Chapter 1The Walnut Legacy

Before my grandpa died—the man the whole town called crazy—he pressed three walnuts into my hand.

On my twenty-fifth birthday, just like he’d told me to, I cracked open the first one.

Inside was a slip of paper.

【Go to the overpass on the interstate. Give the first panhandler you see every dollar in your wallet, then ask for his forgiveness.】

My face burned with shame, but I did it. And the panhandler turned out to be an undercover cop.

I only found out later that I was the next target for a ring of human traffickers. Asking for forgiveness, it turned out, saved my life.

The second walnut, he said, was for the day I got married.

Today, standing in my tailored suit, ready to marry the very cop who saved me, I broke it open, my heart overflowing.

This time, the shell held a crumpled old photograph.

In the photo, my fiancée is smiling as she strangles another groom.

* * *

In the photo, my fiancée, Maya, the woman I had loved for three years, was smiling. It was a brilliant, brutal smile, and her hands were wrapped tightly around the throat of another groom, choking the life out of him. The tuxedo that groom was wearing was identical to the one I had on right now.

My mind went completely blank. The walnut shell slipped from my fingers and clattered on the polished floor.

The door to the dressing room swung open. My best man, Ryan, grinned at me. “Leo! It’s time! Officer Evans is waiting for you out there. Let’s go, man!”

I stared at him, then at my reflection in the mirror, a ghost in a white tux. My stomach churned.

That photograph was a key, unlocking a memory I’d buried deep. My grandpa, on his deathbed, clutching my hand. His eyes were clouded with age, but his grip was like iron.

“Leo, I’m no good anymore. Can’t protect you. You’ve got three great trials coming for you, son. Each one worse than the last. They’re gates to hell, and they’re all meant for you.”

“These three walnuts,” he’d rasped, “they cost me half my remaining life to get. You remember, you hear me? You open them exactly when I told you.”

I never had parents. My grandpa raised me, pulling me out of a dumpster and then pulling a life for us out of other people’s trash. Everyone in our small town said he was a lunatic, but I knew the truth: he was the only anchor I had in the world.

I carved his words into my bones.

On my twenty-fifth birthday, I opened the first walnut.

【Go to the overpass on the interstate. Give the first panhandler you see every dollar in your wallet, then ask for his forgiveness.】

The instruction was bizarre, humiliating. But I went. The panhandler under the bridge, filthy and reeking of stale beer, suddenly grabbed me after I’d mumbled my apology. He threw me to the ground, shielding my body with his.

It was that single, violent motion that saved me from the steel hook that shot out from a windowless van careening past us.

The next second, cops swarmed from every direction. The panhandler pulled out a badge, her voice a clear command. “Police! Don’t move!”

That was her. That was Maya.

It was a trafficking ring that used fake job interviews to lure male college students. I had been their next mark, a target they’d been watching for six months. If Maya hadn’t used her body to shield me, that hook would have snagged me, and I would have vanished from the face of the earth.

At the trial, I was the star witness. The ringleader, a woman, was sentenced to death. Her husband sat in the gallery, his eyes drilling into me with pure, unadulterated venom.

He screamed, his voice raw and grating. “Leo Carter! I’ll remember you!”

Then he pointed a trembling finger at me, his face contorted. “You destroyed my family! Me and my daughter, we’ll never let you go! You’ll never know a moment of peace for the rest of your life!”

His curse has been a cold snake coiled around my neck for three years.

And Maya, for her heroism, was fast-tracked from a street cop to a detective in the city’s Major Crimes Division. Her future was dazzling. She wasn’t just my hero; she was the floodlight that chased out all the shadows. Our love story felt inevitable, written in the stars.

But now, this photograph. This single, impossible photograph had just shattered my entire world.

My hands trembling, I tore off the tuxedo jacket, pulled on the simple jeans and t-shirt I’d arrived in, and fled out the back door of the venue like a coward.

I didn’t have the courage to confront her, to ask the question. The smile on her face in that picture was too real. So real it terrified me to my core.

I left that city, erased my number, and deleted every contact I had.

But I wasn’t without hope. My grandpa had left me one last walnut.

As long as I had that, I knew I could survive.