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Just like that, Jackson jerked his chin at his VP, Mason. “Stay behind with them and make sure Flush follows through. Gabriel, you stay, too. Princess here is slippery as blood.”
I was so. Fucking. Angry.
I took two storming steps forward. Knox grabbed my arm, but I didn’t hear his warning hiss. Jackson looked down his nose at me.
“Three men to watch little old me? I should be so lucky, President Black Jack.”
Jackson’s lip curled. He was glaring at me like I was dirt—like I was personally responsible for all his misfortunes.
And he was right.
“If your own daddy doesn’t want you anymore, that’s all I need to know. The man who taught his baby girl every dirty trick he knows—looked at you and decided you weren’t shit. You’re not here because you’re sorry,” he spat cruelly. “You’re here because you ran out of options. And I’m not stupid enough to forget what you did to us just because you’re crying about it now. Too bad Knox didn’t see it that way. Did you, Knox?”
Jackson’s eyes slid to Knox, whose hand dropped from my arm and looked away, rubbing his busted cheekbone.
A month ago, none of those words would have stung. I would have embraced the insults, made them my armor. But after last night, it felt like each word Jackson said was like him stabbing my heart. The jab at Knox was the final stab—and twist.
Black Jack and the other Devils mounted their bikes, revving them to life. I stared at the three remaining.
Still better than Vane.
CHAPTER 19
KNOX
Jackson had always been able to throw a mean punch. I just never thought I would be the one at the receiving end of his right hook.
My head was pounding, my neck ached, and my bleeding cheekbone felt like it had been cracked open. I wanted to pop a painkiller, chase it with the whiskey I had stashed somewhere in the trailer, and pass the fuck out on the bed spooning Caroline. Only her tits, ass, and fiery spirit could console me now.
That, or me inside her, warm and wet and?—
Fuck, I was losing my mind.
There was no time for my sad excuses for injuries or horny delusions. There were still a handful of hours until the limo arrived to take Caroline a million miles away. That was the focus right now. Soon she’d be gone, and the Devil’s Luck could put all this behind them.
Or try to.
I was pretty sure I was going to be thinking about how good it felt to be inside her until the day I died. Shit. Stop thinking about her like that, dick-for-brains.
There was just lust between us, and that was where it had to end. She was the enemy. She was leaving. The whole thing was over before it started.
Maybe that was why it—why she—felt so good.
What didn’t feel good was watching my own president cut her down with the words he’d probably had lined up for months. Even a blind idiot could see every jab was a knife to her gut. Jackson devastated her with his threats, and they both believed she deserved it.
Maybe she did.
But I certainly knew that the sins of the father shouldn’t define the child. No one understood that better than I did.
“Caroline,” I began.
She didn’t look at me. I reached out to hold her hand, but she ripped free and stormed into the trailer, slamming and locking the door.
Behind me, Mason snorted. He and Gabriel plopped into the camping chairs in front of the fire pit.
“All that bite, but look at the entitled bitch tuck tail and run as soon as things don’t go her way.”
“Watch it,” I barked, kicking his chair.