Page 34

JACKSON

A harsh, cold wind whips around us, embodying Ethan’s icy glare. “This is the best option, Jax, at least until the baby is born.”

I clench my jaw and grind my molars. I’m sure to have a headache after this. “I have a plan. Will you fucking listen to me?”

“Your plan is to keep her by your side. He harmed her while you were there.” He spits each word as if I don’t know. “This is my life we’re talking about . ” He gestures with his hands in emphasis.

“It’s my life too!” Heat creeps up my neck and face. My head swims. “I just got her back.” In and out. In and out. Breathe. “Now you want to take her from me?”

He steps closer and clasps my shoulder. My impulse is to throw him off. I’m worked up. I can’t stand anyone touching me, but right now, I allow it, and he squeezes, massaging the tense muscle.

“You’ll be with her until your suspension is over. I know it’s not long, but New York is the safest place for her. I have family there?—”

“You haven’t even met them. They could be dangerous.”

“My uncles took care of me when I needed it.” His grasp shifts to my nape. “I’ll have you there. You’ll scope them out for me.”

“What about me?” Ricky approaches, striding across the patio with his hands in his pockets. “I’m guessing this is about Kyle.”

How does he always appear out of nowhere?

Ethan drops his arm to his side. “As always.”

My head hangs in shame, and my gaze falls to Ricky’s boots. His feet are shoulder-width apart, one slightly back, his posture defensive and ready for action.

It’s inconspicuous, a false sense of security. That’s how they’re trained.

“ Come on, pretty boy. Fight me. ” The air freezes in my lungs, and my stomach tightens. That voice is only in my head, an echo from the past. It’s not real. “ Fight me, pretty boy. ” It’s the boots. The posture. It’s not real.

“Why don’t we go inside and talk?” Ricky suggests.

His tone is professional and placating, and it’s all fucking with my mind.

In a hyperalert state, I follow them into the kitchen and sit at the table, Ricky across from me, Ethan beside me.

I slip my phone from my pocket and place it in front of me. Ricky does the same. He’s mirroring me, another tactic they use to set you at ease.

This is an interrogation.

My instincts are never wrong. They have twenty-five years of acute conditioning.

I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner. I was fooled by his Viking persona, preoccupied with how close he was getting to Aurora.

Although I wanted to go to the police, I wasn’t sure who to trust after the last time I opened up to someone, and I don’t want one sitting at my kitchen table or living in my home.

Call me paranoid, but I grew up with dirty cops.

Dark rage builds in my chest. “I hired you to protect her.”

My gaze connects with Ricky’s, and something shifts in his eyes. Realization. Alarm. Guilt.

“He was disheveled and sloppy drunk, yet you let him in without question. If you were truly thinking about Aurora’s safety, that alone should’ve given you pause. You didn’t come get me. You didn’t follow him to the patio to ensure he wasn’t a threat. How were you sure he was my father?”

Ricky’s stare is unwavering. “I will always protect her.”

Even if he is sincere, his loyalties lie elsewhere. I’ve spent my life deceiving others and dodging the truth—I recognize a non-answer when I hear it. If he’s not one hundred percent here for Aurora, then he needs to get the fuck out.

I pick up my phone and lean back in my chair. “How about I call Kyle to join this conversation? Then you can ask him everything you want to know.”

Ethan sucks in a deep, exasperated breath. “Jax,” he snarls in warning. “What the fuck are you doing?”

With the number dialed, I turn the screen to face Aurora’s supposed bodyguard. The room goes silent, and the first ring echoes. Ricky rubs his jaw, his hand covered in tattooed roses to conceal the scars marring his skin. It rings once more, our eyes locked in an intense stare-down.

“Son?”

Kyle answers, Ricky lunges for the phone, and Ethan dives between us, snatching Ricky’s arm and preventing him from reaching me.

I hang up. That’s all the confirmation I need.

“You’re crazy, you know that?” Ricky’s chest heaves.

Gaslighting . Yet another one of my father’s favorite weapons. They’re all the same.

“First, you think I’m after Aurora, and now, what? Kyle?”

Ice runs through my veins, my voice and fury escalating to a whole new level. “Oh my fucking God. Are you even gay?”

Ricky, or whatever his actual name is, glances at Ethan, and I know I’ve caught him. This is the reason I’m paranoid—I can’t even trust my bodyguard not to betray me.

“ That’s what you’re worried about right now?” he scoffs, daring to turn this around on me.

It grates on my last nerve.

“Yes, motherfucker, that’s exactly what I’m worried about.

A lying pig with no integrity taking advantage of what’s mine.

Nothing is stopping you from eye fucking her while she’s undressing or touching her.

” My body quakes with anger, begging to be let loose.

“You’re not her bodyguard—you’re here because you’re after me! ”

His brows shoot up, and he raises his hands in surrender, palms outward, fingers splayed. “No. That’s not why I’m here?—”

“Then why didn’t you approach me?” My breaths grow shallow, my vision tunneled. “Why carry on this charade? You’ve read my history, right?”

A hand clutches the back of my neck, and my skin burns. I knock it away. A deep voice speaks, but I’m not there anymore.

After all this time, after all the abuse I’ve endured—myself and my mother—someone steps in, but it’s not to help. It’s to use me.

To manipulate me for their own benefit.

They didn’t want to stop Kyle or any of the others when we were being fucking terrorized.

Ricky’s face softens, and there it is. Pity .

I no longer see him—I see rage.

I see the anguish in my mother’s eyes as she suffered trying to shield me, then the disappointment when I ultimately proved to be no better than the monster who tormented her.

Every officer who apprehended me and never once questioned my behavior beyond being a spoiled punk.

Annoyed teachers who demanded my removal from their classrooms. Principals who delighted in punishing me—one even belonging to Kyle’s band of sick fucks.

Cops who attended my mother’s funeral, eyes filled with guilt.

Intoxicated men who put their hands on me with that predatory gleam in their smiles.

I pounce, catching the corner of the table with my side. A sharp pain flares, but Ricky goes to the floor, the chair tipping and crashing beside him.

It’s dark again, the demons laughing, the child crying.

He struggles beneath me. He’s tough, but I’ve faced tougher.

I feel nothing but violence. The room spins. I grip his throat, put all my weight into it, and squeeze, refusing to let go.

My skin burns, and I throw my head back. “Don’t touch me.” It’s monotone. I’ve checked out.

I’m floating in the afterlife, looking down upon myself, and I fucking love it. My veins light up with adrenaline and euphoria, and I breathe it all in.

No more hurt, only wrath.

I raise my fist, smiling. “I’m going to kill you.”

His eyes widen, and so does my grin. I bring my fist crashing down, connecting with his jaw. Bone meeting bone reverberates through my arm.

The room erupts in chaos, the voices shouting. Another burst of pain, another, only feeding the madness. It feels good—better than good. Intoxicating.

There’s something cathartic about pain and violence.

I unleash a flurry of blows, each fueled by a hunger for vengeance.

Blood drips to the floor. His or mine, I’m not sure. He yells, the vibration buzzing under my palm, but the thunderous pounding in my ears drowns out his words.

In vain, he attempts to pry my fingers from his throat and buck me off, but I lean forward and apply more pressure.

He chokes, his eyes water, tears running down his temples, and I relish in his suffering.

“ No one’s here to save you, pretty boy. ”

“I hope you rot in fucking Hell.”

A distant voice whispers, urging me to stop.

Stop.

“No.”

Stop .

“No.”

“Stop, Jax! Stop!” Aurora cries, her panic and fear breaking through the dark haze.

I release my grip. Ricky gasps, coughing. He shoves me off him, kicking and scrambling away.

The air is thick, the room still reeling, and I focus on my erratic heartbeat.

I rise slowly, pain radiating throughout my upper body. I flick the blood from my raw knuckles and watch it spatter across the tile, familiarity washing over me.

My head lifts, and my world tilts. Or maybe that’s me. My gaze connects with Ethan’s. His eyes resemble the gloomy shade of those New York storm clouds I despise. Ironic, since he grew up there.

I glance lower to the person trembling and sobbing in his arms.

Oh, fuck.