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Clay crouches in front of him. “Did you really think you could come here, take what’s ours, and get away with it?”

“Fuck you, she is mine.”

Clay laughs bitterly. “That is where you’re wrong. You will know by the time we are done with you that she is very much ours.”

Clay stands and nods at me. I haul Aaron upright so Clay can hit him twice more in the ribs, then when he steps back, I let Aaron drop. He stays down and doesn’t try to get up.

I look down at him and think about how scared Kayla must have been when he put her in the coffin and closed the lid. Then I squat down beside him.

“She is the toughest person I have met, and you spent years trying to break her. Yet she came out the other side, and you are the one who ends here. I want you to think about that,” I taunt.

“Let’s go,” Clay says, and I raise a brow at him.

Aaron doesn’t have much fight left in him. He is covered in cuts, and gauze has been taped to his shoulder and leg. He is stripped to his underwear and looks half-dead. I pull Aaron’s heavy weight from the floor, slinging his arm over my shoulder as Clay takes the other side. We walk him out of the shed, and I don’t ask Clay where we’re going. I trust he has a plan.

Aaron’s breathing is labored, and there is blood on his face from where Clay hit him. His feet are moving, but if he didn’t walk, we would drag him. We take the path but keep off the main routes.

“There are cameras—someone will see this,” Aaron whines.

Clay’s laugh is rich with malice. “You really think you’re the only one who can manipulate the security systems?”

We half-drag him to the cemetery, and now I know what Clay has planned. It’s brilliant.

“You can’t do this,” Aaron groans. Neither of us answer him, because we can and we will. “People know I’m here. I have people who will notice I’m missing.”

Clay snorts. “You came here under a false name, so as far as anyone here knows, Luca simply moved on. And Aaron got out of prison and hasn’t been seen since.”

Aaron weakly fights us, but we pull him toward the far corner of the cemetery, where the grave he buried Kayla in waits. When we are close enough, I let go of him, and he sags limply with only Clay to stop him from falling. I open the lid of the coffin, then Clay shifts closer and drops Aaron inside.

Fear gives Aaron a boost of energy, and he tries to scramble out, but I jump down and bring my fist to his face. It stuns him enough that he falls back, and Clay and I close the lid. This is the fate he chose for Kayla, and karma works in mysterious ways.

Clay picks up the shovel and piles dirt on the coffin.

In the otherwise silent cemetery, Aaron’s muffled screams of apology ring out.

“You don’t deserve it, but know Kayla is going to be fine. We will take good care of her, and she won’t think about you again. I hope that sits with you until you take your last breath.”

Neither Clay nor I speak again while he moves the dirt, and once he is done, he smooths the top down with the shovel. It now looks like all the other prop graves, and in a month the grass will grow over it.

He sets the shovel down. “Go home and deal with Vero. I will clean up the mess.”

“Are you sure?” I ask.

Clay nods, so I walk out of the cemetery and don’t look back. This moment is one Clay and I will take to our graves. I know he won’t tell Kayla that Aaron is buried here, and neither will I.

The walk back has my anger at Vero surfacing. He cut out his chip, went radio silent, and did something reckless without me.

I can’t believe he cut out his tracker. I told him not to put it in, and he did it anyway, only to remove it when we needed to use it to find him. He let us worry about him for three long days and didn’t check in. I know he did it for her, but it doesn’t make me any less angry.

By the time I get back to the house, I’ve reached a full simmer. I stomp in through the front door to find Vero on the couch, freshly showered, and when I walk inside, he looks up at me.

“Brawley,” he says cautiously, because he knows.

“Don’t,” I snap and look at Kayla. She simply nods and doesn’t argue with me. I look at Ares, and he doesn’t say anything either.

I grab Vero by the back of his neck, and he stands swiftly, walking as I push him forward. He doesn’t say anything on the way up to our room, even opens the door willingly, though I kick it shut behind us as I release the back of his neck. He turns and looks at me, opening his mouth, but I quickly close the distance and push him back against the nearest wall. I slip my fingers into his hair—it has grown enough that I can get a decent hold—and pull his head back so I can get a good look at him. He looks tired.

“You cut out your fucking tracker,” I growl.