The threat had hung in the air that day like smoke. I remembered the way Danny tried to laugh it off in the parking lot, telling me Marcus was all talk, that desperate men said desperate things. But now, sitting in my living room with crime scene photos inches from my trembling hands, those words felt less like anger and more like a promise finally cashed in.
I didn’t flip the photographs. I didn’t need to see the frozen version of my brother to know my life had split cleanly into Before and After. As Morrison spoke about timelines, phone records, and the cabin in the woods, a strange calm settled over me, sharper than grief and heavier than fear. Danny hadn’t walked into that forest alone. Whatever “exposure” had done to his body, betrayal had gotten there first. And I knew, with a certainty that scared me, that I would not rest until I proved it.
