Page 3 of Jagger’s Remorse (Iron Veins MC #1)

I shove her inside, lock the door behind us.

She surveys the space like a general studying a battlefield.

Takes in the weapons mounted on the walls.

The reinforced door. The barred windows. The bed with its metal frame, perfect for restraints.

"Cozy," she murmurs. "Very serial killer chic."

"Sit." She perches on the edge of my bed like she owns it.

Like she's not a prisoner who was just bartered for a debt.

Like she's exactly where she planned to be.

"So," she says conversationally, "how do you want to do this? Should I beg prettily for my life? Cry about my dead daddy? Or should we skip to the part where you chain me up and pretend you're not hard thinking about it?"

I backhand her.

Not hard enough to knock her off the bed, but enough to split her lip fresh.

She touches the blood with her tongue and smiles.

"There he is. There's the monster who kills fathers in front of their daughters."

"You have no idea what kind of monster I am."

"Don't I?" She spreads her legs slightly, a challenge in every line of her body.

"Jackson Reid. Former Marine, Force Recon.

Two tours in Afghanistan. Got your St. Michael pendant from your mother before your first deployment.

She died while you were overseas—cancer—and you couldn't make it back for the funeral.

You've been trying to make up for it ever since. "

My hand is around her throat before I realize I've moved. "How?—"

"I know everything about you."

Her pulse flutters under my palm like a trapped bird. "Every job you've done. Every man you've killed. Every Sunday, you sit in the back of St. Augustine's trying to find the words to confess but never speaking. Every nightmare that wakes you at night."

"You've been watching me."

"For five years." She leans into my grip, cutting off her own air. "Every day since you murdered my father, I've studied you. Learned you. Prepared for you."

I release her, stepping back. "Then you know what I'm capable of."

"I'm counting on it." She rubs her throat, my handprint already blooming purple. "Question is, do you know what I'm capable of?"

"You're a college girl trying to play with revenge."

She laughs again, that broken glass sound. "Oh, Jagger. You beautiful, stupid man."

She stands, moving into my space. "I graduated, actually. Top of my class. Could have gone to any law school in the country. Instead, I went home to Culiacán. Do you know what they do to girls who want to learn the family business down there?"

"I don't?—"

"They feed them to the wolves." She pulls up her top, revealing a map of scars across her ribs. "These are from my first teacher. He liked knives. Said pain was the best educator."

Higher, showing a bullet scar near her heart. "This is from my second teacher. She believed that lessons should leave marks."

She turns, showing me her back.

Whip marks. Burn scars. A tattoo of Santa Muerte inked between the violence.

"Five years, Jagger. Five years of learning how to survive everything you and your brothers want to do to me. How to endure. How to wait. How to win."

She drops her shirt and faces me again. "So let's be clear about what's happening here. You didn't capture me. I captured you."

"You're fuckin’ insane."

"Probably." She shrugs. "Trauma does that. Watching your father's brains paint the walls tends to affect a girl's mental health."

"Why are you here?"

"You know why."

"Revenge."

"Justice." She corrects. "Revenge would be putting a bullet in your head while you sleep. Justice is making you suffer first."

"And you think being my prisoner will accomplish that?"

She smiles, slow and dangerous. "I think being your prisoner is the only way to accomplish that. You're going to fall in love with me, Jagger. Going to need me like air. Going to beg me to stay."

She steps closer, close enough I can smell vanilla and gunpowder and blood. "And when you do, when you're completely mine, I'm going to destroy everything you've ever loved and leave you breathing in the ashes."

"I should kill you now."

"But you won't." She reaches up, fingers ghosting over my jaw. "Because I'm right. Because you've been dreaming about me for five years. Because every woman you've fucked since that night has had amber eyes and dark hair and you hate yourself for it."

I grab her wrist, squeezing until the bones grind. "You don't know shit."

"Then why is there a box under your bed with newspaper clippings about me? Berkeley graduation. Dean's list announcements. That feature about my work at the legal clinic."

Her free hand finds my chest, right over my racing heart. "Why do you have my father's obituary in your wallet? Why do you visit his grave every year on the anniversary?"

I shove her away, but she's already under my skin.

Already in my head.

"How long have you been watching me?"

"Longer than you've been watching me." She backs toward the bed, predator pretending to be prey. "The question is, what are you going to do about it?"

I pull the chain from my closet—the one I use for prisoners who need breaking.

She holds out her wrists.

"Ankle," I growl.

"Kinky."

But she sits, lets me shackle her ankle to the bed frame.

"Afraid I'll strangle you in your sleep?"

"Afraid you'll run before I'm done with you."

"Where would I run?" She settles back against my pillows like she belongs there. "I'm exactly where I want to be."

I test the chain, making sure it's secure.

She's got maybe four feet of movement.

Enough to reach the bathroom.

Not enough to reach the door. Or the weapons.

"Get some sleep," I order. "Tomorrow, you start talking."

"About what?"

"Whatever the cartel wants. Your father's routes. The money. All of it."

She yawns, stretching like a cat. "Sure. Tomorrow I'll tell you everything." She curls onto her side, eyes already closing. "Tonight, I'm going to sleep in the bed of the man who murdered my father and dream about all the ways I'm going to make him scream."

I should leave. Go to the couch. Put distance between us.

Instead, I sit in the chair by the window, Glock in my lap, and watch her sleep.

She looks younger like this. Softer. Like the girl she was before I destroyed her life.

But I know better. That girl is gone. I killed her the same night I killed her father.

What's in my bed now is something else entirely.

Something I created.

Something that's come to collect.

Her breathing evens out, but just before she goes under, she whispers: "Sweet dreams, Jagger. Try not to think about how good I'll look covered in your blood."

I pour three fingers of whiskey and settle in for a long night.

She's wrong about one thing. I won't fall in love with her.

Love requires a heart, and mine died somewhere in the Afghan mountains.

But she's right about the rest. I've been dreaming about her for five years. And now she's here, chained to my bed, promising to destroy me.

Part of me—the part that still believes in penance—thinks I should let her.

It's what I deserve.

Justice, like she said. But the darker part, the one that earns my keep with blood and bullets, has other ideas.

She thinks she's prepared for what's coming.

Thinks her five years of training have made her ready.

She has no idea what kind of hell she's walked into.

Or what kind of devil owns her now.

I touch my St. Michael pendant and wonder if saints listen to men like me.

Probably not. But maybe that's the point.

Maybe some sins don't get forgiven.

They just get collected. With interest. And Scarlett Delgado has come to collect.