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Knox didn’t answer. He just leaned back in the metal chair. Watching. Waiting. Patient.
The lack of malice made me continue to lash out. “What are you thinking I am?”
“A survivor.”
I scoffed. “Sure.”
“Ask me what I’m really thinking about.”
I knew he wasn’t going to let up. “Fine. What are you thinking about?”
Knox turned to the fire, the light and shadows a dark dance on his face—though not darker than the look in his eyes. Even in my state, I felt the intensity of his gaze. A shiver climbed up my spine.
“I’m thinking about how much of a sick fuck you have to be to tie up your own daughter and leave her to…” Knox stopped abruptly, his jaw ticking again.
I stared at the muscle flexing there and the way his clenched fists turned his knuckles white. He’s seething. Knox nudged a log with his boot, sending sparks flying. I winced at the angry action, but I wasn’t afraid.
“Why do you care so damn much?”
Knox turned to me, and his look pierced my soul. My breath caught. Fuck, his eyes were hypnotic. “Because unlike a Wolverine, us Devils have a code and a moral fucking compass. I could hand you over to Black Jack right now, and even though he hates you to the marrow of his bones, he’d never do what your own daddy did to you. He’d protect you from that.”
I almost laughed. “You really believe that?”
Knox ran a hand through his black hair, which was unruly with sweat, wind, and maybe some blood. He turned to the fire again, eyes burning just as fiercely as the flames, but his voice was exhausted when he said, “I have to.”
CHAPTER 11
KNOX
It made me furious that Caroline would think she was pathetic.
That was pathetic. The woman, who wore white pantsuits, yanked her hair back into that ponytail like she was in the military, and outsmarted my own brothers, had been reduced to imposter syndrome? Fuck that. She was a badass. She freed herself from that chair and those ropes. I had just provided a distraction.
Sure, she looked like hell and she was trying to forget, but that didn’t make her pathetic. It made her human. And I would rather she look like this than whatever she’d look like if that bastard guarding her had been allowed to continue.
As for Jackson, I had to believe my president wouldn’t resort to such depravity. Even though he hated Caroline as much as her father for all the shit they’d both pulled, especially against Sam, even though he wouldn’t have run in to save her, Black Jack wouldn’t hurt her in retaliation. If Jackson knew what I’d done to free his enemy, what would he do? I knew he wouldn’t let me go scot free, and I was fine with accepting the consequences of my actions. But if he took it out on Caroline? Well, maybe I wouldn’t want to wear Devil’s Luck leathers anymore. We were bound to our own moral code. Lawless? Maybe. But not animals. We had principles.
But that was jumping the gun.
Caroline was still sitting on the picnic bench. She had finished her ramen, which was good, but it remained to be seen how her constitution would take that mixed with tequila. All the adrenaline was draining out of her, and the rough time she’d had would start catching up with her.
Watching her chug liquid fire was the sexiest thing I’d seen a woman do in a long-ass time.
Seeing her get wound up at almost everything I said? Turned me on like a damn light switch.
“Black Jack,” Caroline said, tone dripping with no shortage of cynicism, “is the same as my father. They’re just opposite sides of the battlefield.”
For her, there was no discussion on that. The matter of her thinking the Devil’s Luck were as bad as the Wolverines was settled.
Right now, I knew I couldn’t change her mind. All I could do was keep her fiery so she didn’t lapse into a dark place.
I’d been in too many dark places to let anyone else fall into them.
“I always knew you were fucked up,” I said with a lazy grin, leaning back in my uncomfortable-as-hell folding chair. I pretended it wasn’t, spreading my knees like I owned the entire forest. “But you’re more of a loon than I realized.”
Caroline blinked at me like I’d grown a second head. Then she looked like she wanted to turn into a feral cat and claw my eyes out.
I just grinned wider. “I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”