Page 162 of Dead Girls Don’t Forget

“He’s been robbing them blind,” Jackson muttered, voice low and furious. “The pack’s falling apart and he doesn’t give a shit.”

I scrolled further. “It gets worse. He’s taking a cut from drug sales in town.”

Then I clicked on another folder. The moment the images loaded, Jackson went rigid beside me.

Children. Young. Terrified. Subjected to horrors I couldn’t stomach for more than a second. Bile rose hard in my throat. I snapped the laptop shut, but it was already too late. The images were burned behind my eyelids.

“Jackson—”

He stood up so fast the chair scraped loudly against the floor. He paced away from the desk, hands clenched at his sides, breathing hard. I followed, stepping in front of him and wrapping my arms around his waist. The second I touched him, he buried his face in my neck, gripping me like I was the only solid thing left.

“I knew he was a monster,” he said, voice muffled against my skin. “What he did to you… But this…”

His grip tightened. “How the fuck does someone do that?”

I didn’t answer right away. There wasn’t a clean answer. My hand moved slowly through his hair, steady and grounding. “No one ever stopped him.”

His breath hitched. “I should have seen it.”

“You weren’t supposed to,” I said, pulling back just enough to look at him. “That’s how he kept control.”

We stayed like that for a long moment, his weight leaning into me, until his breathing evened out. When he finally pulled back, his eyes were still dark but focused.

He took my hand and led me back to the chair, then pulled me into his lap like he needed me close. Only then did he reach for his phone.

“There was a notebook in his safe,” he said. “I photographed every page.”

I took the phone and started scrolling. My eyes widened with every entry. Names. Dates. Secrets. Leverage on almost every important person in the pack.

It wasn’t just records. It was carefully collected power.

“Holy shit,” I muttered. “It’s an old-school blackmail book.”

Jackson leaned in closer, looking over my shoulder as I scrolled. His body tensed with each new page.

“He’s got dirt on everyone,” he said. “Who beats their spouse, who’s stealing from their job, who’s having affairs. Instead of enforcing pack law, he’s been using their crimes to keep them in line.”

He exhaled sharply. “I knew he played dirty… but not like this.”

I turned in his lap so I could face him fully, resting my hands on his chest.

“Thomas is a predator. He’s spent his whole life hiding in plain sight. None of this is your fault. The shame belongs to him.”

Jackson let out a bitter laugh, but his arms came around me anyway.

“He’s surrounded himself with loyal enforcers who benefit from the same system. The pack is rotten to the core.”

I rested my forehead against his. “When the time comes, we’ll make sure he pays for every single thing he’s done. We’ll help the ones who’ve been hurt.”

We sat in heavy silence for a while, Jackson cradling me in his lap. Eventually I broke it.

“We need to go through these files carefully. See if we need to adjust our plan.”

He nodded, pulling me closer. “Whatever we do next… we do it together.”

Midweek, the apartment was quiet except for the rhythmic tap of my fingers on the keyboard. Jackson had stepped out to grab food, leaving me alone with the drive. I worked systematically through the files, starting with the financials, then the communications, then the miscellaneous folders.

Most of it was what we already expected. Greed. Control. The slow, deliberate rot of a pack being bled dry for years.