Page 42 of Diesel’s Desire

Havoc’s already moving toward Addison, and I watch something shift in his whole body—the President disappearing for a second, something fatherly coming in its place.

“Ace. Ryder.” His voice comes out steady, controlled. “Get her covered. Get her outside.”

Ace already has the blanket off the bed, wrapping it around Addison’s shoulders before Havoc finishes the sentence. Ryder crouches down to her eye level, mask still on, voice gone soft in a way I’ve genuinely never heard out of him before.

“Hey, sweetheart. We’re friends. We’re gonna get you home, okay?”

She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move much either, glassy-eyed in a way that makes my hands curl into fists at my sides, and Ace scoops her up like she weighs nothing, tucking her face against his shoulder, turning his whole body between her and the rest of this room like he can block out everything she’s already seen just by standing in the way.

They’re gone up the stairs within ten seconds. I hear Ace’s voice, low, murmuring something I can’t make out, and then the basement door swings shut behind them, and it’s just me, Havoc, Riot, and a man who’s about to learn exactly what happens when somebody like us finds out what he’s been doing down here.

“Riot.” Havoc’s voice hasn’t changed pitch, hasn’t changed volume, and somehow that’s worse than if he’d been shouting. “Gun on him.”

Riot pulls his sidearm and levels it at Pemberton’s face without a flicker of hesitation, and something in the man’s eyes finally shows real fear, sweat breaking out along his hairline, robe still hanging loose around a body that’s about to stop existing.

Havoc crosses to him slowly. Crouches down until they’re eye level, and when he speaks, his voice drops quiet enough that I have to lean in to catch all of it.

“We’re gonna take that gag out,” he says. “You’re gonna talk. And every word you say better be true, because my Sergeant’s got a bullet with your name on it the second you decide otherwise.”

He nods to me. I pull the gag loose.

Pemberton sucks in a wheezing breath, and the first thing out of his mouth isn’t a denial—it’s a justification, which somehow makes my rage climb even higher than an outright lie would’ve.

“You don’t understand,” he babbles. “I never hurt them. Any of them. I dressed them up, played with them, like dolls… That’s all it ever was, just dolls, just⁠—”

“Just dolls,” I repeat, flat, and my hand’s already itching for the pistol at my back.

“Yes! I never—I would never actually—” He stops. Something flickers across his face, guilt maybe, or just the calculation of a man realizing his usual excuses aren’t landing the way they always have with whatever lawyers and payoffs he’s used before.

“And her.” Havoc’s voice doesn’t rise, but something underneath it goes sharp enough to cut glass. “Addison. What’d you do different with her?”

Pemberton doesn’t answer right away. That silence tells me everything I don’t want confirmed out loud.

“She was—” He swallows. “She looked older. Acted older. I couldn’t—I treated her like a woman, not a child, I never meant⁠—”

Havoc’s fist connects with his jaw before he finishes the sentence, and Pemberton’s head snaps sideways hard enough to crack against the leather chair.

I don’t hold back either. Whatever comes out of this man’s mouth over the next several minutes, I stop listening for the actual words after a certain point, because there’s nothing left to hear that isn’t confirmation of exactly what kind of monster’s been sitting in this basement for years while three separate families lied to their neighbors and called it relief. My knuckles split open against his cheekbone. Havoc’s boot finds his ribs. Riot never lowers the gun once, not even when Pemberton starts sobbing, not even when the sobbing turns into something closer to begging.

By the time we’re done, he can barely hold his own head up, and I already know—looking at what’s left of his face, hearing him admit he abused Addison—that there’s no version of this where he walks out of this basement breathing.

Some things a man doesn’t get to survive telling the truth about.

“Riot.” Havoc straightens, breathing hard, blood on his knuckles that isn’t his own. “Find the surveillance room. Wipe the cameras, but don’t touch the hard drives. We want people to find evidence against this asshole.”

“On it.” Riot disappears up the stairs without another word, and it’s just me, Havoc, and Pemberton slumped sideways in that chair, barely conscious, gag still hanging loose around his throat.

Havoc looks at me. I look at him.

“Dibs,” I say.

He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t even blink. Just steps back, giving me the room, and something in his face says he understands exactly why I need this one, why I need it to be my hand and not his, not Ryder’s, not anybody else’s.

I pull my pistol. Pemberton’s eyes come up, unfocused, wet, and whatever’s left of him tries to form a word that never makes it out of his throat.

I don’t wait for it.

The shot echoes hard off the basement walls, and it’s done. Quick. Cleaner than he deserves, if I’m being honest with myself, but we’ve got a little girl upstairs, and we need to be gone before sirens start climbing this hill, and there’s no time to make this last the way some ugly part of my gut wants it to.