Page 31 of Violent Little Thing

“Weaver asked me to call and let you know.” She sounded like she was crying now. “Koen and Ida Belle were just in an accident on the way to see Shaw. Ida Bell is in critical condition and will be air-lifted to the county hospital.” She paused. “Koen didn’t make it.”

My stomach sank.

“What happened?” I rasped.

There was another long pause and then, “Turns out it was Seraphina’s car, but she wasn’t driving. She’d let her new friend drive it. He was just as drunk as she was.”

I closed my eyes as my heart wrenched inside my chest.

The world started crumbling down around my ears.

Eight

Undiagnosed.

—T-shirt

Charleigh

It felt weird to go to a funeral of a man that I didn’t know.

I mean, I knew him.

Everyone knew Koen.

But I didn’t know him, know him.

Living in a town that was practically owned and operated by the entire Dixie Wardens MC crew, it was hard not to know the Dixie Wardens.

Koen had owned his own construction business. Hopps owned the best bar and grill in town. Hux ran the butcher shop. Hux’s mom ran The Mercantile—that I was still banned from, might I add. Denver owned the biggest ranch in town and supplied three counties with beef. Odin was the doctor in town. Gentry and Black, deputy and sheriff. Court had once run the only decent auto shop.

Literally, you couldn’t cough and not hit a Dixie Warden member with your germs.

They were everywhere in Sawtooth.

But Koen I knew of the least.

He was super busy, and I’d never had need of his services.

However, I still attended the funeral.

I sat next to Birdee and her husband, Creed.

My anger was a slow simmer as I watched as they laid a good man to rest.

All because of selfish decisions, yet again, made by Seraphina.

I looked over in the cemetery, my eyes landing on Sonja’s gravestone marker.

It was tall and oval with a bench off to the side of the headstone.

It had her full name: Sonja Rea Vanderbilt. Her birth date. It also had the day that Seraphina had killed her.

On the headstone at the very bottom read: Beloved daughter and best friend.

My eyes, which were already leaking, picked up speed.

It was kind of hard, knowing that Seraphina was responsible for yet another death.