ruthless bastards to ever walk this earth, and used the Silver Shadows as a trafficking hub for men, women, and children. Our club—the thing we’d built with our own hands, the brotherhood we’d sworn to protect—became a pipeline for human misery.”

The silence that followed was deafening. It hung in the air like a physical presence, thick and suffocating.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Mercy cursed, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand while the other gripped the edge of the table so hard his knuckles went white. His face had gone from pale to ashen in a matter of seconds, the implications hitting him like physical blows. “This shit keeps going from bad to worse and what do you want to bet that the masked biker sneaking around is none other than Stone? No one has seen or heard from him since Steele’s death in the Diamond Creek clubhouse. Not a single fucking sighting. It’s like the bastard vanished into thin air, and now suddenly we’ve got some mysterious rider circling our territory? That’s not a coincidence.”

My blood ran cold, ice flooding my veins as the name hung in the air between us. Stone. I knew that motherfucker had been hunting me for thirty-three long years, tracking me across state lines, following every rumor and whisper. And now he’d finally found me. Found my family. Found my daughter. The one thing in this world I’d sworn to protect at any cost.

“If it is Stone, and he finds out that Brandy is running,” Torment said, his voice tight with barely controlled panic, every muscle in his body coiled like a spring ready to snap, “he will go after her. He won’t hesitate. You know how he operates—he goes for the weak spots, the leverage points.”

“And if Stone gets his hands on her,” Mercy finished, his expression grim and haunted, like he was already picturing the worst-case scenario playing out in his mind, “he will use Brandy to force Hex out into the open so he can kill him. That’s been his endgame from the start. He doesn’t give a shit about collateral damage.”

The rage that swept through me was white-hot and absolute, consuming everything else in its path. I’d spent thirty-three years protecting my family from this world, keeping them safe, keeping them hidden from the violence and bloodshed that had defined my life. I’d sacrificed everything—my identity, my brothers, my past—to build a wall between them and the darkness. And now that little bastard was threatening my daughter—my baby girl, the light of my goddamn life—to get to me. To draw me out and finish what he started all those years ago.

“He can fucking try,” I growled, my voice dropping to something dangerous and deadly, something primal that came from the deepest part of me. The part I’d buried and locked away. The part that Stone had created.

I looked down at the worn leather ledger in my hands, its pages yellowed with age and secrets, then at Hannah, her face pale but determined in the dim light of the clubhouse. My gaze shifted to Torment and Mercy, both standing at attention like soldiers awaiting orders. Dutch and Smokey stood silent near the door, waiting, their weathered expressions and steady postures telling me they’d follow whatever call I made, no matter how dangerous or foolish it might be. They’d been with me through hell and back—they weren’t about to abandon me now.

The time for running was over. The time for hiding in shadows and licking our wounds had passed.

If Stone wanted a war? He was about to get one. A bloody, brutal war that would make every conflict before it look like a playground scuffle. But first, we had to find Brandy. Had to get to her before Stone did, before his men tracked her down like a wounded animal. Had to make sure my daughter—my legacy, my blood, one of the few good things I’d managed to create in this godforsaken world—didn’t pay the price for sins committed before she was even born. Sins that were mine and mine alone to bear.

“We need to move,” I said, my voice hard and certain, cutting through the thick tension in the room like a blade. “Now. Before that bastard figures out where she’s going. Before he sends his dogs sniffing down every road between here and the state line.”

Torment stepped forward, his jaw clenched tight, his expression fierce and hungry for action. “Where would she go? Family? Friends? Someone she trusts?”

I shook my head slowly, the weight of my failures as a father pressing down on my shoulders like a physical burden. “She doesn’t have many friends. Well, not around here anyway. Most of the people she knew growing up either moved away or wanted nothing to do with her.” I paused, the admission bitter on my tongue. “I hate admitting this, but you know more about her life now than I do. You’ve been there for her these past months while I was... absent for years.”

The silence that followed was heavy with unspoken accusations and regrets.

“Would she go back to Diamond Creek?” I asked, grasping at straws, trying to think like Brandy would think, trying to predict the movements of a daughter I barely knew anymore.

Mercy shook his head firmly, his expression grave. “No. She would bring down more heat on the Diamond Creek Chapter, and she knows it. She’s smart enough to understand the consequences.” He met my eyes directly. “Think what you will, Hex, but King and the club brothers all really liked Brandy. Respected her too. Grace, King’s old Lady, was even willing to help her with the baby. Offered to be there for the birth and everything.”

Torment looked up at me with those sharp, calculating eyes and asked quietly, “Your mother? Would Brandy go to her grandmother?”