CLAIMED BY THE REAPER KING

My brother had been pronounced dead, but something about his grave told me he was still trying to speak. The mud of Blackwood Cemetery ate through the soles of my work boots, sending an icy bite straight up my ankles. Rain lashed down in thick, gray sheets, turning the ground into a soup that slowly swallowed Jaxon’s oak casket inch by inch. Five years away from this godforsaken valley, and I was standing right back where my life had splintered. My father’s blood had soaked into the floorboards of our ranch house five years ago, and my mother had vanished into the night without leaving a single footprint. Now, the only piece of home I had left was sitting in a wooden box, waiting to be buried under six feet of wet dirt. Sheriff Miller shuffled his weight beside me, the stiff plastic of his yellow rain slicker crinkling with every small movement. He kept his eyes fixed firmly on his mud-caked boots, refusing to meet my gaze as he held out a soggy sheet of paper. "Here, Raven," Miller said. His voice was thin, swallowed almost entirely by the sound of the storm. "Official report. Coroner signed off on it an hour ago. It was a suicide, kid. Plain and simple." I snatched the paper from his hand, the damp edges tearing under my thumb. My eyes tracked over the smeared, running ink. Cause of death: blunt force trauma consistent with a fall from the old railway bridge. Toxicological screen: elevated blood alcohol content. "This is garbage," I said. The words tasted like iron in my mouth. "Jaxon didn't jump off a bridge, Miller. He was terrified of heights. He wouldn't even climb a stepstool to clean out the rain gutters back at the ranch." "People change when they get desperate," Miller muttered, pulling his hands into his pockets and taking a half-step backward. "He owed money around town. He was drinking heavy. You weren't here, Raven. You don't know what he turned into over the last few years." "He sent me a text at two in the morning, twelve hours before you found his body," I spat, folding the damp paper into a tight square and shoving it deep into my coat. "He told me he found Dad’s missing ledger. He told me he was finally going to force the Reaper Kings to give him real answers about what happened five years ago. Does that sound like a boy who was getting ready to throw himself off a ledge?" Miller’s hand drifted up to scratch the red skin at the back of his neck. His eyes darted toward the tree line, anywhere but at me. "Look, you’ve been living nice and comfortable up in the city. You don't understand how things operate down here anymore. Drop it, Raven. Pack up your stuff and go back before you end up in a hole right next to him." Before I could tear into the old coward, a low tremor vibrated through the waterlogged soil beneath my boots. It started as a subtle hum in my chest, rapidly swelling into a heavy, rhythmic thrumming that shook the air itself. Down the narrow gravel lane, four heavy motorcycles cut through the wall of mist, their halogen headlights slicing bright white needles through the gray rain. They glided to a stop fifty yards out. The riders killed their engines simultaneously, leaving an eerie silence broken only by the steady drum of rain against heavy leather. Four men dismounted, their matching cuts displaying the heavy silver skull and crossed pistons of the Reaper Kings motorcycle club. The man walking at the front moved with a slow, absolute weight that pulled all the gravity out of the graveyard. Knox. My father’s closest friend. The president of the Reaper Kings. The man who had hired two heavies to drag me out of state five years ago after my father was shot, claiming it was the only way to keep me alive. He stopped two feet away from me. Knox was built like a stone pillar, his dark hair plastered back by the rain, his jaw heavy with dark stubble. His eyes were the color of a winter sky, completely stripped of any human warmth. "You shouldn't be out in this weather, Raven," Knox said. His voice was a deep, gravelly rasp that sounded like iron dragging over concrete. "You look exhausted." "I don't care how I look, Knox," I said, holding his icy gaze. "Why are you here? You didn't give a damn about Jaxon while he was still breathing." Knox didn't so much as blink. A tiny muscle near his jawline flexed once, the only sign he heard me. "I cared enough to pull him out of a holding cell twice last month. Jaxon made bad choices. He started running with people who chew up boys like him for breakfast, got in over his head, and took the easy way out when the bill came due." "Don't you dare call him a coward," I snapped. I stepped right into his space, my coat brushing the hard leather of his vest, smelling the familiar, bitter scent of motor oil, rain, and tobacco that had followed him my whole life. "You lied to me five years ago when you shipped me off like baggage, and you're lying to me right now. Someone murdered my brother." Knox reached out, his heavy, calloused hand clamping down on my shoulder. His grip was tight enough to bruise, a quiet, immovable force holding me anchored in the freezing rain. "Listen to me very carefully, Raven," he growled, bending down until his shadow completely swallowed me. His breath was warm against my icy cheek. "You pack your bags tonight. You get into your car, and you drive back to your apartment before the sun comes up tomorrow. Your family is gone. There is nothing left for you in this town except graves." "Get your hand off me," I whispered, staring down at his fingers. We stayed locked like that for three long, agonizing seconds before his grip loosened and his arm fell back to his side. He turned his head toward the three men standing behind him, including Drake, his Vice President, who was watching me with a thin, sharp smirk that didn't reach his eyes. "We're done here," Knox said cold-heartedly. Without another glance my way, Knox turned his back and strode toward his bike. The four engines tore into life again, spraying gray mud into the air as they turned around and vanished into the fog, taking the heavy smell of exhaust with them. When I looked over my shoulder, Sheriff Miller was already gone too, the red taillights of his cruiser fading fast down the main road. I was left alone with the storm. The cemetery was silent now, reduced to the patter of water against wet soil and the deep, open square of dirt beside me. I took a slow step to the edge of the pit. The cemetery crew had left their thick yellow ropes slung over the wooden handles of the casket, waiting for the heavy machinery to lower it fully into the earth once the rain let up. I sank down onto my knees in the mud, my jeans soaking through instantly, and leaned over the cold wooden edge of the box. I rested my palm against the polished oak lid, my tears blending silently with the water running down my face. "I'm sorry, Jax," I whispered, my chest tightening until it hurt to breathe. "I'm so sorry I left you here with them." My fingers dragged absently along the underside of the lid's decorative lip, near the rear brass hinges. As my hand slid along the wet wood, my fingernails caught against something stiff and synthetic. It wasn't oak, and it wasn't brass. I paused, wiping the rain from my eyelashes with the back of my sleeve. I reached deeper beneath the overhang, my thumb catching the rough edge of a piece of heavy-duty silver duct tape. Jaxon used to use that exact tape to hide extra cash under his bedroom desk whenever he thought Dad was going to check his room. I dug my nails in and pulled hard. The tape gave way with a muffled, sticky rip. I sat back on my heels in the freezing mud, opening my fist to protect the small bundle from the pouring rain. It wasn't money. Taped securely inside the silver strip was a tiny, rusted iron key attached to a tarnished brass key tag. Stamped directly into the metal were three distinct numbers: 104. My breath hitched in my throat as I stared at the key resting in my muddy palm. Jaxon hadn't jumped off that bridge. He had known someone was coming for him, he had known Knox would try to run me out of town the second I set foot back in Blackwood, and he had known I would come to his grave before I left. He had left a path for me to follow. And whoever had put him in this ground had no idea it existed.