Page 15

15

The Loser

“Bitch!” The word claws its way through my parched lips as my eyes snap open. White-hot pain lances through my chest—deeper than anything Naomi inflicted during our week together in that cabin. This is different. Bullet wound. My bullet. My gun.

The hospital room swims into focus—clinical white walls, antiseptic smell riding underneath the copper tang of blood still lingering in my nostrils. The mattress beneath me is stiffer than the one she’d strapped me to.

Grizz sits in the room’s only chair. No Mayhem cut. Instead, a badge glints on his belt under the harsh fluorescents. The dress shirt looks wrong on him—like putting a suit on a grizzly bear. But the eyes haven’t changed. Still watching. Assessing. Cataloging my every twitch.

I always knew.

My throat burns like I’ve swallowed glass. A plastic pitcher sits on the rolling table near my bed. I reach for it, and pain detonates through my chest, shoving me back against the pillows. My mouth is desert-dry. Like any answers he thinks he’ll get from me.

Good luck, fucker.

We stare at each other, seconds stretching into a silent battlefield.

“What did you do to Naomi Weston?” His voice is gravelly, official.

Her? I almost laugh. What about what she did to me? The thought stays locked behind my teeth. I blink slowly, conserving energy.

My kitten shot me. The realization brings a faint smirk I don’t bother hiding. She was magnificent in her rage, all that beautiful darkness finally embracing what I always saw in her. Pride blooms warm in my chest, right alongside the bullet hole.

Grizz is already giving too much away. The cops haven’t found her.

“Jace, where is she?” He leans forward, elbows on knees. “Did you kill her along with the others?”

Others?

The revelation hits like a second bullet. They think I killed Edge. How could they imagine my little kitten carving up the club’s enforcer with his own blades? Edge’s preference for steel was legendary within Mayhem and among our enemies.

Known intimately by my Naomi.

Another smile fights to break through. If this undercover piece of shit thinks he’s walking away from this, he’s more delusional than I thought. Life expectancy for rats is notoriously short.

“We found your wife at Edge’s place on the outskirts of town.”

The words don’t land how he expects. So Misty’s singing like a canary. Treacherous bitch. You should never trust a clubwhore—they’re useful for exactly one thing. Not like my kitten. Naomi is something else entirely.

The silence stretches between us like a tripwire. Grizz finally breaks, grabbing the cup and handing it to me.

“Drink. Then you better start talking.”

His demand lacks teeth. He’s no threat—not anymore. Not like the woman who put me here.

The water is stale and lukewarm, but it soothes the fire in my throat. I drink slowly, wishing it was something stronger, deliberately making him wait. Watching his patience unravel thread by thread.

When the silence becomes its own form of violence, Grizz’s jaw clenches.

“You’re some kind of psycho,” he says, voice tight. “I tell you we found your wife’s body, and you have no reaction at all.”

“You didn’t say she was dead. You said you found her at Edge’s.”

“She’s dead!” His control slips, voice rising. “And I want answers, dammit!”

His desperation is amusing. Makes me want to take a vow of silence.

I’m not distraught about Misty. Only that I didn’t do it when she waved that positive piss stick in my face. Had Edge killed her before tracking me down?

“Was her corpse fresh?” The question escapes almost casually.

Grizz looks at me like I’ve started speaking in tongues, disgust twisting his features.

“You’re a sick fuck, you know that?”

Not the first time I’ve heard it. Won’t be the last. What others think of me only matter to them.

He pulls out a crime scene photo, slapping it down where I can see it. So much blood it’s difficult to make out details beyond the gore. Most of the woman’s face is gone—just a red mask of tissue, bone fragments, and brain matter.

“Are you sure that’s even her?” I reach for the photo, curious, and he snatches it away.

“Yes.” He tucks it back inside a folder, then removes another. This one shows Edge’s corpse in my kitchen, his own collection of blades decorating him like macabre piercings gone wrong. Almost beautiful—the fierce enforcer killed by the same weapons he used to end so many lives. Poetic. “I don’t have one for Naomi, just her blood in your damn kitchen mixed with your enforcer’s. Tell me what you did with her body.”

I almost laugh at the simplicity of his mind. He thinks I killed her. In a way, maybe I did—I saw the look in her eyes before she pulled that trigger. The moment she became exactly what I always knew she could be.

I saw the monster who finally saw the real me.

She didn’t do what I expected. She ran. But that’s fine. Our game can continue.

I’ve always enjoyed the chase.

“Was Misty alone when you found her, Grizz?”

“Yeah, why?”

Oh, kitten. You clever, vicious bitch. Game on.

Grizz exhales sharply, frustration rolling off him. “We found a cell phone—Naomi’s. Had some interesting things on it.” He leans closer. “But we’ll have time to go over all of it when you get out of here and I take you to county.”

“Why would you do that?” I keep my voice light. “You don’t really think I killed my wife and best friend, do you? Even you aren’t that stupid.”

His nostrils flare. Good.

“I have time to get evidence for that too,” he says, straightening. “But we’re more interested in that armored truck robbery fifteen years ago. You’re aware there is no statute of limitations on a federal crime?” His mouth curves into something ugly. “An anonymous tip led us to a spot deep in the bayou where we found that hoard of stolen cash burned to ash. I’d like to thank Naomi for leaving enough singed serial numbers to trace. Is that why you killed her?”

He stretches back in the chair like he’s got all the time in the world. “Your old man is probably ready to get out after hearing the latest club news, since he’s innocent. I’m sure he has questions for you. Like where his daughter has been these last fifteen years. Why she never came to visit him? Or why you never even reported her missing?”

Something cold slithers down my spine. Motherfucker.

Awareness coils around my neck like a python.

“Naomi did this and she took my son.”

“Oh, so now she’s not only alive but a kidnapper too?” Grizz’s smile is all teeth, no humor.

“Find my son!” The words rip from my throat, raw and ragged.

I try to sit up, but my arm won’t respond. That’s when I notice the cold metal biting into my wrist, the cuff chaining me to the bed rail. My gaze snaps back to the man I once called brother.

Grizz smiles, slow and satisfied. He winks. “I’m sure he’s with your wife’s extended family in Mississippi, wasn’t it? That’s Jackals territory. Did you know her family has long ties to the Dixie Mafia? Of course you did, that’s probably why you married her. We have so much to discuss once you’re well enough.”

And in that moment, I finally understand. My kingdom burned to ash. My club raided. My freedom gone. And Naomi—my beautiful, vicious kitten—has orchestrated it all. Every piece falling perfectly into place.

She wasn’t playing my game. I was playing hers.

And I’ve lost.