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Chapter Twenty-Seven

Jax

T he soft smell of the couch had my head wanting to loll on it and take a nap. With everything that had happened in the last few hours, I was emotionally depleted and just ready to check out from the world.

As if.

I was pissed beyond belief, unable to stop the anger and concern and fear all mixed into one. I was unarmed, tied to the fucking radiator of Mr. Jenkins’ house, having no idea if my club family was okay and not having a fucking clue where Ronnie was.

I spent the last twenty minutes startling at every little creak, thinking Ronnie was unknowingly about to walk through the door. She’d slip on her ass if she did though. With the amount of fuel that they were throwing on the floor, up the curtains, and on all the ancient furniture; it didn’t take a genius to know what they had in plan for me.

Why they’d go out of the way to burn me like a witch at the stake, though, was what had my mind reeling.

If this was business, and they were getting paid, then the only thing left to complete this puzzle would be to find out who the hell was filling their pockets. As a club that liked to dabble on the darker side of the law, there were plenty of enemies out there ready to slit our throats at a moment’s notice. But that was the main thing. Our enemies would be happy to get their hands dirty just to see the life leave our eyes. So far as I knew, the only one who wouldn’t was Ash’s father. He was overseas and had cut all ties to the Black Jacks after getting what he wanted last year.

There was no one else that came to mind.

“Fuck,” I grumbled under my breath, my head slamming back against the couch. It creaked backward a little, causing my body to jerk up quick. I skidded my back up against the thing, hiding my hands.

The little nail in the floorboard was loose, but it was also bent as hell and over fifty years old. The thing had taken me twenty minutes to work half loose and if I was going to have any chance at cutting these cable ties, I needed the tetanus-filled piece of metal. Fucking jackass nail. Maybe this place really did need burning to the ground.

Hopefully without me in it, however.

“LET GO OF ME!”

I froze.

That voice.

“RONNIE!” I yelled, not caring about the nail any longer as I threw myself from the radiator. It gave an ancient moan but didn’t move.

“Jackson…?” Ronnie’s quiet squeak of a voice echoed from beyond the room. I heard heavy footsteps and splashes as her body came into the view from the door frame.

She was tossed forward, landing front first over the soaked foot ottoman.

“Ronnie!” I lunged, trying desperately to get close to her but unable to.

“The two of you are just as bad.”

I jerked my head upward, the deep southern tone familiar to my ears. I turned my face to see a man I didn’t recognize, but the voice was undeniable. Years had passed and the boy I had once known had aged decades since I’d last seen him. He was a chiseled man with a beard and dark brows and short, cropped hair. Wrinkles lined his eyes and brow as he fixed his dirty brown glare at me.

“Jacob?”

“Nice to see you too, cousin,” Jacob Creek snarled, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “It’s been a while.”

Everything clicked into place.

“You’re the one who’s paying them? The Black Jacks?” I looked over his broad shoulder to see one of the men in black leather standing against the banister. Anatoli Ivanov didn’t flinch as he met my glare with a shrug, confirming my guess.

“What? How? Why?” I growled, tugging once more at the ropes holding me back. They were biting hard into my wrists, and I could feel the faint trail of blood begin to slip down my palms.

“I came across them looking for work, and it so happened I had a runaway wife I needed tracking down.” Jacob shrugged, his foot kicking out at the leg of the ottoman, shoving it from underneath Ronnie’s quivering body. She hit the floor with a groan, crumpled into a ball on the floor.

“Ronnie!” I lunged, wanting to scoop her up into my arms. “Ronnie, baby, look at me!”

Huge booted feet stood in my path and I looked up to find Jacob looking back down at me, blocking my path to Ronnie. “This is the why.”

My head snapped to one side, the weight of Jacob’s fist heavy against my cheek. I glared down at the floor, shifting my cheeks to spit out the swell of blood on my tongue. “Is that all you’ve got?” I chuckled. “You can’t be doing all this just to land that pathetic thing?”

“You can’t provoke me, Jackson.” Jacob shrugged, the serene calmness on his face making bile rise up my throat. “I’ve finally gotten everything I wanted: the farm, the money, the fame.” Jacob reached and stretched his hands up over his shoulders, taking in a deep breath. His hands fell back down at his sides, shaking off the stretch. “And now,” he continued, reaching for the canister the Black Jacks had left on the other cushioned seat next to Ronnie. “I can rid you from my world once and for all.”

He stepped back over to me, and before I could catch a breath, he doused the rest of the bottle over the top of my head. Gasoline burned my eyes and nose as I fought not to inhale or swallow any of the thick liquid.

I coughed and spluttered whatever made it into my orifices. The hot, painful burn of the fuel seeping into the wounds on my wrists made my stomach churn. My vision blurred over as I shook my head, trying to clear as much of it off my face as I could. I spotted Jacob tossing the bottle onto the floor before he moved his way over to Ronnie’s prone figure.

“Don’t touch her!” I growled, tasting the horrible liquid on my tongue.

Jacob chuckled, reaching down to her anyway. He grabbed a handful of hair, and with a squeal, Ronnie was dragged to her knees, her face pushed in my direction.

“Now look at him,” Jacob growled, using his other hand to grab her chin and force her look at me, covered head to toe in the gasoline and tied to the radiator. “This is the last look you’re going to get so make sure you take it in.”

“You bastard!” Ronnie hissed, she tried to fight against his grip, but with a swift kick to her side, Ronnie was slumping back against him with a groan of pain.

“JACOB!” I roared, wanting to rip the man limb from limb. “You’re dead! You hear me!”

“I think you should save those words for yourself,” Jacob snarled, shrugging off my comment.

He swapped his grip from Ronnie’s head to her arm and lifted her to her feet before shoving her toward the man with the wild hair and the scraggly beard.

Anatoli was quick to grab her, covering himself in the fuel. But being the businessman he was, he didn’t say anything. His tattooed, scarred arms got a good hold on her limp body before dragging her out of the house and out of my sight.

“Jacob!” I growled, my hand scrambling for the nail in the floor. My fingers were slippery and the second I touched the metal and pulled, it slipped from my grip. I couldn’t grab it!

“You know, no matter what I did, you hung over me like a shadow. My good grades, my business proposals, my girlfriends. You always did better, worked harder, dated prettier. I was second rate. Aunty and Uncle never even glanced at me when you left! I thought at long last they’d see that I should be the heir to the farm, not you. But even when you were gone, they wanted to wait for you to come back. Thought you’d see reason eventually. Wouldn’t even consider changing the will. Even if you had abandoned everything, they still wanted you. Always you. Even Veronica. I married her. I fucked her. I was going to put my baby in her stomach! But it was always you for her, Jackson. No matter how much I made her moan. Made her cry. Made her beg.”

Rage couldn’t even describe the burning inside of me. It was so furious that it was painful, tearing my own body apart with the need to burst free and slaughter the fucking monster standing in front of me.

“Now, don’t look at me like that, Jackson.” Jacob shrugged. “You threw her away first.”

He could have shot me or sliced me a thousand times or cut each limb of mine off. Neither of them would have hurt as much as his words. They were like a match to my body, the flammable liquid searing off my skin and rotting me to the core before he’d even had a chance. Because Jacob was right. I said no to her first. I threw her away. But….

“That didn’t give you the right to treat her like that!”

“Maybe not.” Jacob ran a hand through his short hair. “But if you had been there, none of it would have happened either. Just like if you hadn’t existed, maybe I wouldn’t have become like this. If you think about it, you’re the cause of every problem. Whether it was me or Veronica… or your parents.”

“My parents?” I felt as cold as ice. “The fire….”

“It was an accident. That’s what the papers said.” Jacob smirked, not admitting, but more importantly, not denying. “I’m sure the papers will say the same thing this time too.”

“You bastard!” I growled, jerking forward. My knees gave away and I slammed down, chest first into the floor.

Jacob’s cackle filled the room as I fought not to groan at the ache throbbing across my sternum.

“It doesn’t matter anymore, Jackson.” Jacob’s footsteps moved toward the archway. “This is it for you now anyway.”

“Jacob…,” I growled, the unearthly noise rising from a promise I was about to make. “I will kill you. I swear.”

“No, you won’t.” Jacob smirked. “You’ll be dead.”

And then he left, the door slamming shut behind him.

I was alone in the house. My club was in peril. My girl was at the hands of a psychotic murderer. And I was about to die.

So, this was how it ended.