The City of Forts Trilogy, Book Three

Ricky Nardilo tells himself he's only going back for two days. But in this town, doing the right thing is just another way to get hurt.

Seven years he's kept the old town folded up small enough to carry without feeling its weight - the badge he broke, the men he buried, the brother he left behind. Seven years he's told himself the man who did those things isn't the man tucking his daughter in each night, isn't the husband whose wife still reaches for like he's someone worth the trouble. Then the phone rings. His brother, beaten and in hospital. Something in Ricky, something patient, something that never actually left, sits up and starts paying attention.

The town is exactly as he remembers it and worse: a hunger dressed up as commerce, a widow's grief gone glassy and strange out on her horse farm, a father returned looking for sons to command. And Brett. Not the boy Ricky carried on his back, but someome wearing that boy's face, chasing a dead man's kingdom and a rich woman's attention with the same desperate, terrifying want.

Ricky keeps counting the days he has left with his own daughter, back home, running out of them faster than anyone will say out loud. He keeps telling himself two more days.

This is a story about what blood does to memory, what memory does to love, and how easily a man convinces himself that just one more debt is the last one. Every choice curls back on itself here. Every act of loyalty a small, private betrayal of someone else who needed him more.

The past doesn't come looking for you. It just waits, patiently, for you to come home.

Book 3 in the City of Forts Trilogy

Buy Where it Hurts now and experience the unforgettable conclusion to the City of Forts trilogy.

Praise for Jason Beech

"There are edges in every sentence. They keep the reader attentive and slightly off balance, alarmed maybe by what could jump out from the next page."
— Martine E. Poels

"Helluva storyteller … He can take you to a dark place one page and then have you laughing out loud on another."
— Stephen J. Golds, author of Say Goodbye When I'm Gone

"Jason Beech has a pleasingly gritty writing style—chiseled, polished, and instantly engaging—perfect for the hardboiled pulp and noir genres."
— Isobel Blackthorn