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Genre: Dark Romance, Single Parent, Second Chance, Biker Romance
Word Count: 1005
Chapter Two: Shattered Glass
Luis
“Fuck.”
The damp fabric of my sweat-stained tank top clings to my body as I sit crouched beside the bike I’m working on.
Damn thing is a rush order, but the fuckin’ storm stole a big chunk of my worktime. So now here I am, the harsh SoCal sun beating down on me, the sickening humidity of the air post-storm making breathing a chore.
My eyes slide to the watch on my wrist—worn leather, cracked glass, and a U.S. Marines logo painted in enamel on the inside… it was my old man’s before he died, ten years ago.
But it’s mine now, and it tells me I can spare a couple minutes to break for a beer.
A long sigh escapes me as I sit back against my beat-up old toolbox—also my dad’s—and reach for the cooler sat beside me.
The ice is half-melted, but the beer is cold, and that’s what counts.
It still stings, knowing the old man is gone.
I’ve never been one to handle grief well. Never known how to deal with broken things I can’t fix with a wrench.
And my fucking downward spiral after my dad died cost me the love of my life.
If it weren’t for my brothers in The Angels, I’d be in the ground too. I’m sure of it.
My eyes flutter shut as I press the cool glass to my forehead, not bothered by the water droplets that roll down the bottle onto my skin.
After the day I’ve had, it feels good.
After a moment, I pop the cap against my calloused palm, the inviting scent of the hops immediately filling my nostrils.
I barely get the chance to lift the bottle to my lips before a shrill cry breaks the silent stillness of the desert.
Heel to toe slamming the pavement, Ben and I tore through the night as fast as our legs would carry us.
I hadn’t expected a rescue.
I learned early in life that the only person you can count on is yourself. As much as I hated to admit it, though, I was well into the frying pan before he intervened.
All I could do now was trust him and hope I hadn’t jumped straight into the fire.
Before I had a chance to react, he grabbed my wrist and turned down an unlit alleyway, nearly yanking my arm out of socket in the process.
Any other situation and he would’ve ended up with a black eye for his trouble—never in my life had I let a man put his hands on me without making him regret it, but if there’s one thing the bastard had going for him it was his mind.
He had a plan.
“Careful, stairs,” he grunted as he stopped me in my tracks.
I only nodded as he took his hands off of me.
I wanted an explanation, and I wanted to cuss him out for the ache in my shoulder, but that could all wait until we were safe behind locked doors.
He was too focused to notice the way my face screwed up with skepticism, but the situation only got weirder when he pulled a somewhat sticky key from beneath the insole of his worn-out boot.
When the tumblers clicked into place, he breathed a sigh of relief and pushed the door open.
He stepped in, motioning for me to follow, and against my better judgment…
Well.
It’s not like I had better options.
I let him lead me into a small studio apartment, my eyes scanning the room, looking for anything I could use for a weapon in case this went south. Ben saved me, but I still didn’t know his intentions—for all I knew, he could be working for a higher bidder.
Much to my surprise, the living room at least seemed fairly nice, save for the near jungle of potted plants that looked about as desperate for a drink as I was. Much to my delight, Mr. Barrett came strolling out of the kitchenette with a bottle of good whisky and two glasses.
My Hero.
“Nice place ya got here,” I mumbled awkwardly, taking a seat when he’d gestured toward the too-plush sofa.
Benjamin Barrett and I had spent most of our working relationship either at each other’s throats or avoiding each other completely. The domesticity of the moment felt alien, especially in contrast to what he’d just saved me from.
“S’not mine,” he’d said, so casually as he effortlessly popped open the expensive bottle with his roughly calloused hands. “This is my ex’s place.”
An unwelcome pang of jealousy made my heart clench at the mention of another woman, and I looked anywhere but him as he leaned over to pour my drink. “So… you come here often?”
He cracked his signature stupid smirk, but it didn’t meet his eyes this time. “Only when she’s not around.”
That was one more Red Flag.
“Hey, didn’t I just save your life? Don’t look at me like that,” he scoffed, however, the amusement that threatened to split his face into a full-on grin put a scowl on mine.
“Oh, my bad. Didn’t realize one good deed is supposed to cancel out you being a fucking creep.”
I could have knocked his eyes out of his skull the way he rolled them at me.
“See, that’s your fucking problem,” he sneered.
“My problem? I’m not the one breaking into my ex’s house to drink her booze with another woman!”
“There you go again, twisting the details!” He knocked back the remainder of his glass before slamming it back down onto the table with a loud clack. “You open your mouth and judge people before you know the whole damn story. Bratty little girls like you think that you can hide behind your pretty face and nothing you say has consequences—”
“Girls like Me?” I scoffed, my shoulders tense with annoyance and disbelief at what had just come out of his mouth.
“Yeah, girls like you.” He poured himself another drink. “But you know what? Maybe you’re right, because you’ve been nothing but a bitch to me since the day we met, and I still risked my ass to save you.”
My chest was heaving mad, but all I could do was sit there in stunned silence across the couch from Ben, who had sunk back into the overstuffed cushions to sip his whisky and brood.
A minute ago, I had wanted to tear his throat out, but the fact of the matter is, he did save my life.
“Why?” My voice wavered, my best attempt to be calm sounding strangled in my throat.
He grunted, shifting on the couch somewhat awkwardly, eyes suddenly preoccupied elsewhere.
“Why did you save me?” I demanded more than asked, conviction building in my voice.
He let out a deep sigh before fixing his gaze on me. “Because you didn’t deserve that.” He sets his glass on the table, much more gently this time, his hands shaking with what looked like rage. “I don’t like you, and you don’t like me, but what that piece of human garbage was going to do to you?” He looked lost, like he wasn’t used to being the good guy. “Nobody deserves that.”
It was a lot to swallow.
Benjamin Barrett was not a good man, and everyone knew that.
Hell, he knew that.
But lucky for me, even he had to draw the line somewhere.
“Hey.” He stood, pointing his finger at me. “Don’t you go thinking we’re friends now. Not five minutes ago, you essentially accused me of stalking my ex. There’s no whisky fueled heart to heart that’s gonna make things any less antagonistic between us.”
It was a strange kind of relief to hear him snip at me again, a splash of normalcy in this porcelain bowl of a night.
I smirked at him. “Okay, Scumbag, since you brought it up again… why do you still have the keys to her place?”
Bottle in hand, he leaned against the wall with an amused scoff. “Look, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. I had this made shortly before we broke up.” He saw my mouth fall open and gestured for me to let him finish. “She’s gone an awful lot—lot of vacations. I keep tabs on when she’s gone so if I need a place to hide out for a while, I can sneak in here.”
Shifting uncomfortably in my seat, I took a nervous sip of whisky. “You’re not worried about her finding out and calling the cops?”
The fucker who thought he owned me had half the city’s police force in his pocket. I really couldn’t afford a run-in, and frankly, neither could Ben in his line of work.
He laughed, and I barely opened my mouth to cuss him out before he cut me off.
“Ash, this is my ex we’re talking about. Do you really think the kind of people who can call the cops hang around me?”
“No. No, they don’t.”
I let out a sigh of relief, finally letting my head fall back against the cushions.
I’d been running on pure adrenaline for so long now that having this time to relax made me aware of the heavy exhaustion weighing on my bones. It was tempting to settle in for a nap, but I couldn’t help catching my new accomplice staring at me.
“What are you looking at?”
He shoots me a smirk before knocking back a few glugs of the booze. “Maybe it’s the whisky talking, but you’re kind of cute when you’re not at my throat.”
My cheeks burned hot, but I’d also blame that on the whisky.
Barrett had a way of getting under my skin, but whatever this feeling was… I knew it didn’t mean anything.
I’d been through enough in life to be familiar with trauma bonding, and it never went well.
Both of us, clothes plastered in our own sweat and blood… We were out of place in this cute little apartment.
Domesticity didn’t suit us.
Still, the sour taste of an adrenaline-drunk fantasy was hard to shake from my mouth.
Almost as if he could hear my thoughts, Barrett handed me the bottle, resting his hands on the back of the couch behind me. “Don’t worry about it, I’m not letting that sick fuck get his hands on you.”
After a good long chug, I let the bottle rest in my lap and laid my head back between his hands. I gazed up at him. “How did I get here, Barrett? How’d I wind up this way?”
He froze for a moment, and I wondered if his chest was as tight as mine. When he finally spoke, it nearly broke me.
“I dunno, Ash, how do any of us?” He backed away from the couch, eyeing me in a way that was more gentle than I’d have thought the man was capable of. “Sometimes life just fucking sucks, and we don’t ever get to know why.”
In spite of myself, a sob tore its way through my throat.
I hated it.
I hated looking weak, and more than that, I hated looking weak in front of him.
Instead of mocking me, however, Ben just grabbed a pair of beers from the fridge and handed me one.
When I tried to take it, though, he didn’t let go immediately.
“We’re in this together now. We’ll figure this out, Ash. You just need to trust me.”
The car hums in idle as my eyes comb over the invitation one more time. This wooded, isolated drive doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
The vellum is fine, with the invitation itself handwritten in red ink in a swooping, calligraphic style. The envelope itself was even sealed in a rich, red wax.
The address is more plainly written, and assuming this isn’t some kind of a trap—which I haven’t ruled out—I’m headed in the right direction.
Straight on the path to Briarton Manor.
My ginger curls cling to my neck in the humid Georgia air, but even wrangling them into a ponytail does little to ease the oppressive mugginess that makes me work just a little harder for every breath.
The real question is, why was I invited in the first place?
At first, I assumed it must have been some kind of mistake, but my name is unmistakably there, handwritten in those rich, swirling letters.
Abigail Cross.
I’m no stranger to mysterious letters, and my natural inquisitiveness has taken me to many strange places in my work as a private investigator, but there was no cry for help in this message, no promise of work.
Just an invitation to a party, signed by Camille Briarton herself.
Briarton is a name I’ve heard before, but only in the sense that the Briarton rosefields are the most prestigious supplier of roses across the United States—the kind of name a person hears a lot around Valentine’s Day, along with fancy jewelers and chocolatiers.
Staring at the wooded path in front of me, my lips curl into a frown.
It seems… odd that the nation’s premier rosefields would be through a path like this.
Typically, I’d expect that any business doing regular shipments would be on wide, clear roads.
Compared to my little car, I guess it’s not a stretch to see how shipping trucks can fit here, but still, even if the Briartons do have a system in place for keeping the roads clear, it’s still weird for a major national company.
An odd choice, sure, but it’s nothing compared to Camille Briarton inviting me, a complete stranger, to some sort of party at her family’s ancestral manor.
I’ve heard the woman is nothing if not eccentric.
Setting the letter in my passenger seat, well within reach in case I need it to explain what I’m doing on the property, I shift my car back into drive and head down the wooded road, each rotation of the wheels carrying me further and further from anything resembling civilization.
After nearly a half hour of driving, my mind starts to wander.
Maybe I’d taken a wrong turn after all.
Maybe this is going to turn out to be an ambush—lord knows I’ve racked up enough enemies over the course of my career.
But all doubt goes out the window when the woods open up into what can only be described as a vast sea of bright, ruby red roses, broken only by the stunning old mansion standing at the center.
My jaw hangs open in pure awe of it, my chest tightening with an almost eerie feeling of unreality as I take my time, driving slowly in case any of the field workers happen to cross the road.
The closer I get to the road though, the more I notice how strange the place feels.
How empty.
I’d have thought a place like this would be swarming with employees, but I haven’t seen a soul, not even when I get close to the building, where I’d expect someone to tell me where to park.
There is, however, a painted wooden sign directing me to a small parking lot, so I join the five other cars parked there.
Only five.
Either I’m early, or this is an awfully small gathering to be inviting a stranger to.
Outside of my car, dark clouds crowd the sky—it’ll rain soon, no doubt. My shoulders sag with relief that I got here before I had to drive in it.
Clutching my invitation against a gust of wind, I make my way toward the gates.
Still no one.
My hand hovers over the latch, before, out of the corner of my eye, I catch a small path leading off from the main house.
I shouldn’t follow it.
I know that.
But my feet move as if of their own accord, and soon, the gorgeous carved stone of a private cemetery comes into view, vines creeping along the ornate wrought iron fence.
My hand rests on the gate, used to letting myself into places I don’t belong, and my body jerks like I’ve been electrocuted when I’m startled by a man’s deep voice.
“Friend of the family?” He steps out of a big mausoleum, tall and broad-shouldered, with intense eyes.
He must be the groundskeeper.
“Not… exactly,” I admit, fully aware of the way his intense eyes narrow on me. “I was invited, though.”
“Invited to poke around the family cemetery?” He asks, taking a few steps closer to me. “Or are you just drawn to places you don’t belong?”
My lip threatens to twitch up into a grin—he has no idea.
I’ve made a career out of getting into places I don’t belong, and gathering evidence of things people would rather never see the light of day.
“Occupational hazard.” I smile, extending a hand for him to shake. “Abigail Cross, Private Investigator.”
He doesn’t take my hand.
In fact, his honey-brown eyes never leave mine, his stare searching for something that he’s not finding.
Maybe he’s more of a security guard than a groundskeeper.
That would make sense, with the muscles that stretch the fabric of his black shirt beneath the leather jacket.
“Well, Private Investigator… ” The words roll over his tongue, almost like an insult. “I’m not sure who invited you, but you’d best be careful.”
“Is that a threat?” My eyes light up with near manic excitement, noting the way the corner of his mouth turns up into something almost resembling a smirk.
“It’s a warning.” He turns the knife-edge of his hand toward the house. “Briartons have always kept secrets, lot of which they don’t want to see the light of day.”
“Well, it was a Briarton who invited me here,” I challenge him, holding up the letter for him to see.
“Camille Briarton,” he reads, shaking his head. “Can’t believe she’s hosting a damn party in the old place.”
“Is it that odd?” My brow raises, and I lean my weight onto one hip, trying to look casual, like I’m not salivating at the chance to unravel old family secrets. “I thought it was pretty standard for rich people to throw mansion parties.”
“Maybe for other families, at other mansions, but this place?” He shakes his head, staring at the Antebellum architecture with nothing but pure disdain. “If you knew even half the story of this place, you wouldn’t set foot in that building.”
“And how do you know so much, if the Briartons are such a secretive bunch?”
He lets out a scoff, with what I think is an edge of humor, before he extends his hand for me to shake.
“Name’s Beauregard Briarton,” he tells me as I take his hand, and he exhales through his nose—just shy of a laugh, when my eyes go wide with recognition. “Yep, this is my family, for what that’s worth.”
“Wow.” I swallow, feeling like a bit of an ass for making assumptions when I’m the one trespassing at his family’s resting place. “That’s quite the name.”
Beau Briarton, black sheep of the Briarton family.
He may be a Briarton, but it’s just as strange to see him here as it is me.
The media was all over Beau Briarton’s supposed fall from grace, but he’d disappeared almost completely from the public eye soon after, despite building his own empire on innovations in farming equipment.
It sounds like he didn’t know that Camille was throwing a party here… but that only makes me more curious to find out what he’s doing here.
He grins fully this time, like he’s taking some kind of sick amusement from my discomfort. “Yeah, that’s why most people who know me call me Beau.”
“Should I call you Beau?” I look up at him through my lashes, swaying on my feet just enough to look non-threatening, maybe even a bit flirtatious. Getting on someone’s good side has always worked out well for me when I’m working a case… Okay, so this isn’t a case, but there’s definitely a mystery here. “Beauregard is a bit of a mouthful.”
“Do you know me?” He asks, taking a step closer, close enough that he could touch me if he wanted.
“Maybe I’d like to.”
He leans in, so close that I feel his breath against my skin when he speaks. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”
Beau
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” I breathe into her ear, my blood boiling at the way her heart beats rabbit fast.
She doesn’t take a step back like I expect her to, but I’m not sure if it’s bravery, or if she’s rooted to the ground by nerves.
Instead, I step back, shocked by the amused curve of her lips, and the interest in her pale green eyes, rather than the intimidation I was going for.
Which isn’t necessarily a good thing.
This place, with its elaborate columns and many coats of restorative paint—now chipped and worn by the elements, has never been friendly to those inclined to stick their noses where they don’t belong.
If she sees that as a challenge rather than the glaring red warning sign it really is, she’s liable to end up hurt.
Or worse.
“If you’re Beau Briarton, then it’s my turn to ask what you’re doing here.” She grins like the cat that got the cream. “I have an invitation, but I and the rest of the world were under the impression that you’d broken off from your family.”
An answering grin tugs my lips at her audacity. “I have an annual engagement to keep.” I gesture toward the mausoleum behind me. “I come back here once a year to pay respects to my mother’s grave.”
Her eyes go moon-wide, and she has the grace to realize she’d intruded on a sensitive moment. “I’m so sorry—”
I can’t have her thinking too highly of me, though.
It’s dangerous, a woman like her getting involved with a man like me.
Briartons have always been wolves in sheep’s clothing.
A blessing and a curse I can’t shake, even after all these years.
“...And to make sure my old man stays in his.” My voice is low, rumbling in my chest with pure disdain and anger that I don’t have to pretend.
“I… Strained relationship, I take it?” Her tongue darts across her plush pink lips, discomfort evident on her face as she tries to avert her eyes from both me and the old graves around us.
“My father was the worst man I ever knew.” No sense in sugar coating it. “That’s why I left the family in the first place. Thank god Mom didn’t live to see it.”
Her lips press together into a thin line, and she nods, as if beginning to piece some puzzle together. “I lost my parents when I was young too.”
“I’d imagine that’s about where our similarities stop,” I huff, and she recoils like she’d been scalded.
I’m not such a dickhead that I don’t feel bad about the look on her face, but I’m not wrong.
For most people, the death of a parent is one of the worst things they go through in life—hell, it probably was for her.
For me though, as hard as it was to lose my mother, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the world is a better place without my father stealing breath.
I wasn’t kidding when I told Abigail that the Briartons keep dark secrets.
She probably thinks I mean the more traditional dark secrets of rich families whose wealth was established in the Antebellum South—racism, slavery, all associated abuses that southern estates like to gloss over.
But it’s different for us.
I tried to put a stop to it, but all it got me was blood on my hands, and a bad taste in my mouth.
The pressure of her hand on my arm makes me flinch back, and the concern on her face tells me I was doing it again.
Drifting so far off into my own world that I can’t hear what’s going on around me.
“I—Sorry.” My eyes focus back on her. She’s almost too bright, after falling down the rabbit hole of my inner demons. “I didn’t hear you.”
“I asked if you’re okay,” she repeats, her pale brow creased with worry. “It was like you weren’t here for a minute.”
“Sorry.” I clear my throat, my eyes flitting to the house I spent so much of my life in. “It’s this place—it has a way of bringing back memories.”
“Not always pleasant ones.” She swallows hard, giving me a small nod. “I get that, I really do.”
Do you really? I think, with no small trace of sarcasm, before I catch myself.
It’s not like I have a monopoly on pain, but it’s hard not to focus on my own when we’re standing in the place where all my family’s sins are dead and buried.
Including my own.
I nod, and if she thinks we’re sharing a moment, that’s alright.
What’s not alright is that she, with her inquisitive nature, is about to be thrown to the wolves.
What Camille was thinking when she invited a private investigator to the old house, I have no idea, but I do know that I can’t in good conscience let her go in there alone.
I’m inviting myself to that damn party.
Thunder cracks, and once again I’m pulled back into the present, and Abigail’s pretty face staring back at me.
“We should go inside.” I gesture toward the dark clouds filling up the sky, no doubt ready to burst into a summer downpour. “Unless we want to get caught in the rain.”
Abigail
“We should go inside.” Beau gestures toward the dark clouds filling up the sky, very obviously deliberately trying to draw my attention away from the expression on his face. “Unless we want to get caught in the rain.”
Beau Briarton, a mystery of a man, made that much more interesting by virtue of hiding things from me.
If there are dark secrets to be found behind those storied old walls, then it’s in my nature to sniff them out.
My eyes linger on him, studying as much as appraising as I gesture down the path back to the front gates. “Lead the way.”
In a shocking show of chivalry I hadn’t expected from him, Beau offers me his arm, brow half raised as though he’s challenging me, like he’s testing me somehow.
I wish I knew more about him, but as much as the media tried to theorize why Beau left the Briarton family, the man himself managed to fly under the radar.
Narrowing my eyes, I slip my arm through his.
There’s not a doubt in my mind that Beau intends to keep an eye on me, but that will only give me more of a challenge.
Where’s the glory in plundering old family secrets if there aren’t tight-lipped descendants trying to stop me?
A small smile slips onto my lips as Beau leads me toward the front doors—Nana and Nessa would absolutely love this, Ness for the aging but still sturdy architecture, and Nana for the promise of a good mystery.
While my cousin doesn’t share our love of discovery, our grandmother passed her insatiable hunger for the unknown to my mother, and to me.
Especially when she took me in after my mother’s accident, and my father’s… well, his untimely death. Nana’s stories about her fantastic escapades stoked a fire in me.
Once I get to the bottom of the Briarton family secret, Nana will be the first person I call.
Beau hesitates when we reach the doors to the manor, his eyes set into a hard stare that makes me wonder if he isn’t off in his own world.
My lips curve into a frown, recognizing that look of vacant dissociation. “Are you alright?” I ask, giving his arm a light squeeze.
“No,” comes his blunt response, before he exhales sharply through his nose. “When I left, I had no intention of ever setting foot in this place again.”
My brow furrows. “Then why now?”
He’s keeping an eye on me, of course, but will he say that outright?
“Need to know what Camille is up to.” He rolls his shoulders before taking my arm again. “Let’s go.”
As Beau reaches for the door, it occurs to me just how this looks.
I’m showing up on the arm of the Beau Briarton, who hasn’t set foot here in decades.
Whether or not I was hoping to make an entrance, I’m damn sure making one now.
Heads turn as Beau and I walk into the foyer, and I recognize all four faces staring back at us. What really stands out though, is that Camille Briarton is not among them.
Her husband and daughter, Joseph Millworth and Cassandra Briarton are here, and Cassandra’s eyes widen when her father whispers something to her.
“They’re talking about me,” Beau scoffs under his breath, the corner of his mouth turning up into a grin. “Can’t believe Camille’s little girl is all grown up.”
My eyes linger on Cassandra—dark brown hair, and a timidness to her that probably comes from a lifetime of living in her mother’s shadow.
She may not have her mother’s platinum blonde hair or her unabashed confidence, but besides that, she’s Camille’s spitting image, every inch the Briarton.
“You’ve never met her?”
“She was just a baby when I left the family.” Beau shakes his head, and Cassandra quickly looks away from us. “Not surprised she doesn’t remember me.”
“And Joseph?” It’s hard to believe someone as bland and borderline pastoral as Joseph Millworth could be married to a woman as eccentric as Camille, but aside from his nervous demeanor, he seems to have nothing in common with his daughter, not if his wisp of straw blonde hair is anything to go by. “What’s the story there?”
“He married Camille for the Briarton family fortune, that’s for sure… his family was old money, but these days, they’ve got nothing but influence,” he explains. “Turns out, influence doesn’t pay the bills.”
“But why would Camille marry him?”
“You know, I never was sure.” He lets out a rasp of a laugh at that. “But I think it might have something to do with how easily she could control him. She’s always been like that—has to have things her way.”
“Aren’t most rich people like that?” I flash him a challenging grin, and he returns the gesture.
“You may have a point,” he concedes, his eyes sliding to the tall man, dressed in all black, his long dark hair hanging wild beneath his cowboy hat.
“That’s Elijah Dean Elkwood, isn’t it?” I watch the man take off his hat to run his calloused fingers through his receding hairline.
Even approaching sixty, the famous folk singer still cuts a starkly handsome figure—there’s no way I can leave here without his autograph. If Ness found out I met the legend himself and didn’t bring her back a souvenir, she’d kill me.
“Not surprised he’s here.” Beau nods. “It’s an open not-so-secret that my cousin has been in an on-again, off-again affair with him since they were young.”
“Oh,” I gasp, hand flying to my mouth. “So that song, ‘The Grave I Call Home’, is about her, isn’t it?”
“More than likely.” He turns his attention to the mousy woman standing near the staircase, tightly clutching her laptop. “Not sure who she is, though.”
“I can answer that—that’s Jennifer Castle,” I explain, a little too loudly, apparently, since her head snaps in our direction.
“Sure is,” she beams, striding over to the two of us. “Award-winning horror novelist, Jenny Castle, at your service.” Her eyes narrow as she leans in just a little too close to me. “And you’re Abigail Cross—a private detective of no small renown with none other than Beau Freaking Briarton on your arm! The plot thickens.”
“Investigator,” I correct her. “Detectives work for the police—that’s not my job.”
“Is that the only difference?” She asks, propping her laptop up in her arm, seeming to take notes.
“Well, I’ll get arrested if I get caught breaking and entering.” I shrug, earning a rumble of humor from Beau. “I’m more into solving mysteries than catching criminals.”
She raises a brow, turning her attention to Beau. “Like the mystery of what happened to Beauregard Briarton?”
“Apparently,” he scoffs.
Jenny nods to him, before looking back at me. “Maybe next, you can solve the mystery of exactly where our enigmatic host has disappeared to.”
“Not much of a mystery.” I tilt my chin toward the overlook atop the magnificent double staircase. “There she is now.”
A hush falls over the foyer as none other than Camille Briarton saunters over to the railing, draping her bony hands across it as her billowing white dress settles around her like a ghost.
She has the same honey-brown eyes as Beau, but there’s a chill in her gaze that sends a tremor down my spine.
“A pleasure to see that you all made it.” Her painted red lips split into a smile that doesn’t seem like it suits the harsh angles of her face. “How good of you to join me.”
Relationships: Leon S. Kennedy/Chris Redfield, Chris Redfield & Ethan Winters, Chris Redfield & Rosemary Winters (Resident Evil), Leon S. Kennedy & Rosemary Winters, Leon S. Kennedy & Claire Redfield, Grace Ashcroft & Leon S. Kennedy, Grace Ashcroft & Emily (Resident Evil 9 | Requiem)
Characters: Leon S. Kennedy, Chris Redfield (Resident Evil), Rosemary Winters (Resident Evil), Grace Ashcroft, Emily (Resident Evil 9 | Requiem), Claire Redfield, Sherry Birken (mentioned), The Porsche GT
Additional Tags: Chreon Week 2026, Married Leon S. Kennedy/Chris Redfield, Gay Parents, We just say Mia Spiraled to the point Chris gets custody, Elpis (Resident Evil), Adopted Children, Car Sex, Post-Resident Evil 9 | Requiem, The Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT, POV Third Person Omniscient, Collaboration
Summary: A special collaboration for Chreon Week 2026! Between me and @vamp-cryer
Day 5 - Late in Life Parents
Immediately after the events of the main game, Chris shows up at the site of ARK after finding a last-minute babysitter for Rose and retrieving the Porsche.
This was also inspired by Brilcrist's Requiem Husband comic! Old man yaoi ftw!
writer brain vs. what writing software thinks i need
writer brain: i want my research next to my draft. right there. on the same screen. writing software: have you tried... a second window? and then a third? and then losing track of which tab had the thing?
writer brain: i want to look at the version from march and the version from today side by side writing software: sure just scroll back through your save history. it's only 47 entries. good luck.
writer brain: can i just have everything for this project in one place writing software: absolutely. just paste links between six different apps that all forgot you were logged in
writer brain: i need to focus writing software: great news, we redesigned everything. the button you used every day? gone. here are 200 new ones though
writer brain: why does none of this work the way my brain works writing software: your brain is not on our roadmap
the gap between how writers actually think and how writing software expects them to work is genuinely unhinged. like we figured out word processing in the 80s and then just... stopped asking writers what they needed.
someone on here once said "i don't need a better app, i need an app that gets how projects actually feel from the inside" and i think about that constantly. research and drafts and notes and versions all living together, not scattered across your whole computer like a crime scene.
that's basically what we're building with skrib. just trying to make the inside of the tool match the inside of a writer's head for once.
anyway. what's the one thing your writing setup does that makes you want to scream. i know you have one.
