Page 145

Eden

Sometimes the good guys win.

By the time I’ve finished explaining, my voice is hoarse, andthere isn’t a single set of stunned eyes not turned on me. Sullivan’s mouth is hanging open, and he blinks at me like his brain is short-circuiting.

A bird trills somewhere in the trees.

“Look, sugar, you even managed to shut the banshee up.” Jayk smirks.

It’s enough to break the silence.

Mutters spring up like rustling leaves among the Sinners. Heather whips a scowl at Jayk, and Sawyer takes a step back, only to run into Lucky’s rifle. Behind us, I hear Dom barking orders for someone to move, and Beau’s low, warning murmurs, but that doesn’t matter now.

The danger’s not over yet.

I clear my tired throat, my eyes still on Sullivan, who is staring down at Alastair and Mateo like he’s never seen them before.

“I don’t know what happened after our phone call with Mateo and Bentley.

” I glance at Lucky, who is disarming Sawyer in a few quick, rough moves, then back at Sullivan.

“We assumed that they must have been wrong, of course, and you and Heather had just been waiting for the right time to strike. Bentley did call us, and he mentioned that he had the captives with him, though, so I’m not sure how that. ..”

There are still pieces I can’t quite make sense of, but...

“No!” Sawyer snaps, pushing back on Lucky, his voice panicked. “Let me go, I?—”

Lucky’s face is cold as he brings his pistol down hard on Sawyer’s face, kicking his legs out from under him until Sawyer staggers to his knees, and Jayk raises his rifle so it’s pointing at Sawyer.

“Stay still, Sawyer, and maybe we don’t shoot you.” Lucky steps back with a humorless smile. “Then again, my buddy over here has been having the worst hay fever. Can’t promise what’ll happen if he sneezes.”

“You’ve been murdering us!” Sawyer shouts, staring between us, his eyes wide and disbelieving. “We let you into our home. We fed you. We?—”

“Don’t you dare ,” I snarl, my cool finally breaking.

I take two steps forward and slap him hard across the face.

He’s lucky I’m not the one with the gun.

“How dare you throw that in our face? How many women, Sawyer? How many women did you let into your home? How many women did you feed? How many women felt safe here before you trapped them and bound them out in the cold and then shipped them off like livestock to be raped?”

I slap him again, and the Sinners around me grow louder.

The panic in Sawyer’s eyes writhes as he looks at me. He jerks, but Lucky holds him still for me.

“Or did you do it yourself, too?” I whisper, searching his face, and my skin crawls at the desperation there. “Why hold yourself back, right? It’s going to happen anyway.”

“I never fucking touched them,” he bites out, word by word, and I glower down at him, letting him see every ounce of contempt I hold for him.

God, the relief not to have to hide it anymore.

From this pathetic, loathsome coward.

I turn my back on him, and he shouts, “We didn’t have a choice! We’re not bad people. You’re making it sound like... like we’re predators.”

I stop, my skin prickling with the need to hurt him.

A short distance away, Heather’s face is darkening with each word, and the Sinners are moving restlessly, their mutters breaking into low arguments.

Sullivan’s rubbing his forehead like he’s trying to think, uncertainty spilling into his face.

“The Sinners attacked us ,” Sawyer pleads.

“ Everyone was attacking us. We didn’t know how to make it stop.

We weren’t brave like you. It was... Sam wanted women.

It was the only way to stop the killing.

We didn’t even go searching for them, it was only when they came to us and we.

.. we made it gentle. We gave them blankets.

Food. We... the Sinners wouldn’t have done any of that! We didn’t want to!”

There’s another hard smack behind me, and Lucky snaps, “You really need to stop fucking talking.”

Jayk cocks one brow at me, lifting his rifle in question, but I shake my head. He’s hurt a lot of people. They have the right to choose how he’s handled.

But Sawyer doesn’t know when to quit. “When Akira came to us, told us about all you folks, we weren’t going to trade you! We wanted out of this deal with the Sinners! Doesn’t that count for anything? As soon as we saw any other way, we took it. We’re not bad men!”

I only spare him one cold look. “You can ask the women you traded how much it counts for.”

Behind me, Dom, Beau, and Jasper come up with Akira and Cole at gunpoint. They kick them down into the dirt beside Sawyer.

“The civs have secured the mess hall,” Dom tells us in a low voice, standing tall over the Reapers. “There’s not much the unarmed Reapers can do unless they want a face full of bullets.”

“I’d love for them to give Sloane a reason,” I mutter back.

“No, I’m sorry, I...” Sullivan breaks in, finally looking up. His face is creased in confusion and worry, and a touch of stubbornness. “Stop. Stop, Heather. Everyone, stop! There’s... I’m sorry, there’s no evidence of any of this. We need to investigate, or...”

Adjusting his shirt, he looks around, finally settling on Alastair and Mateo. Mateo is wriggling, like he’s trying to escape his bonds without anyone noticing.

But it’s Alastair who gentles some of my rage.

Alastair’s intense, shadowed eyes are locked on Heather, not shifting, and she’s staring back at him the same way.

I wonder if she knows how much of what she’s feeling is in her face right now.

Sullivan’s breath leaves him in a hard exhale.

“ No . I have watched these men kill and torture and inspire fear. I’ve watched them... I saw ...” He shakes his head. “ No . It’s not possible. They were handing women out to their men like they were desserts. They.. . they collared you!” He swings around to look at Heather. “They?—”

There’s another screech of tires behind the convoy.

Then another.

And another.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, what now?” Sullivan huffs, turning.

“Are we too late?” Bentley’s frantic voice sounds like an earthquake as he comes running around. He’s unshaven, heavy circles under his eyes, and his clothes are barely slapped together.

Arthur appears beside him, and a dozen more from Red Zone, in their chain mail and holding weapons that shine bright enough to reflect the sun.

And slowly, tentatively, women whisper up behind them.

Women of all ages, races, heights, and sizes. Some of them hang back, looking like they might bolt. Others have rage burning in their eyes.

The captives.

Tears burn my throat, finally seeing them. This... this is who I did all of this for.

And they’re not captives any longer.

“Please! Someone tell me I’m not too fucking late right—” Bentley’s voice breaks as he sees Alastair and Mateo on their knees, and he bends over at the waist, heaving in a breath. “Oh, thank fuck. Thank...”

He straightens, running his hands over his face, then he strides forward. A few Sinners lift their rifles, but he doesn’t even glance at them.

Bentley hauls Mateo to his feet and yanks him against his chest in one smooth move. His wide hand presses against the back of Mateo’s head, his fingers tunneling into his soft curls as he holds him tight.

“Bentley, what...?” Sullivan mutters, his brow creasing again as he takes in the new arrivals.

Bentley ignores him too, and he turns to look at Heather, his eyes hot and bright.

“Thank you, angel,” he says, his usual booming voice tremblingly soft. “ Thank ?—”

“No. Stop. No .” Heather shakes her head, blinking hard as her lips twist, then she finally snorts, sniffling hard, and looks at Mateo.

She rolls her eyes. “Bent, you might want to...”

Bentley looks down at Mateo, who seems to be doing his best to pull himself free of Bentley’s heavy arms, and Bentley releases him abruptly. Mateo glares over the gag, and Bentley laughs.

“Oh, yeah.”

He tugs the gag down over Mateo’s chin, and Mateo glowers at him, waiting patiently until Bentley works him free of his ties.

Struck silent, looking between the women gathering around and Sullivan and even Heather for direction, none of the Sinners say a word.

Sullivan meets my eyes, silently frantic and confused, and I give him a soft, sad smile. I can understand his panic. This is clearly something he’s planned for a long, long time, and he’s just lost all sight of who his enemy is.

I know what that feels like.

Arthur whispers to a tall blonde woman by his side, and after a moment she nods, and he leads her over to Sullivan. And as she speaks, Sullivan’s eyes get wider and wider.

Slowly, Alastair gets to his feet, and he stands straight and proud as he waits, though not for the Sinners’ judgement.

His eyes are still on Heather.

Tentatively, she holsters her pistols and walks forward.

My lips part, and I know I should be focused on what the captives are saying to Sullivan, but... Heather is looking back .

With her eyes .

Bentley tugs Mateo out of her way, and when she reaches Alastair, she leans up and pulls the cloth gag out of his mouth, letting it fall around his neck.

He looks down at her with that same silent intensity.

“I liked it better when you were on your knees,” Heather finally says to Alastair. Her words are pitched with her usual cocky swagger, but there’s a huskiness to her voice, an emotion I can’t quite put my finger on.

But Alastair’s expression doesn’t shift.

With hushed, deliberate seriousness, he says, “If it means you like me at all, Deathwish, then I’ll kneel.”

A soft squeak escapes me, and I look over at Lucky, who turns his back on them so he can grin at me, his brows lifting in amusement.

Sawyer shifts at his feet, and Lucky absently kicks him back into place.

Someone touches my back softly, and I look up to see Jasper. I lean into his side, looking over the crowd.

Some of the Sinners have come around and they’re talking to Dom, while Jayk walks over to Beau where he’s monitoring Cole and Akira. Sullivan is starting to nod, his expression softening as he talks to the blonde woman, and Arthur sends me a small, friendly wave.

Several women peel away from their group and jog over to hug Heather and laugh with Mateo, whose face warms as they speak until his kindness really does make him look like the angel I always saw in him.

The sun is high in the sky now, finally warming up the day, and it almost looks like it’s... over.

“ . . . him ! He ?—”

I turn, my grip tightening on Jasper as one of the women near Arthur breaks away from the group, running back to the cars. Several women follow her.

My stomach turns, and slowly, I walk up to their group.

A small, unassuming woman steps out to intercept me, her expression wary.

“I’m Eden,” I tell her, and she nods, but her gaze drifts to Sawyer and Cole.

“Cassie,” she murmurs after a moment.

“The Reapers are all being contained by our people. We...” I take a deep breath.

“It’s not enough, but it’s your decision what you want to do with them.

You can take as long or as little time as you want—and if you don’t want it at all, then we can handle it ourselves.

Either way... they’re not doing this to anyone else. ”

She’s silent for a long while after that, just watching everyone move about, and a small frown starts to form in her forehead.

“It’s . . . it’s really over?” she whispers.

My lip trembles at the raw, disbelieving confusion in her voice.

And my eyes find my brutes, all standing together under the sun.

“Yes,” I finally whisper back. “It’s really over.”