Blurb：
When Sawyer Ramsey returns to her cursed Louisiana hometown with fiancé Rory Hart, she unwittingly resurrects a generations-old nightmare. The Ramsey family’s Depression-era gold – buried where her father met his grisly end – whispers promises of wealth... and death. But Rory’s obsession with the treasure awakens something far darker than greed in Blackwater Parish.
Now, beneath the suffocating bayou heat and Judith Ramsey’s glacial stare, Sawyer must confront:
The truth about her father’s shovel-and-slash demise
Rory’s frantic phone calls and midnight shovel rituals
Old Man Gable’s iron grip on the town’s secrets
Her mother’s shotgun-toting vigilance over cursed soil
As the sapphire engagement ring weighs heavier than ever, Sawyer learns the Ramsey gold isn’t buried treasure – it’s bait. And in the shadow of the rotting barn, where blood feeds hungry soil, she discovers the chilling family legacy: The curse doesn’t kill trespassers. It makes them kill themselves.
Content：
§PROLOGUEI'd dig up all the treasure in the world for you, Sawyer.
Rory’s voice was a warm murmur against my hair, his arms a familiar cage of comfort around me.
We were parked at a scenic overlook, the city lights below a distant, glittering promise we were about to leave behind.
His engagement ring, a simple silver band with a tiny sapphire, felt heavy on my finger.
It was a promise of a future I desperately wanted to believe in.
"Just… maybe not the treasure in my family's backyard," I said, trying to keep my tone light.
"They say it's cursed."
He chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that usually soothed me.
"Every good treasure story needs a curse."
He pulled back, his eyes catching the dim light of the dashboard.
They were bright with an excitement that, for the first time, felt unsettling.
"Don't worry," he whispered, kissing my forehead.
"I'll protect you from all the ghosts."
But as we drove into the encroaching darkness of the Louisiana backroads, I couldn't shake the feeling that he wasn't bringing me home to face my ghosts.
He was bringing me home to feed them.
§01
A shovel, a slit throat, and a ghost story about cursed gold.
That’s all I had left of my father.
More than a decade later, the memory was still a shard of glass lodged in my mind, sharp and immovable.
Now, Rory’s Ford F-150 was kicking up that same red Louisiana dust, rattling down the gravel road that led to the place I swore I’d never return to.
Blackwater Parish.
Even the name tasted like stagnant water and decay.
"You okay?" Rory asked, his hand finding mine.
His touch was warm, solid.
The opposite of everything this place represented.
I nodded, a lie that felt thin even to me.
"Just… memories."
The Ramsey property came into view, a tired-looking farmhouse sagging under the weight of the humid air and its own history.
And there, behind it, was the old barn, its paint peeling like sunburnt skin.
The land behind that barn was where my grandfather had supposedly buried his life savings during the Great Depression—a fortune in gold.
It was also where my father had died.
My mother, Judith, was standing on the porch.
She hadn't changed.
Her hair was a cascade of premature gray, her face a mask of stoic neutrality that I could never quite decipher.
She didn't smile as we got out of the truck.
She just watched, her eyes passing over me and landing on Rory with an unreadable intensity.
"Mom," I said, the word feeling foreign on my tongue.
She gave a curt nod.
"Sawyer."
Then, her gaze fixed on Rory.
"So, you're the one who convinced her to come back."
"I thought it was time," Rory said, his voice laced with the easy charm that had won me over.
"A family should be together."
My mother’s lips thinned into a line that was almost a sneer.
"This family," she said, her voice low and brittle, "has a history of being buried together."
§02
The engagement barbecue was my mother’s idea of a concession.
Which meant she'd allowed me to use the grill in the backyard, not twenty yards from the cursed ground.
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The End