The road to Briar Ridge was narrower than Arden remembered. Overgrown with weeds and crowned by leaning trees, it felt like a tunnel carved through time. The morning sun struggled to break through the mist, casting everything in a ghostly half-light.
Jamie drove in silence. His grip on the wheel was too tight. Arden sat beside him, clutching the bag that held what was left of the evidence. Flash drive. A notebook. A burner phone. Enough to ruin Daniel—if they made it out alive.
"Do you think he'll be there?" she asked.
Jamie didn't look at her. "If he's smart, no. If he's arrogant—and he is—yes."
They reached the ridge just after noon. The cabin sat like a ruin on the hill, shrouded in silence. It looked abandoned, with ivy crawling over the porch and windows streaked with grime.
But Arden knew better. She could feel the tension in the air, like static before lightning.
They got out slowly, cautiously. Jamie kept the pistol close. Arden had a flashlight and a voice recorder in her jacket pocket, its red light already blinking. Every word counted now.
Inside, the air was stale. Dust floated in shafts of light. But beneath it—fresh tracks. A glass with condensation. A laptop, open and humming faintly on the table.
"He was just here," Jamie muttered.
Arden walked past the sofa, toward the fireplace. A photograph lay on the mantle.
Her.
Younger. Smiling.
With Daniel's hand resting on her shoulder.
She turned it over. Scribbled on the back in ink: You were always the fire, Arden. I just waited for you to fall.
She flinched.
"Jamie—" she started.
A door creaked open in the back of the cabin.
They both froze.
Footsteps.
And then—
Cole appeared.
Alive. Pale. His arm wrapped in a sling, blood seeping through the bandage.
"Don't shoot," he said hoarsely. "I came alone."
Jamie raised the gun anyway. "How'd you find us?"
"I followed the trail I helped Daniel build," Cole said. "I knew where this ended. I always did."
"You're lucky you're not dead," Jamie growled.
"I probably should be."
Arden stepped between them. "Stop. We don't have time."
Cole's eyes met hers. There was no apology there. Just exhaustion. And something like grief.
"I didn't know how far it went," he said. "I thought Daniel was laundering, not trafficking. When I found out, I tried to leave. That's when he threatened you."
"And so you sold me out instead," Arden said coldly.
Cole swallowed hard. "I tried to find another way. But I was already drowning."
"Then why are you here now?" Jamie asked.
Cole looked at Arden. "To help burn him down."
Jamie scoffed. "You expect us to believe that?"
"No," Cole said quietly. "But I have the rest of the list. Names. Timestamps. I stole a backup from Daniel's personal drive. It's encrypted. But if we work together, we can open it."
Arden stared at him.
He looked like hell.
He sounded sincere.
And she hated that part of her still wanted to believe him.
"What's the price?" she asked.
"None," Cole said. "I'm already damned. But I'm not going to let him walk away clean."
Jamie lowered the gun. Just slightly.
Outside, tires crunched gravel.
Three sets of eyes turned toward the window.
"Too late," Jamie whispered.
From the trees, black SUVs emerged.
Daniel had come home.
They ducked low as the engines cut.
Doors opened—four? Five? The muffled crackle of radios followed. Boots hit gravel. They weren't alone anymore.
"Back room," Jamie hissed, grabbing the laptop and motioning toward the stairs.
Cole moved without hesitation, pain etched deep in his face. Arden followed, her heart pounding so loud she thought it might betray them. The cabin had no real second floor—just a half-loft above the kitchen and a crawlspace behind the bookcase, once used to stash liquor during Prohibition.
Jamie shoved the false panel open and motioned them in. "Hide. If anything happens—run north, past the fence. There's a culvert. Follow the stream."
"What about you?" Arden demanded.
"I'll buy time."
"Jamie—"
"I'm not losing you again."
Before she could argue, he shut the panel. Darkness swallowed them.
Footsteps entered the cabin. Slow. Purposeful.
Daniel.
They could hear the timbre of his voice even without words—low, casual, like he owned the air.
"You always loved this place, Jamie," Daniel said. "Funny how ghosts come back to their graves."
No answer.
More footsteps. The squeak of floorboards. Something being moved then a heavy thunk.
"You know," Daniel's voice curled up toward the loft, "I didn't want to kill her. Not really. Arden was… different. Bright. But she got too close. And you—you brought her even closer."
A pause. A creak.
"Shame."
A crash.
Jamie must've thrown something. The sound of a scuffle followed—grunts, shouts, a punch. Arden tensed. Her fingers closed around the voice recorder. Cole held her back with a look that said: Not yet.
Glass shattered.
Then—
A gunshot.
Arden nearly screamed.
Silence.
Then Daniel's voice again—lower now, venomous:
"Still fighting, Jamie? You always did have a hero complex."
Another shot.
Arden couldn't breathe.
She shoved the panel. Cole tried to stop her, but it was too late. She tumbled into the open, rage exploding in her chest.
"Daniel!"
He turned, bloody knuckles and a cruel smile. Jamie was slumped against the wall, alive but dazed, a red line across his forehead.
"Well," Daniel said. "There's my fire."
She lifted the recorder. "You're done."
He laughed. "You think that'll stop me?"
Cole stepped from the shadows behind him. "No," he said. "But this might."
He raised a gun.
Daniel turned—too late.
A shot rang out.
Daniel staggered. Stared down at the blood blooming across his chest.
He looked at Arden. "You never… would've lasted."
Then he fell.
Silence.
No one moved.
Cole dropped the gun.
Jamie groaned. "Is he—?"
Arden knelt beside Daniel's body. The man who'd torn her world apart was still. At last.
She looked up. "It's over."
But even as she said it, sirens began to wail in the distance.
Not over yet.
The sirens grew louder, their echo fracturing the silence that had settled over the cabin like dust. Blue and red lights flashed through the trees, flickering over Daniel's lifeless body. Arden stood frozen, her breath caught between triumph and terror.
Jamie coughed behind her, clutching the wall for balance. Cole kept his eyes on the doorway, but his hands trembled now. The weight of what he'd done—what they'd all done—was settling in.
"We need to go," Jamie said hoarsely.
"They'll see the SUVs," Arden replied. "And the body."
"That won't be the story they hear."
Cole nodded. "He'll have people still watching. In the force. Maybe in the Bureau. We need to control the narrative."
Arden grabbed the laptop. "Then we give them the truth."
They moved quickly, tossing together the evidence—photos, files, the flash drive, the recorder, Cole's notes. Everything. Arden slid Daniel's gun across the floor and laid it near his hand. One more layer of the story.
Sirens screeched to a halt.
Doors slammed.
Jamie turned to Arden. "Say it was self-defense. Say we tried to protect you. You ran from Daniel. He followed. You'll survive this. But only if we're smart."
Cole gave her a hard look. "You're not just the victim now. You're the witness. The survivor. You get to tell them who he really was."
Arden stared down at Daniel.
He looked so small now.
Not the man who haunted her dreams, but just another coward trying to wear power like a crown.
She stepped out onto the porch as the officers ran up the hill.
Hands were raised. Weapons drawn.
But she didn't flinch.
"I'm Arden Locke," she said clearly. "And I have something you'll want to hear."
.
.
.
Hours passed in a blur.
Statements. Flashing lights. Tape around the cabin. Arden told the story twice—once for the sheriff, once for the federal agent who arrived with a tight mouth and suspicious eyes. Jamie backed it. Cole corroborated it. The evidence spoke volumes.
Daniel's empire—what was left of it was burning.
By nightfall, they were free to go. Technically.
Arden stepped into the cool air just as the first stars broke through the sky.
Jamie waited by the car, his face bruised and raw, but breathing.
Cole stayed behind, giving them distance. Maybe he knew some distances never truly close.
Arden leaned against the hood, her body aching.
Jamie handed her a coffee. "Not exactly how I pictured our reunion."
She gave him a tired smile. "You being dead kind of messed with my expectations."
They stood in silence, the weight of grief and relief twining in the air.
"You think we'll ever stop running?" she asked.
Jamie looked at her. "No. But maybe now we start choosing where we run to."
Arden nodded slowly.
Tomorrow would be complicated.
There would be headlines, and questions, and pieces to gather from the wreckage of the life she thought she wanted.
But for the first time in years, she wasn't alone in the fire.
The motel room smelled like stale coffee and Lysol. Arden sat on the edge of the bed, still in her blood-spattered coat. She hadn't spoken much since the station. She hadn't cried either.
Jamie stood by the window, arms crossed, watching the street below. "They'll spin it however they want," he said. "Even with the evidence."
"He's dead," Arden said quietly. "What more do they want?"
"Justice," Cole said from the bathroom doorway. "Or something that looks like it."
Arden turned to him. "You should leave town."
"I know."
She looked down at her hands—grime beneath her nails, bruises across her knuckles. She didn't recognize them anymore. "I don't forgive you."
"I'm not asking you to."
"But I don't hate you either."
Cole's eyes met hers, surprised. "Why?"
"Because you bled for the truth, even if it came late."
He nodded once and walked out the door without another word.
The silence he left behind was louder than the sirens had been.
Jamie moved beside her. "What now?"
"I don"t know," she said. "I'm still in the fire."
He sat next to her. Close, but not touching. "Then I'll wait with you. Until it burns out. Or until it leads somewhere."
Arden leaned her head on his shoulder. "It's not over."
"No," Jamie murmured. "But it's finally real."
.
.
.
Two Weeks Later
The courthouse steps were cold beneath Arden's heels. The media frenzy had passed, but the aftermath lingered in every headline.
She handed off the last of the documents to the FBI agent waiting at the base of the stairs. "It's all there. The shell companies. The payments. Everything Daniel buried."
"Thank you," the agent said, taking the box. "This helps more than you know."
As she turned to go, a voice called from the shadows: "You really think it ends here?"
Arden froze.
A man stood by the parking meter. Unfamiliar, but his gaze was sharp. Knowing. Dangerous in a way Daniel had never needed to be.
"What do you want?"
"I want you to understand something," he said, stepping closer. "Daniel was never the top. Just a very visible player."
"And you are?"
He smiled thinly. "Call me a footnote. For now."
Arden didn't blink. "If you come near me again—"
"Oh, I won't," he said. "But others will. Because the fire you lit? It's spreading. And some of us liked the world better when it was kept in the dark."
He turned and walked away, his coat flaring in the wind.
Arden stood there for a long time, the city humming around her.
It wasn't over.
But she wasn't running anymore.
She was learning to stand still in the ashes.
And wait for what rose next.