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“Yes,” was all he replied.

“You’ll make sure he knows I love him? That I didn’t leave him?” Tears clogged her voice.

“Yes.”

Taking a deep breath, “You burn them to the fucking ground, Dominic,” she told him angrily, hanging up before he could say anything else. She didn’t want to hear any more. If she did, her heart might shatter completely.

Dropping the phone, she stomped on it until it smashed, ripped the necklace from her throat and tossed it to the side. Looking up into Bradshaw’s taunting eyes she told him, “Let’s go.”

He laughed as she walked towards him, smirking while she climbed in the SUV.

*****

Fuck, fuck, fuck! This wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out. He didn’t know how they had found out where Jax was staying, but he was going to figure it out. What worried him most was the lack of any emotion in Dee’s voice as she hung up on him. She should damn well be mad as hell at him. She should have screamed and yelled and fought for him to choose her, to not let Bradshaw take her. But she did none of those things. She kept her cool and did everything he would have done.

In the photo Brooke sent him, Jax had tears running down his face. He was tied up and tape covered his mouth. A small bruise had begun to form on his cheek as well, so he knew without a doubt that they would hurt his son if any of his or Creed’s men followed them as they left.

The text came with a warning to stay put until he received another call from Brooke. He wouldn’t stay. He’d go, he’d hunt, he’d do whatever it took to get his family back and knew without a shadow of a doubt that every one of the men scattered out right now would help him do it.

Taking Deedee’s last comment to heart, he’d burn them to the fucking ground. When he was done with them, they would wish they’d never dared to cross him.

Speed-dialing Case’s phone, he picked up before the first ring was through. “What the fuck just happened?” he demanded.

“We were fucking naïve, that’s what. We had all these men here with us when we should have had some with Jaxson. Brooke’s fucking got him.”

“That bitch is good as dead,” Case snapped. “Creed’s calling everyone back now. Two guys are tailing the SUVs from the fields on horses—don’t ask, you don’t need to know.”

“Have someone at the airport, too. Did Creed find out where he was staying?”

“He’s got two possible places for the prick and is sending two men to each now,” he explained, “We’ll get them both, Dom. Fucking believe it or you’re useless to us.”

“You a fucking mind reader now?” Case was right; he needed to get rid of the emotion and screw his head back on straight. Focus was paramount—concentrating on what he would do if he wasn’t emotionally invested. “If they lose eyes on her, I want to know immediately.”

“You got it, boss,” Case responded, hanging up so they could converge at the house.

“Don’t take her from me, not now. Not after everything we’ve been through.” He spoke to no one in particular, but he had to get the words out, to know he at least said them.

Twenty-two

As they drove away from the house she’d come to believe of as her home, her sanctuary, she knew she’d never see it again. Her life as she knew it was over, and now Bradshaw would do to her as he had planned all those years ago.

“No tears for your lost lover?” he mocked her.

She ignored him. What could she possibly say? Tears would make her feel worse. Emotion would make him happy. Either way it would destroy anything left in her.

“If he’d only left well enough alone seven years ago, you wouldn’t be in this position now.”

“Yeah it’s his fault you were going to sell me. He should have just killed you then,” she said to him without taking her eyes off the roadside.

“You wound me,” he mocked her again.

“What is it you want with me?” she finally asked him.

“Your whore mother deprived me of something when she slummed it up with that moron Brock,” he began.

“What’s that?” She shouldn’t have asked. I really shouldn’t have.

“An heir.”